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

To: Sam who wrote (133211)	5/17/2004 12:49:49 AM
From: Nadine Carroll	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 281500

If free elections are held in Iraq, I think it likely that the Shiite religious parties —principally the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) and the Dawa (the Call)—will have among them an absolute majority in the National Assembly. Free elections are being held for town councils throughout the south of Iraq, and they are electing secular parties, not religious parties. Does the author not allow facts to interfere with his world view? I read these authors. I read the papers. Then I go and read a whole bunch of Iraqi bloggers and watch as developments unfold. The bloggers are telling me that life is mostly going on as normal, with localized conflict, and al Sadr has little support. The bloggers are much better indications of what's going to happen than the papers have been.

To: Sam who wrote (133211)	5/23/2004 11:47:53 PM
From: Hawkmoon	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

The three-state solution would permit the United States to disengage from security duties in most of Iraq. There are today fewer than three hundred coalition troops in Kurdistan, which would, under the proposal being made here, continue to be responsible for its own security. I don't, personally speaking, have a problem with a "canton" style result in Iraq. It does permit all three major factions to essentially "have it their own way" and put their chosen economic and political systems in competition with one another. It would be hard to perceive where Shiites would long tolerate a situation where their system would lag that of the Kurds. And the same could be said of the Sunnis.. So any Islamic government in the Shiite south would find itself under tremendous pressure to show the same results as the Kurds would likely display. The real questions lie with the Sunni, who lack any control over the Iraqi oil resources. This will place them at a tremendous disadvantage and certainly create an incentive for them to intimidate and extort concessions from both the Shiites and Kurds, if not an outright civil war. Hawk