Iraq elections: Success or worst case scenario?

Optimism in western sources hides the bare truth

Western news sources are full of euphoria stories quoting the words "high turnout" and quotes from President Bush, as if his words ever provided a realistic and valid source of information: his regime lies through its teeth and just a few years ago he probably did not even know where Iraq was on the map.

If this election is for the President of the United States a "great and historical achievement", it says little for his powers of judgment. In fact, this election confirms the worst-case scenario, a partition of Iraq, formerly held together by the Ba'ath government and now deeply cleft in three separate sections.

Was this not after all the policy followed by Washington and London, whose establishment of no-fly zones more or less followed the ethnical lines dividing the Iraqi people? The acts of terrorism during the 1990s, committing acts of vandalism and wanton destruction inside Iraq, including setting fire to fields full of crops, in a country where a substantial part of the population was under-nourished, kept the Sunni, Shiite and Kurdish populations in their places, increasing the influence of local power bases as Saddam Hussein's was steadily diminished.

Today's election may have had a high turnout in some areas but this is precisely the question. As feared, the Sunni did not turn out in large numbers, whether through "fear" or simply because they did not want to support a government which is after all a puppet of the USA, the country which illegally invaded Iraq and slaughtered tens of thousands of innocent people. This election is forged upon an act of butchery. Furthermore, many of the candidates were anonymous for fear of reprisals, hence the question "Who are we voting for?" This election is a sham.

The Shiite and Kurdish voters will feel that they have elected their representatives - the Sunni population will not feel represented and so the stage is set for more unrest, more violence, more killings in the foreseeable future, as those who thrive on civil strife make the most of the situation, sowing chaos and havoc and reaping the benefits, to the detriment of the Iraqi people as a whole.

All of this was wholly avoidable, since with Saddam Hussein's illness and advancing age, the transition to post-Saddam Iraq would have occurred naturally - and without the deaths, without the destruction, without the human suffering of the innocent victims - the civilians whose only wish is to see their families grow up in peace.

The fact that Iraq is a hotbed for Islamist fanatics these days is the telling legacy of George Bush's foreign policy, fuelled by a cowboy-style, gung-ho attitude belonging to Hollywood B movies of the worst class, taming the wilderness with the Bible and the bullet.

It might have worked in the USA as the Indians were slaughtered in their thousands and as ethnic cleansing was carried out on the cruelest of scales but it does not work anywhere else and it certainly hasn't worked in Iraq. True, two thirds of Iraq's people will be represented. The problem is with the other third.

However, what is the alternative, now that the country has been wholly destabilized, and given that the result of this election confirms this? Given that the balance of power had been removed by Washington, this election had to go ahead.

Due to the fact that the coalition forces have lost primary control, it made sense to hold the election as soon as possible and bolt for the door, which is what Washington will have to do at the earliest opportunity, without the pay-back which the strategists had planned for.

After all, were the Iraqi people not supposed to welcome the Americans with open arms? Was the rebuilding of Iraq's infrastructure (destroyed by US military aircraft) and subsoil not supposed to be passed over to Washington?

The chaos in Iraq today and the perfect scenario for the existence of more instability is the direct result of Washington's mania to interfere abroad, in tandem with its leaders' arrogant belief that they are elected by their people to meddle where they are not wanted. In a world where justice existed, in a world which values the principles of freedom and democracy, those responsible for this situation would be brought to justice.

Given that the world is based upon partial justice, wielded by the sword, even now at the beginning of the third millennium, this is not going to happen. However, the sooner the USA pulls out its troops, phasing in a handover to national security forces, the sooner the Resistance will lose its reason to exist, yet the scenario will appear not dissimilar to that in which Saddam Hussein came to power.

The Bush regime should not be congratulating itself at the election results, it should hang its head in shame that it has managed to divide a country which was formerly united in the only way possible. True, Saddam Hussein was brutal.

But if your neighbor beats his wife, is it right to set fire to his house and kill his children?