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| Iraq-Jordan |
| Iraq Can Wait for Democracy |
| 2004-09-24 |
| From The New York Times, an article by Noah Feldman, a professor of law at New York University, a fellow at the New America Foundation, and the author of the forthcoming What We Owe Iraq: War and the Ethics of Nation Building. .... a postponement [of elections] wouldn't be the end of the world; in fact, it might be just what is needed to ensure that all of the country's ethnic and religious groups view the election as legitimate. .... Without Sunni participation, the election results would be worse than useless. To understand why, one must bear in mind that the purpose of the election is not just to choose a legitimate government but also to elect leaders who can negotiate a new and permanent Iraqi constitution. Although such a constitution would guarantee basic rights, it would be first and foremost a power-sharing deal reached among different factions of Iraqis - Shiite, Kurdish and Sunni. Thus if the Sunnis were excluded because of security problems, or if they boycotted, they would not be able to elect leaders empowered to negotiate on their behalf, and the resulting constitutional deal would be rejected by the great majority of Sunnis as illegitimate. .... Although some Sunni clerics have advised their followers to sit out the election, the situation could change if it is made clear to the insurgents that, while they cannot win a war, they have the real possibility of gaining a stake in the resources of the new Iraq by participating in government. In the long run, the only way to end the terror is to dry up the sea of Sunni resentment. This will require both the stick of military suppression and the carrot of political incentive. If the Sunnis cannot or will not vote, protracted civil war lies ahead. Creating conditions in which Sunnis will vote may take some time, but it would be time well spent. If this means delaying the election, so be it. The January deadline is just as arbitrary as every other deadline in the transition process, and it would be counterproductive to enforce it if the election was then seen as illegitimate. As for Ayatollah Sistani, his particular problem is with a plan by some leading parties, most representing Kurdish and Shiite exiles, to form a single ticket, or "consensus list." The list could well dominate the ballot, and Ayatollah Sistani is concerned that, as things stand, it would result in Shiites making up only about 55 percent of the new government. This number, he feels, is based on outdated figures that underestimate the Shiite percentage of the population. ... |
| Posted by:Mike Sylwester |
| #8 Wasn't Feldman an advisor to the Coalition Authority on their new Constitution? I seem to recall that Feldman thought the future Iraq would incorporate Islamic principles in its constitution. |
| Posted by: Quana 2004-09-24 10:28:33 PM |
| #7 Re: the complaints about the legitimacy of the elections -- ask these "intellectuals" if they would have allowed the Confederates be allowed to vote on the 13th Amendment? |
| Posted by: Edward Yee 2004-09-24 2:14:53 PM |
| #6 Anony, the writer's New American Foundation was founded in 1999 and is headed by Ted Halstead, the man who has urged Warren Beatty to run for President. It is the home of aging Trotskyites and fuzzyideological leftists who are praying (nay, meditating) in the hope that America will suffer a disastrous setback in Iraq. |
| Posted by: Anonymous6620 2004-09-24 11:55:22 AM |
| #5 I smell rats here. I suspect the LAST thing the left want to see in Iraq are elections. That would validate everything that has been done so far. To verify this theory, I would imagine them proposing anything and everything in the near future short of elections: something to "taint" the idea of "free and full elections." They will complain bitterly that elections shouldn't be held where there isn't total security; or that the elections cannot be completely monitored by the UN; or that somebody has been unfairly "disenfranchised", etc. In any case, they will vehemently argue *after* the elections that they are not "valid", that they are "tainted". Somebody cheated somebody, so the elected government is NOT LEGITIMATE. And they will argue this as strongly as they argue that Bush "stole the election" from Gore. To do otherwise is a tacit admission that they were wrong about overthrowing Saddam, *and* that Iraq is a "quagmire", *and* that Arabs can't deal with democracy, *and* a host of other articles of their faith. |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2004-09-24 11:33:32 AM |
| #4 What's wrong with rolling elections? Start with the non-Sunni areas, and add elections in stable Sunni areas as they're ready. This allows the process to move forward and also gives Sunni holdouts a huge disincentive to continued disruption: no elections in Sunni areas = no influence in a parliament dominated by Kurds and Shi'a. |
| Posted by: lex 2004-09-24 10:52:49 AM |
| #3 During the Civil War, the US held elections in the areas that weren't embroiled in the fighting. Most (all?) of the Southern states were excluded. Elections went ahead, anyway. |
| Posted by: Zhang Fei 2004-09-24 10:46:04 AM |
| #2 If you announce that there will be no elections until there can be elections everywhere, even in the provinces causing the violence, you guarantee that there will never be elections. The terrorists will see to that. Just as if you announce that the US will leave Iraq on "X" date, no matter whether the new government can defend the country or not, you tell the terrorists to hang on or lie low until that date, at which time they'll have free reign. Sounds like the Kerry option. And we all know how well that worked out for the Vietnamese people. Hold the elections. If the "insurgent" areas can't vote, so be it. Maybe they'll get the hint and stop the violence against the government troops, and ours. Or maybe they'll continue to live in their hell-holes under the boots of the terrorists. That's the nice thing about democracy. People have choices. |
| Posted by: Barbara Skolaut 2004-09-24 9:10:16 AM |
| #1 the author is right that a Shia-Kurd election with NO Sunni arab participation would be a huge problem. But thats NOT what Allawi and Rummy have in mind, IMO. Theyre thinking of POSSIBLY an election without Al Anbar province, due to insurgent/terrorist control of Ramadi and Fallujah. Sunni Arabs in Mosul, Samarra, Baquba and Baghdad would still vote. And even this is not the preferred plan - its a plan B, to avoid giving coalition forces a hard deadline for cleaning up Fallujah and Ramadi. But still, for the NYT to publish someone this optimistic is pretty unusual. The Iraqis never asked for us to invade This of course is quite an oversimplification - the exiles asked for us to invade, as did the Kurds. The Shiites wanted us to invade way back in 1991, and mistrust us cause we didnt. I suspect a throwaway line like this was needed to get this past the NYT editors. |
| Posted by: Liberalhawk 2004-09-24 8:59:48 AM |