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Politics : World Affairs Discussion -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: ChinuSFO who wrote (3384)	1/19/2004 3:47:37 PM
From: Hawkmoon	Respond to of 3959

Hawk, I have maintained that the Iraq war was a misstep on Bush's part. A hypothetical Chinu.. What if the UN (France) had decided to abstain from voting, or even voted for using military force to force Saddam to comply? Would it have still been a misstep? As for Al-Sistani, think of things from his perspective.. Sure he can threaten to launch protect marches in the streets.. But does he really want to alienate coalition forces to the extent that it permits Sunni and Kurdish agendas to gain favor in the eyes of the CPA? Remember... Sistani wants to be relevant to the process, but if he's smart, he'll know that he can't push the CPA so far that they are forced to "ally" themselves with the Sunnis and Kurds. So he's acting as the "squeaking wheel" and potential spoiler until he feels assured that the Shiites are not treated like third cousins to the process. And that's why it was so important to have the UN weigh in with an international voice as to why credible elections cannot be truly held by July, 2004. National elections have been going on for some time in Iraq. But they've always had the same candidate, Saddam Hussein. For credible elections to take place, the threat of political intimidation must be reduced, while affording viable candidates and their rivals/opposition, to manifest themselves so that a marketplace of ideas is actually established and made viable. For isn't that actually what an election is? A purchase of representation from the marketplace of ideas? Right now, we're not seeing many ideas being bandied around by Shiites, Sunnis, or Kurds, except with regard to their own selfish desires. What we're seeing are popularity contests between cults of personality. One other point about Al-Sistani.. The Shiite community is effectively surrounded by hostile ethno-religious rivals. Their only link is to Iran. But Al-Sistani is not exactly popular with Iranian hardliners, who seem to be siding with Al-Sadr. So it may be that he's also being forced into this position by his rivals in the Al-Sadr element, placing him in a confrontational position with the CPA. What's it's going to come to is finding a way to appease Al-Sistani in some manner short of immediate elections that might lead to a civil war (given the population discrepancies between the ethnicities).. If any election is going to come down to merely voting for one's particular tribal or ethnic affiliation, democracy in Iraq will never work. It would merely create a tyranny of the majority. Hawk