SezMe said:
I wanted to respond to this but did not want to drawn into the name calling in the original thread.
Zig, let's assume for the sake of this thread that your and Bush's intent is to cast of tyranny. The Iraqi's were not able to meet the constitutional deadline yesterday because of some very fundamental sticking points, one of which is the level of federalism that the new government will have. There have been calls by at least one powerful imam for the Shiites in the south to have the same kind of autonomy that the Kurds in the north have. They want to create, essentially, a mini-theocracy. If this were to come to pass, Iran would probably give them considerable support initially.
Now, this would be, for millions of citizens and especially women, going from a Sunni tyranny to a Shiite tyranny. This is not a wild, crazy scenario and should be considered now as part of our foreign policy planning. If you were in Rice's position, what would you recommend to the President?
Fears of an Islamist state are a little overstated. Sistani, the most powerful cleric in Iraq by a good margin, may be a traditionalist, but he's also quite rational and he's made it quite explicit that he doesn't want turbans in government. So I'm not quite as worried about that as some people are.
As for Shiites wanting autonomy, that seems rather counter-productive to their own interests. The only way that can happen is a very federalist constitution, which would then also give the Sunnis a lot of autonomy. But since the Shia are the majority, this means a loss of control over the country as a whole, not a gain. So I don't see the Shia pushing for strong federalism (though that wouldn't be the worst result either).
And lastly, we have to be willing to accept a result that we don't like. What we CAN insist upon, and what we MUST insist upon, is that the PROCESS is, and remains, democratic. If they elect Islamists, one of two things will happen. The first possibility is that the Islamists start behaving rationally, make things like economic development a priority, and don't crack down on personal freedoms very much. These things would all be improvements for the Iraqi people, and it's what the Iraqis want. Islamist candidates might take this path because that's the only way to stay in power in a democracy.
The other option for Islamist candidates would be to stay radicalised and halt forward progress. This would be bad in the short term. But we must accept it, PROVIDED the process remains democratic. Because as long as the process remains democratic, such leaders cannot last. They WOULD be voted out of office, because the people will not continue to support leaders who don't provide results. This is not the scenario I would like to see, but the Iraqis would learn from it, and they would get past it. The only reason to step in at any point here is if they try to dispense with the democratic process. And we need to make it clear that THAT is why we would step in to make changes, NOT because we don't like their choices.
Democracy is not perfect, but it works fairly well in the long run. The election of Islamist candidates are not much of a threat in and of itself, it's the tactic (used by the mullahs of Iran) of "one man, one vote, one time" that we need to make sure doesn't happen. The most important election in a democracy is not the first one, it's the second one.
