Free Iraq is a nation now

After all these decades, a fully legitimate government
Excerpt:

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Election results showing Iraqis have ratified a new U.S.-backed constitution by a large margin are accurate and should be trusted, a senior U.N. official said on Tuesday.

Speaking after Iraq's Electoral Commission released final results showing 79 percent approval for the constitution in the October 15 referendum, Carina Perelli said the balloting process adhered to the highest standard.

"Yes, it has been audited, controlled. It has been done really in a very professional way," Perelli, head of the U.N. team providing technical assistance to the Iraqi government, told reporters.

"The result is accurate. It has been checked according to the processes that we all follow when we have elections."

Iraqi officials had earlier said they were auditing early results which indicated more than 90 percent of voters backing "Yes" in certain areas, leading some opponents of the charter to question whether the results were being fixed.

I say:

Well, if the UN admits it, it must be true.

All sarcasm aside, this is better than I had hoped for. The trouble with this process, as I saw it, was it required the approval of the Sunni Arabs. This was the same group who, under Saddam Hussein, waged constant war against the rest of this arbitrary chunk of the old Ottoman Empire, as well as neighboring nation states. This is the same part of the country that harbored the Ba'athist dead-enders the press calls 'insurgents." Why should the former oppressors have any say in the affairs of their rcently freed victims?

Well, I didn't think it was worth it. But Stephen Den Beste was more sanguine.

Excerpt:

If the new government ends up totally dominated by the Shiite majority, and if they in turn use it to repress the Sunnis, then it would be seen elsewhere in the region as "the new boss, same as the old boss". Political backlash by Shiites against the Sunnis in response to that bombing would therefore have been a major victory for al Qaeda. Violent attacks against Sunnis by Shiites would have been frosting on the cake.

Fortunately, saner heads among the Shiites recognized the attack for what it was, and strongly discouraged such a response.

I say:

He was right, and I was overly pessimistic. This is one case where I'm happy to be proven slighly wrong. Only slightly, because most of the SUnnis voted against it. The vast (78 percent) majority that approved it was the *rest* of the country. That is, the former victims. But here's the thing: enough Sunnis voted in favor to get over the hurdle. So all's well that ends well.

This won't stop the terrorism of the insurgency, at least not instantly. Remember, these people are dead enders. They have no option but to fight to the death. Their fearless leader is on trial for his life. They're surrounded by enemies of their own making. In the past they've had help from al Qaeda and other Islamist terrorist groups. That's getting harder to find lately. Now their own people - the Sunni Arabs - have deserted them. Where can they go? Syria, maybe. But Assad has his own problems right now.

So there will continue to be terror attacks, until the insurgents are exterminated. Yes, exterminated. Already, Iraqi soldiers have been working with Americans to chase the murderers to the Syrian border and beyond. Now that Iraq has a fully, unquestionably legitimate government of its own, expect Iraqis to take an ever greater role. That means our boys come home. Not all at once. Gradually, over the years. Not that this will make the "anti-war" crowd happy. The ones screaming for "our boys" to come home were trying to prevent them from finishing their job. For them to come home having done the job is the last thing they'll want to see. Ramsey Clark and the Workers' World Party nomenklatura will be beside themselves.

There are two kinds of appeasement: when the non-evil appease the evil, and when the evil appease the victorious good. The first always ends in disaster. The second comes about when we eschew the first. The Sunni Arabs are now trying to appease the other 80 percent of Iraq, by giving up the Ba'athists as a sacrifice. So much for loyalty. It serves the purposes of decent people to accept their surrender. But they'd better behave themselves from now on.

I've pointed out many times that there is no such thing as the Iraqi people. And at the time I said it, it was true. But with the high turnout and relatively low violence of this ratification vote, I'm starting to think that this is changing. We may be witnessing the birth of a national identity. This arbitrary chunk of a defunct empire is finally becoming a nation. And it happens to be a democracy. How about that. A democracy where once there was only genocide and corruption, and strategically located to spread freedom throughout the region. The despots of Syria, Iran and Saudi Arabia now sit uneasy upon their thrones.

And there's nothing the haters of democracy can do about it. They've already tried everything they could think of - lies, murder, corruption, more lies, more murder. None of it worked. Now there's nothing left to try.

Oh, and here's another burn, for the Bush haters: history is going to give Dubya the credit. And history will remember all who opposed him on this. For the rest of your lives, people will ask you *why*. I wonder if you'll have a good answer.

For now, your best bet is to lay on the sour grapes with a trowel. Maybe use the mention of Islamic law, together with a heap of exaggeration and hysteria (you guys are so good at that!) to make some fears of theocracy. Give us the old "Just You Wait!(TM)" that was such a great stall in the past. It won't help much at this point, but it's all you've got. So go for it.

Keep shouting "quagmire! Quagmire!" while your betters just go right on draining the swamp.


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