As the US media likes to point out, the Bush legacy is intrinsically tied to Iraq. And evidently, they are banking on it’s ultimate failure.
So it comes as no surprise that it takes a UK (not a US) publication, The Guardian, to report on some very notable successes in the wake of the Iraq elections over the weekend.
As William Shawcross states in his headline today…
Democratic dawn in Iraq
Polling was peaceful, the results encouraging.
We could yet be looking at a model for Arab states
Despite a lower than expected turnout of 51%, there were no boycotts based on ethic or sectarian lines. In fact, the Sunni turnout in some areas was as high as 60%… a big difference from the 2005 elections. “It was also the first election to have international observers in all 712 constituencies.”
The peaceful polling was remarkable and so were the results. All the Islamic parties lost ground, especially that associated with the so-called “Shia firebrand”, Moqtada al-Sadr, whose share of the vote went down from 11% to 3%. The principal Sunni Islamic party, the Islamic Party of Iraq, was wiped out.
The only Islamic party to gain ground was the Dawa party of the Shia prime minister Nouri al-Maliki – and even that party dropped the word Islamic from its name. The power of Maliki, who has emerged a stronger leader than expected, is further enhanced by these elections. Now no Islamic parties will be able to control any provinces on their own. The election is thus a big defeat for Iran which had hoped that Shia religious parties would control the south and enable Iran to turn them into a mini Shia republic.
Instead, a new generation of Iraqi politicians is coming forward. Many of them are young and secular. They have lived always in Iraq, not in exile; they are Iraqis with local roots first and foremost – they are not pan-Arabs or pan-Islamists. Nor do they have connections to the US.
Contrast this with McClatchy’s Leila Fadel’s doom’n’gloom report.
Low turnout in Iraq’s election reflects a disillusioned nation BAGHDAD — Voter turnout in Iraq’s provincial elections Saturday was the lowest in the nation’s short history as a new democracy despite a relative calm across the nation. Only about 7.5 million of more than 14 million registered voters went to the polls.
Interviews suggest that the low voter turnout also is an indication of Iraqi disenchantment with a democracy that, so far, has brought them very little.
Since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003 and the fall of a brutal dictator, Iraqis witnessed unprecedented violence in their nation and what they believe is humiliation under a foreign occupation. Even on Saturday, U.S. tanks could be spotted across Baghdad on largely empty roads.
Are these two speaking of the same election?? But then, coming from McClatchy… who’s reporting must come into question the majority of the time… I can’t say as I’m surprised. But then, McClatchy’s is the publication likely to receive more attention from the US voter over The Guardian. They must be smug in their attempts to diss both the Iraqis and, by association, the former President.
Credit goes also to Aseel Kami and Missy Ryan of Reuters, reporting from Baghdad.
Iraq holds peaceful election, Obama, U.N. applaud Iraqis held their most peaceful election since the fall of Saddam Hussein on Saturday, voting for provincial councils without a single major attack in a poll that demonstrated the country’s dramatic security gains.
U.S. President Barack Obama hailed the poll as an important step toward Iraqis taking responsibility for their future. “I congratulate the people of Iraq on holding significant provincial elections today,” he said in a statement.
“The purple fingers have returned to build Iraq,” Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said after the polls closed, referring to the indelible ink stains on index fingers that show voters have cast their ballots.
There was something of a holiday atmosphere in many parts of the country. In normally traffic-choked Baghdad, children took advantage of a ban on cars to play soccer in the streets.
“How can we not vote? All of us here have always complained about being oppressed and not having a leader who represented us. Now is our chance,” said Basra voter Abdul Hussein Nuri.
Reuters article did devote the last (pg 2) of the article to the few glitches… none of which sound that dissimilar to our own US elections. Voters failing to find their names on the registration list, with some in the Diyala province taking to the streets in protest. Even that is a sign of progress… the ability to protest in Iraq without finding one’s self in Saddam’s gulag.
Reuters, however, took great pains *not* to mention George W. Bush or Tony Blair, instead giving prominent position to Obama’s reaction instead.
In the more geniune Guardian article, Shawcross was also wise to place cautious caveats on his glowing review. Certainly there is a fragility to this new Arab democracy. The nation is far from united…. but then, so is the US after centuries. Functioning while not in lockstep is, indeed, a hallmark of democracy.
They have their speedbumps ahead. As the US withdraws, security may be at risk if again the jihad movements and disgruntled Ba’athists and Saddam loyalists again try to seize control via a violent coup. The test will be if the Iraq forces can hold their own, without the aid of the US military who are under the control of a POTUS who may be inclined to dole out “tough love” as a result of peer pressure.
But Shawcross knows this momentous occasion in Iraq’s new history is due to a couple of much maligned and hated leaders… George W. Bush and Tony Blair.
There were lamentable failures in the subsequent US occupation, which allowed the rise of the hideous sectarian violence that threatened to tear the country to pieces. But in the last two years the “surge” of US troops under General David Petraeus appears to have destroyed much of the terrorists’ infrastructure and support. Now, as US troops begin their phased withdrawal, the new American-trained Iraqi army is defending the country against Islamist violence.
There will be further setbacks. But who knows, Iraq may yet even become a model for democratic change in other Arab countries. If so, who deserves some credit? The much maligned President Bush. And Tony Blair.
Will the US media give credit where credit is due for Dubya? I’m not holding my breath. It would seriously interfere with their determination to shape the history books and destroy his legacy.
But this is one day where Bush, from the confines of his private abode in Texas, must have been quietly proud… and perhaps feeling a little redeemed. Too bad it had to come from a British media.
Vietnam era Navy wife, indy/conservative, and an official California escapee now residing as a red speck in the sea of Oregon blue.