The above title -- partially borrowed from Juan Cole's
latest post on the Shi'ite sweep of the Iraqi election -- should be the frame for the Democrats.
Cole's analysis includes three salient points:
First, the statistics available point to about 8.5 million voters out of an eligible 14 million. The electoral commission said that the turnout was 58 percent. Not 80, not 70 and not 60. 58, about on par with our own meager elections. So if our etiolated efforts at Democracy are the guide, the Iraqis barely meet that. The largest percentage that was missing were the Sunnis, of course. They either boycotted out of disenchantment with the occupation, thinking the elections were a sham, or they boycotted out of fear of reprisals.
According to Cole: "Only 2 percent voted in Anbar province, where Fallujah and Ramadi are. (Remember Condoleeza Rice talking about people voting in Fallujah? That was propaganda pure and simple.) In Ninevah province about 17 percent of the population voted, but a lot of those were Kurds and Turkmen. "
The next significant point is that Bush's man in Iraq--Allawi -- lost BIG garnering only about 13 percent of the vote, compared to a whopping 48% by the UIA (United Iraqi Alliance, Sistani's pick) and 26 % by the Kurdistan alliance.
Allawi was effectively the incumbent, backed by our occupation army in Iraq. He holds all the secular "power" cards outside the Kurdish area. He has the pulpit of U.S. punditry and news channels (for what that's worth abroad) He barely broke double digits. Here is Cole again:
"[Allawi] dominated the air waves in December and January. He went to Baghdad University and made all sorts of promises to the students there and it was dutifully broadcast, and there were lots of photo ops like that. Allawi's list also spent an enormous amount on campaign advertising. ...
...
Despite these enormous advantages, clear American backing, money, etc., Allawi's list came in a poor third and clearly lacks any substantial grass roots in most of the country. It seems to have been the refuge of what is left of the secular middle class."
This means that Sistani now holds all the political cards. And the US occupation, nearly none--but that's doesn't change as much as you may think. The Bush occupation has what it has always had--no political legitimacy, of course, but billions of dollars in US tax dollar reconstruction aid and brutal force.
The third point the Bushies ought to keep in mind is where this is going, politically.
As Cole points out "the US now hopes to use the Kurds to blunt the push for Islamic law from the UIA. This is the significance of Allawi's visit to Jalal Talabani of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan and his support for Talabani as president. The Kurds and Allawi together control nearly 40 percent of seats in parliament. They can be outvoted on many issues, but they can't be ignored. Allawi is trying to ensure that Talabani's position is unassailable and to pressure the UIA to give up its own candidates for president, so as to bloc any rush to Islamic law.
Ironically, Talabani is extremely close to Tehran and has been a client of the Iranians for many years. His alliance with the UIA will ensure warm relations between the new Iraq and Iran. The US, in pushing for Talabani for Iraqi domestic reasons, is creating a Baghdad-Tehran axis in regional politics."
So if we want a domestic Iraq that does not institute Islamic law, we need to align ourselves with Talabani who makes kissy face with the US's next enemy du jour. It's either that or Bush's greatest foreign policy initiative --read failure--turns a secular state into an Islamic Fundamentalist state.
Either way, Bush has 'lost' Iraq politically for the US, that's why Cole writes that he lost the election.