Gee, you don't think anybody would have cheated, do you? Of course not. These are people to whom deception and dishonesty are anathema, right? What's that? Anti-democratic pro-Sharia elements? Large-scale disrepect for the very idea of democracy? What are you, some kind of Islamophobe? From AP:
BAGHDAD, Iraq - Iraq's election commission announced Monday that officials were investigating "unusually high" numbers of "yes" votes in about a dozen provinces during Iraq's landmark referendum on a new constitution, raising questions about irregularities in the balloting.Word of the review came as Sunni Arab leaders repeated accusations of fraud after initial reports from the provinces suggested the constitution had passed. Among the Sunni allegations are that police took ballot boxes from heavily "no" districts, and that some "yes" areas had more votes than registered voters.
The Electoral Commission made no mention of fraud, and an official with knowledge of the election process cautioned that it was too early to say whether the unusual numbers were incorrect or if they would affect the outcome.
But questions about the numbers raised tensions over Saturday's referendum, which has already sharply divided Iraqis. Most of the Shiite majority and the Kurds — the coalition which controls the government — support the charter, while most Sunni Arabs sharply opposed a document they fear will tear Iraq to pieces and leave them weak and out of power.
OK, Spencer, if not a democracy, then what? A dictatorship we control? Conversion at gunpoint? Worse?
Sounds like the Sunnis are riffing off the Democrat party.
"I like the idea of democracy. You have to have someone everyone distrusts," said Brutha. "That way, everyone's happy." -- (Terry Pratchett, Small Gods)
John Loftus on Iraqi Referendum
Democracy in the Western sense requires much more than mere head-counting. It requires the sense of being the citizen of a nation-state, and owing own's primary allegiance to that nation-state. It requires getting used to the idea, and enshrining in the law, the rights of minorities. It requires a belief in the legitimacy of government being derived from the consent of the governed. It requires all sorts of things all of which are missing in Iraq.
If Shi'a march off to vote in favor of the Constitution many of them cannot read, most of them have not read, and almost all of those who have read have little idea of its full significance or whether or not it has permanent significance, they do so becuase they have been told to do so.
The word "democracy" is tossed about by some in the Administration in a display of bland indifference, or deliberate confusion, as to what that word means in the United States, or the United Kingdom, or Australia, as compared to what it means, and must mean, to those within Islam -- unless those within Islam have for a very long time been subject to a regime in which Islam is deliberately constrained and pushed as far as possible out of its traditional political and social role (as in Turkey, where it is Kemalism that is now shaky, and Islam back, as it must be, with a vengeance).
If the Shi'a marched off dutifully to ensure that they will rule, the Sunnis were divided. They were divided not on ultimate aims, but on means. Many abstained, not wishing to recognize that the Old Order not only passeth, but had passed, and there was nothign they could do about it. Many voted, not in order to support the Constitution (though there may have been a few) but in order to defeat it. It was not a question of differences in attitude, but in goals. And according to reports, many Sunnis are convinced that they, the Sunni Arabs (leaving aside the Kurds who are Sunni Muslims), constitute fully 42% of the population, when their numbers are not half that. It is the kind of crazed belief that arises naturally, like all sorts of conspiracy theories, among people for whom critical thought, the habit of skepticism, is crushed by the atmospherics and attitudes of Islam, so that what is true is never believed, and what is false will always find believers, from the street crowd insisting that the Americans deliberately lured childen with candy in order to murder them, to those who believe that the Americans have engaged in a vast and clever plan to dismember Iraq when, as we all know, the Americans have tried in every way they can to make Iraq hold together. Though it made little sense in furthering Infidel interests, that is what the Americans have done and continue to do -- though one hopes they will soon stop, and realize that much more is to be gained by leaving Iraq, leaving those in Iraq alone, and hoping that some kind of low-level equivalent of the Iran-Iraq War can go on forever.
The very idea of elections may inspire a few of those who would like, in other Arab countries, to somehow get rid of their local despots, whether in Arab "republics" (as all non-monarchies are called in that world) or in monarchies. But for every one inspired by those "elections" there are twenty who are horrified because the "election" in this case, in Iraq the Model, is merely bringing to power the Shi'a and they, of course, have no right in Sunni eyes to rule.It is the Sunni Muslims, being the real thing, the realer or realest of Muslims (even if one does not always go so far as to agree with the Wahhabi view, and not only of those who follow the Wahhabis, that Shi'a are not only Infidels, but even worse, as "Rafidite dogs," than the ordinary Infidels).
Meanwhile, the Kurds voted for the Constitution but with a turnout (60-70%) that was far less than that last January, when during the elections (my, elections after elections after elections, Democracy Is Surely On the March in Iraq the Model) more than 90% of the Kurds voted, probably becuase they were voting at the same time, in their own referendum, on whether they wanted an independent Kurdistan (98% voted yes, but you will not have read much, if anything, being said about this by the Administration). The Kurds voted for the Constitution because at the moment it fits what they can demand, but that vote should not be misinterpreted as meaning they have given up the desire for independence.
Of course the Bush Administration would like to read this diffeently. Still, it has managed to curb its enthusiasm but not, apparently, its crazed intention to continue to work in Iraq for the very things that, from the point of view of those who understand the full menace of Islam, make no sense. Instead of allowing the Shi'a to deal with the Sunni who have a history of oppressing them, and whose attitude shows they have no intention of accepting Shi'a dominance, and believe that they, who have prospered not only under Saddam Hussein, but under all the previous Iraqi regimes, have a perfect right to continue, by hook or by crook, to rule, we want to make evryone make nice. American soldiers now are being killed and wounded in order to make Sunni and Shi'a collaborate in an Iraqi nation-state.
