Iraqis Win Their Election

Even Juan Cole said last Friday that a turnout of Iraqi voters of "something like 40 percent or more would be a success," so a 60 percent turnout (assuming the figure holds up) speaks for itself. Even Dan Rather stood on a Baghdad street and said he found the Iraqi turnout "inspiring," thus glazing over the eyes of what's left of the CBS News audience. Even the French government called the vote "a "great success for the international community," while TV5's Le Journal, France's state TV news, described George W. Bush as "exulting" in the course of his Sunday remarks.

Want to understand Iraq as a spectacle? Here's a two-sentence primer offered last June 27 by Washington Post editorial-page editor Fred Hiatt. Washington, he wrote after returning from Iraq, "seems to dwell on measuring failure, apportioning blame, and calculating the effect on American politics and American power. In Iraq, the focus tends to be on what is at stake for Iraq and on how to achieve progress there."

The vast majority of Iraqis want to make their new country work, an essential fact that was lost in the coverage after the "insurgency" intensified. Can Iraqis get back into the Iraq story now?

Comments

[McClain]

Go Iraqis! It's ya birthday!
We gon'party like it's ya birthday!
🙂
Flipping that ink-stained finger in your FACE, knowh'I'msain?
YippeeKiYay, Motherfuckers!

[Rick Barton]

Bush said that if the winners of the election asked our troops to get out of their country, he would accede. We can only hope that they haven't been paid not too, and that do ask our government to leave and end this war that we were neoconned into via outrageous lies. There's a lesson for us in the Iraq war. It's something that libertarians and conservatives have been telling us for years:

GOVERNMENT IS NOT TRUSTWORTHY

[Rick Barton]

It's time for our government to adhere to the words of John Quincy Adams:

"America does not go abroad in search of monsters to destroy. She is well- wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own."

It's exactly the legacy and echoing of that sage advice in the minds of the American people that made it necessary for the neocons to manufacture lies about WMD and "connections" in order to foist the Iraq war on them.

[thoreau]

It's time for our government to adhere to the words of John Quincy Adams:

You expect us to take foreign policy advice from a Massachusettes liberal? 😉

[Douglas Fletcher]

Still going to comedy school, eh Rick?

[Anon]

I am confused. Why is it wrong that Washingtonians are worried about America, and Iraqis about Iraq? I thought the problem was that the Washingtonians were incorrectly assessing how American interests intersected with Iraqi interests, not that the Washingtonians were failing to adopt the Iraqi posture as their own. I had always thought the argument was that a democratic Iraq, even tilted away from the U.S., was better, in the long run, for the U.S., than an Iraq with a dictator. But surely Iraqis could care less whether this turns out to be the case.

As a third example, I would suggest that the Iranians are worried about Iran, but they may have a better understanding about how their interests intersect with Iraqi ones (at least Shiite Iraqis).

Good luck to the Iraqis, and may their government be trustworthy...

Anon

[joe]

I'd always thought the "You're opposed to democracy in Iraq" sneer by the hawks was just a convenient debating stance. But based on the shock registered by Mr. Freund and others at the support this election is receiving across the spectrum, it's starting to look like they actually believe their own cheap one liners.

"Even" Dan Rather finds it inspiring that an election was held? Of course Dan Rather finds it inspiring. Who wouldn't?

This determination to remain ignorant of their opposition's point of view, and to assign us a straw man ideology that bears no resemblance to the objections actually raised, demonstrates exactly the lack of seriousness and hard headedness that made me doubt their ability to pull of this regime change without creating a catastrophe.

[my_view]

Most of the world are happy for the Iraqi elections.

However, I have not heard how this group of elected delegates will meet to create a constitution. If all 275 delegates meet in one location, it would be a perfect location for a bomb or mass kidnapping program.

One might imagine a virtual constitution writing session where the delegates are 'wired' to work together. However, Iraqi electricity and telephone problems prohibit this. And politicans tend to want to horse-trade and resolve differences on a personal level rather than through emails.

We have had the elections. Now, what do we do with the results?

[McClain]

"what do we do with the results?"

A little dance in the end zone.
Touchdown! Hell yeah!

[joe]

Nice demonstration of Freund's point, McClain.

[McClain]

Which one?

[joe]

That Americans consider what's going on in Iraq to matter most significantly as a factor in American politics.

[McClain]

Well, there's only one world, one God, one human race....
I am American, yes, and proud of it, thanks.
Does that mean I'm not allowed to care about Iraqis? Or I'm supposed to pretend I am Iraqi?
🙂

[joe]

McClain, the idea that we're in the end zone is so off-base, I can only conclude that the actual prospects of the Iraqis isn't the primary motivating factor for your joy.

[McClain]

Just 'cause you score a touchdown doesn't mean the game's over.
I am joyful about democracy triumphing in the face of tyranny.
Again.
Like in 89, when I was overjoyed about the Berlin wall falling...then Mandela was freed and elected, Vaclav Havel elected, USSR collapsed...it was all beautiful, hope-inspiring.
As are these Afghan and Iraqi elections.
And, while we're at it: Syria, Saudi Arabia, Iran, and North Korea...y'all better watch out, punks, 'cause we got a list and y'all are on it. Ha!
🙂

[joe]

I hope you're right, McClain. By chance, if Iraq is still the same mess in a year that it is now, will the "reverse domino/freedom's on the march" ideology be discredited?

