Today is an important day, and as Michael Ignatieff writes in The Guardian : Whatever your view of the war, you should embrace today’s election.
Just as depressing as the violence in Iraq is the indifference to it abroad. Americans and Europeans who have never lifted a finger to defend their own right to vote seem not to care that Iraqis are dying for the right to choose their own leaders.Why do so few people feel even a tremor of indignation when they see poll workers gunned down? Why isn’t there a trickle of applause in the press for the more than 6,000 Iraqis actually standing for political office at the risk of their lives?
Explaining this morose silence requires understanding how support for Iraqi democracy has become the casualty of the corrosive bitterness that still surrounds the initial decision to go to war. Establishing free institutions in Iraq was the best reason to support the war – now it is the only reason – and for that very reason democracy there has ceased to be a respectable cause.
The Bush administration has managed the nearly impossible: to turn democracy into a disreputable slogan.
Liberals can’t bring themselves to support freedom in Iraq lest they seem to collude with neo-conservative bombast. Anti-war ideologues can’t support the Iraqis because that would require admitting that positive outcomes can result from bad policies. And then there are the ideological fools in the Arab world, and even a few in the West, who think the ‘insurgents’ are fighting a just war against US imperialism. This makes you wonder when the left forgot the proper name for people who bomb polling stations, kill election workers and assassinate candidates – fascists. [...]
The Bush administration knows that, while its mistakes have cost it any real influence in Iraq, its historical reputation will depend on whether freedom takes root there. Already the revisionists are working over the facts: the best way to write the history in advance is to shift the blame onto the Iraqis themselves. Those who opposed the war collude with this revisionism in advance by giving up on the Iraqis and this, their only chance of freedom.
Let us have the decency to support people who are fighting for a free election, and let us have the honesty not to blame them for our own incompetence if they fail. There is still no reason to assume they will.
I have to agree. There is always a silver lining, even within such an obviously ill conceived, horribly lead operation.
We must also be vigilant, because the right will also attempt to blame the left for their own failures. And, as stated, they will blame the Iraqi’s in fair time as well.
My propaganda radar has been overwhelmed for the past few days, so my initial impression is that the election will have little or no real affect upon the insurgency. But, victory will be declared by all sides no matter the outcome. It’s more of a public relations battle than a battle for votes at this juncture. Allawi and his political party will most definitely win the majority, since that has already been decided behind the scenes. Anyone who truly thinks that such an important step, during such a perilous time in Iraq, will be entirely decided by the election process are sadly misstaken and unfamiliar with the realities on the ground. The election is symbolic in every sense of the word, and certain aspects have been assured by the activies of the Rendon Group, and other consultancies prior to the election.
If a theocratic mandate were to come forward, does anyone truly believe that the Bush Administration would sede power?
Personally, I hope the election process sparks a bit of civility in Iraq. Anything that allows US soldiers to come home alive is a good thing. I’m not overly optimistic it will have that great of an affect. That is the direct fault of the Bush White House and the Pentagon for not dealing with the realities on the ground in Iraq and for not engaging the international community properly. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: “Public relations doesn’t win wars.”
And, for those who find it impossible to hope for the best on this election day in Iraq, there’s always a good song.
