The view from an election

As predicted, the spin machine was in "full steam ahead" mode, the reports full of cheering crowds and touching scenes of elderly women being helped to the polls by Iraqi policemen, the words "courage," "brave," and "unafraid" on all lips.

Now to be fair, the Iraqi elections came off better than most anyone expected. There were fewer problems and less violence than many feared - although at least 44 were killed in election-related violence - and the turnout may have been higher than predicted. One election official even estimated a turnout of 72%, far beyond the predicted 57%. I find that figure suspect because it would require a far higher than expected rate of voting by Sunnis, but the fact remains the turnout, at least among Shiites and Kurds, was good.

"At least among Shiites and Kurds." And therein lies the problem.

But for the country's minority Sunni Arabs, who held a privileged position under Saddam Hussein, the day was not as welcome.

No more than 400 people voted in Saddam's hometown of Tikrit, and in the heavily Sunni northern Baghdad neighborhood of Azamiyah, where Saddam made his last known public appearance in early April 2003, the four polling places never even opened.

Ignore the attempt to equate Sunni opposition with being pro-Saddam Hussein. Instead, realize that this just serves to show that the split between Shiite and Sunni remains and could easily grow even if there are attempts to bring Sunnis into the 275-member national assembly charged with writing a new constitution.

Residents [in Tikrit] who rejected the vote asked how they could trust any government that came to power in the shadow of an American occupation.

Which also implies asking how they could trust any Sunnis who took part in that assembly, especially as Shiites are predicted to end up controlling well over 60% of the seats. What's more, the parties expected to be the strongest going into the assembly, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) and the Dawa Party, which make up the biggest part of the United Iraq Alliance slate favored by Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, both have ties to Shiite Iran.

That connects to another aspect of this, noted by Robert Fisk in the January 29 The Independent (UK).

[O]utside Iraq, Arab leaders are talking of a Shia "Crescent" that will run from Iran through Iraq to Lebanon via Syria, whose Alawite leadership forms a branch of Shia Islam. The underdogs of the Middle East, repressed under the Ottomans, the British and then the pro-Western dictators of the region, will be a new and potent political force. ...

What does all this presage for the Sunni potentates of the Arabian peninsula? Iraq's new national assembly and the next interim government it selects will empower Shias throughout the region, inviting them to question why they too cannot be given a fair share of their country's decision-making. ...

No wonder, then, King Abdullah of Jordan is warning that this could destabilise the Gulf and pose a "challenge" to the United States. This may also account for the tolerant attitude of Jordan towards the insurgency, many of whose leaders freely cross the border with Iraq.

It also could encourage Sunni-dominated states in the region, primarily Saudi Arabia, to provide covert aid to the insurgency, which could only be staved off by what Shrub has thus far refused to consider doing: challenging the Saudis.

So on top of everything else, Iraq has the potential to become a surrogate battlefield for Saudi Arabia and Iran in a struggle for regional dominance. I believe we have done far more damage that we imagined and far more harm than good. STDD>HO.