Instead of seeing an independent Kurdistan, which should be if not openly encouraged at least coverly encouraged, the American government seems to have put that idea out of its head. One assumes this reflects its own fear that it cannot, simply cannot, deal with Turkey. But this is silly. Turkey is alone. Turkey needs the United States more, now, than ever. Its most intelligent class realizes that it will be difficult, or impossible, to get into the E.U., and also knows that the supposed lure of a link with the Islamic world -- the despised Arabs -- would undo whatever progress Turkey has made since the 1920s. They also know that the Kurdish population in Turkey cannot necessarily be trusted to remain passive, should Turkey attempt to squash an independent Kurdish state, with all the signficiance that holds for Kurds outside the state.
It should not be beyond the wit of the American government, the closest military and diplomatic ally, for many decades, of Turkey, and currently the recipient of an attempt by Turkey to make upo for the hideous treatment in the Turkish press of the United States (which has not gone unnoticed here), the refusal to allow the fourth American division enter Iraq from Turkey, and a other behavior that has caused the famous Turkish lobby in Washington to more or less disappear. The United States has no need for Turkey, but Turkey, in the long run, needs to maintain good relations with the United States and, for that matter, with those same Europeans who, while rejecting Turkish admission to the E.U., will continue to buy goods and services (tourism) and cannot be alienated.
A Kurdish state will do much to heighten consciousness of the problem of Arab supremacist ideology, and of the suppressed cultural and linguistic and political rights not only of Kurds, but of Berbers in North Africa, of black but non-Arab Muslims in Darfur, of disaffected Iranians who may find it easier to leave Islam if within Iran it becomes more and more to be seen not as a universalist creed but as a vehicle for arabization, and the Persian contempt for Arabs can be enrolled in the more important task, for Iranians who have experienced the Islamic Republic of Iran, and never want to have such an experience repeated, of de-legitimizing Islam as something inflicted by desert Arabs on civilized Iranians.
But none of this seems to have penetrated to official Washington. There need be no open statement that the Americans are now rubbing their hands in glee and wishing for a collapse of Iraq. Nothing like it. Simply declare that with the next election, it will be time to leave. It will be time for the "Iraqis themselves" to take charge. It will be time to end the "dependency" that this "proud people" in this "ancient and historic land" (go ahead if you wish -- pile on the nonsense yourself) might otherwise "develop" if we Americans, "who wish Iraq and the Iraqi people well" (if one really wished them well, one would wish them able to constrain or to throw off Islam, but that of course cannot be said publicly) do not, "at long, having accomplished so much" and "trained so many Iraqis," and "given them new hope to forge their own destinies," now must leave.
And leave. With only some weaponry, possibly, "pre-positioned" at a base in -- Kurdistan. And only there. And then see what happens.
Will the "Iraqi people" be "true to themselves?" I think so. And will Iranian "volunteers" and money help one side, and Sunni volunteers and money help the opposing side, thereby using up at least some of the energy, attention, and discretionary income that goes into such things as WMD projects, and support for terrorism and and that other instrument of Jihad, Da'wa (the Call to Islam) world-wide.
One can only hope.
"Most of the Shiite majority and the Kurds — the coalition which controls the government — support the charter, while most Sunni Arabs sharply opposed a document they fear will tear Iraq to pieces and leave them weak and out of power."
Are the Sunnis really worried about Iraq being torn to pieces or that the piece they will be left with has no petroleum reserves?
Agree - sounds like old Richard Daley's Chicago Democratic vote machine popping up in Bagdad.
Seriously though, when it comes to realpolitique,
your argument, Hugh,is both intelligent and convincing. I hope you are wrong, but fear you are right, and we must keep all options open.
Here we go again...
1) The Turks have many more options than just the USA. One wouldn't be surprised at all to see them working closely with Iran to prevent a Kurdish homeland.
2) The Turkish fear of "reaction" among its own Kurds to a fight in Iraqi Kurdistan would be not nearly as pronounced as the fear of an independent Kurdish polity giving inspiration, aid and comfort to Turkish Kurds.
3) The "collapse" of Iraq is wrongly presumed here to lead to an outcome tha can only benefit the West. But alternative outcomes inimical to the West are just as plausible and even probable:
a - the emergence of an Iranian super-state
b - the emergence of a Sunni jihadi entity within the failed state used as a base to export jihadi terrorism
c - the collapse of existing borders could become the psychological (and physical) precedent for the eventual re-establishment of a Caliphate
There are alot of rational reasons to want Iraq's experiment in Federal Democracy succeed.
"realpolitique..."
-- from a posting above
This spelling of "Realpolitik" not only softens the Teutonic harshness, but puts one in mind of Helene Carrere d'Encausse, or other female writers on world affairs, all steeltrap-mind and silk lingerie, the combination of which Hollywood fantasies are made. The most piercing and unfoolable study of Tariq Ramadan -- "Frere Tariq," the best short summary of Islam in French -- "L'Islam des interdits," and the best book on what Islam means for France -- "L'Islam et la Republique" --have all been by women who possessed those steel-trap minds. And possibly, that silk lingerie as well.
French does that. All you have to do is write "la Varsovie" instead of "Warsaw" and you have already gently but firmly escorted the city out of its basement restaurant serving kielbasa into the brightly lit palace of merry-widowhood, and now you are at the masked ball of Prince Radziwill, and someone reminiscent of Merle Oberon is looking, with laughing eyes -- boldly, seductively, unmistakably -- right at you.
Mais oui, Hugh, c'est la guerre.
Dont get too excited: look how poorly the French are doing with their own Muslim populations; should be enough to turn off a horny kaffir (lol).