I'm happy for the Iraqis, and I'm happy for us. This seems like a good day for George W. Bush, but I see it as the beginning of his end, his last high point.
The Iraqis, at least the Shia and the Sunnis, agree on one thing, and that is that they want the Americans gone. Only the Kurds seem to want us to hang around. I think they're voting because they want to have a voice in their government, and that voice will throw us out ASAP.
That said, they have no experience with democracy. They may believe that they'll vote, common sense will triumph, and the best man will be elected. As half of America knows, this isn't the way it always works. Let's see what happens when half of Iraq realizes the people they voted for weren't elected.
By the time we choose OUR next President, I think we'll see an Iraq hostile to the US with an Islamic government (but it will have been democratically elected!). We'll be wondering what the hell we spent hundreds of billions of dollars on and over 2000 American lives with tens of thousands wounded. We'll be mired in the Bush depression, and he'll be the least popular President ever, if he hasn't been impeached. |