[Rick Barton]

These elections came despite the administration's attempts to, instead of elections, impose "caucuses", indirect elections with participants vetted by the American government.
It was pressure brought by the Shia religious community headed by the Grand Ayatollah Sistani that led to these direct elections and the provision of the winners writing the constitution.

http://www.needlenose.com/node/view/1043

[McClain]

I dunno about dominoes, but freedom has been marching for a long time now, and come a long way.
I'm sure it will continue its victorious march for as long as courage and hope remain alive in the human heart.

[R C Dean]

By chance, if Iraq is still the same mess in a year that it is now, will the "reverse domino/freedom's on the march" ideology be discredited?

No. Take the long view, joe. A year? Spare me.

Plus, in a year, I believe that the new Constitution will have just been drafted and the first "real" elections will have not yet been held. In other words, the first Iraqi government will not even have been formed yet.

The real test is what happens after the second election under the new Constitution. It is always the transfers of power that test the legitimacy of a government.

[joe]

RC, I agree (no kidding!) with you that we won't have evidence of real success until the second election. But it is certainly possible to have evidence of failure before then.

[isildur]

joe,

Perhaps you are not as much in the majority of liberalism as you suspect. I spent a part of yesterday reading the Democratic Underground thread about the Iraq elections, and let me tell you: they are not happy for the Iraqis over there. Responses range from the mild ('These numbers are lies, and I can't believe the Bush-bots are swallowing these lies') to the insane ('Iraqis that voted are US government stooges, paid off to support Bush's ideology').

Go over to Instapundit and follow some of his links to the nay-sayers, doom-and-gloomers, and whackjob liberals. You may freely distance yourself from these people, but you should be clear that you're speaking for yourself, and not for the DU hard left, who do not share your tempered and reasoned views.

[Eric the .5b]

Dan Rather finds it inspiring that an election was held? Of course Dan Rather finds it inspiring. Who wouldn't?

Aside from Middle Easter theocrats, monarchs, and fascists, and the endless supply of nutso DU posters (and their ilk) who seemingly only exist for hawks to dig up and laugh at, I don't know, Joe.

But you haven't exactly evinced even the most cautious, grudging expression that you think this is a remotely good thing or "inspiring", so an indignant "who wouldn't?" comes off as hollow.

[Eric the .5b]

And to amplify before someone complains that I'm griping at Joe for not showing the "proper Bushie/neo-con enthusiasm", he's been at the forefront of those arguing that the elections are meaningless in any real sense. That's a fair argument to make, but you can't make it and say that the elections are good or inspiring.

[joe]

isuldur, if you want to genuinely understand liberal thought, there are probably better ways to go about it than following those links carefully chosen by anti-liberals in order to discredit them.

If I had only learned about libertarianism by following links provided by DU, would you call that a fair assessment?

[joe]

Eric, it is entirely possible to consider the elections to be both "nice" and not terribly important.

These elections are a good thing, but they can't hope to outweigh the ongoing crisis, either in moral terms, or in determining the future.

[Eric the .5b]

Well, "'nice' and not terribly important" falls rather short of the stance you need to not look silly pulling off only a brainwashed twit would accuse liberals like me of not finding this a great, inspiring event.

Frankly, I have to wonder what you find "nice" about an election you argue as meaningless and fake.

[Ruthless]

I want Iraqis to get back into the Iraqi story, but, if you take the Americans out then Americans won't learn the lesson that this "foreign entanglement" failed its cost-benefit analysis big time.
It's another of life's Catch's--22.

Yet one more is that most Americans wouldn't get a lesson puctuated by a two by four placed smartly upside their head.

But peace and prosperity can simply never be achieved through war. War is never a shortcut. It's always a longcut... a serious laceration to both "sides."

[isildur]

joe,

So you're saying DU is not representative of liberal thought?

What about Kos? He scare-quotes 'successful' in describing the elections, and then goes on to compare them to Vietnam. In the comments thread that follows, the elections are described as a 'farce' and a 'faux puppet election'. Does Kos represent liberal thought?

What about the NYT? Its coverage of the elections went from an initial positive spin to a starkly opposed negative spin that focused solely on the 35 casualties over the course of one day. Does the NYT represent liberal thought?

I'm just looking for some benchmarks here. If you're disavowing DU and the more rabid commenters at Kos, that's great, and I congratulate you on a wise decision. They *do* represent the hard left, though, for a lot of people, and not just conservatives.

Or, to put it in libertarian-focused terms as you did, I can tell people who say, 'Wait, libertarianism is all about taking pension checks away from Grandma and kicking little Bobby out of public schools!' that no, that's not what libertarianism is about. And maybe it's not what it means to me, but when they provide links to lp.org and reason that do, in fact, call for an end to Social Security and an end to public schools, I can't argue that they've misunderstood libertarianism -- just my own particular take on it.

(And to avoid derailment: those were examples chosen to illustrate a point, not to examine my own personal views.)

[joe]

Eric, had I written that the election was either "meaningless" or "fake," you might have a point. But I didn't, and you don't. Nor did I claim to find this a great, hugely significant event. But you sure did whack the hell out of that straw man.

isuldur, I think Kos and the NYT get it about right - the elections, while nice, are not terribly important. I consider 35 American deaths in a distant land to be pretty important, and no, I don't think we should ignore the problems in Iraq because one postive event occurred. BTW, "compare them to Vietnam" is nice sophistry - despite the nearly identitical language used to describe the elections in 1967, you get to dismiss whatever he has to say because he used the V-word.

This is the problem with being a liberal - every time you use the word grey, someone pops up and screams at you about it being black or white.

"You don't think Sunday was the most splendiferous, monumental event in world history? Why, you HATE ELECTIONS and LOVE SADDAM HUSSEIN!"