Since the December 15 elections, there have been widespread demonstrations by Sunnis that the elections were fixed by the ruling Shiite United Iraqi Alliance (UIA). On December 28, the Bush Administration pronounced :'I don't think most are suggesting that there needs to be a re-run because it is the belief that the elections were fair. That is our view as well.' The UN agreed with the US assessment declaring there was 'no justification' for a re-run and the election had been 'transparent and credible.'
The preliminary count for the 275 seat parliament seems to have worked out to be as follows:
US Surrogates
Allawi's Iraqi National List (INL): 25 seats
Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress (INC): 0 seats
Sunni
Islamist Accordance Front (AF): 41 seats
Secular National Dialogue Front (NDF): 9 seats
Kurds
Secular Kurdish Alliance (KA): 52 seats
Shia
Fundamentalist United Iraqi Alliance (UIA): 130 seats
Remaining seats held by small regional and sectarian parties: 18 seats
So, the occupation approves of the election and it's same old same-old. The quislings barely registered on the scale after enormous US financial and personnel support and the UIA-KA coalition retains control, blocking out the Sunnis. The constitution, which the Sunnis will not be able to amend, will remain the same allowing for autonomous Kurdish and Shia regions as a US-inspired quid pro quo for allowing the state owned oil industry to be openned-up to the oil multinationals by the Kurds and Shiites. The Kurds have already started bargaining with a multinational about some of their oil without informing the central government.
The occupation is still having nightmares about Iran's ties with some of the fundamentalist parties in the UIA, but can't do much about it without widening the insurgency to another 60% of the population. The Sunni insurgency is back up to pre-election levels and angrier than ever because of the election frauds that the US has now sanctified. The effective "Iraqi army" consists of Shia and Kurd militias, whose primary loyalty is sectarian.
The US is Iraqitizing the war by increasing bombing strikes by a factor of five. No doubt the assumption is that the more bombs the occupation drops the fewer US troops will be needed so Bush can start sending home some troops during the 2006 election campaign. That's the Nixon solution: substitute bombs for troops.
So far it's been a so-so month in Iraq with 59 US troops dead and at least 250 wounded.
So now that we've reached this latest 'democratic' milestone for Bush, should we stay the course, cut and run, or leave Iraq and drop some ready-action troops below the horizon in Kuwait to put out the fires?
I vote for cut and run. Stop American casualties. Stop letting Iraqi factions let the US do the killing for them. Give the Iraqis a chance to sort things out.
With the occupation gone, the insurrection loses its steam, jihadi recruitment declines, both the Sunnis and Shia have less reason to become more fundamentalist and I think the other armed elements will turn on al Qeada and other sectarian extremists. The Iraqis will have a better chance to work out some accomodation among themselves to restore security and hopefully prosperity for themselves without the heavy hand of the occupation. Maybe the Sunnis with the professional skills and the Shia with the oil will realize they need each other more than they need to kill each other.