In the hours and days following the Iraqi elections the Fox News watching, Hummer driving, support the troops claiming, arm chair warriors who blindly support Bush's every twist and turn have displayed their usually smugness. At the same time the anti-war left has had an almost mirror image reaction.
Instead of claiming victory for forcing Bush to hold elections in the first place - which was the call from the left way back in long gone 2003 - they have reflexively spouted every excuse in the book so they could be on the other side of anything Bush is taking credit for.
The elections in Iraq were a success and represent real and true progress. The fact that they were held in the midst of violence and chaos and the ballots are being counted by candlelight really does demonstrate the courage of the Iraqi people even if Rush Limbaugh is saying it too. Of course, we know that this courage comes not because of Bush's "leadership" but despite of it.
Many of us opposed the invasion of Iraq for all kinds of reasons which have proven more credible than a mushroom cloud. But once the deed was done we scratched our heads and tried to come up with an alternative to making Baghdad a corporate run haven of radical privatization. The answer was obvious. Turn Iraq over to the Iraqi's. The right wing in this country freaked in late 2003 when "old Europe" called for the end to the US "provisional authority" in six months and elections within a year. But who's freaking now? Does the left really want more occupation and US appointed puppet governments?
Elections are always a good thing. Even in Ohio and Florida. In Iraq the alternative to elections wasn't Saddam Hussein's torture chambers it was Paul Bremmer's free market privatizing pen. The majority of Iraqi people, led by what history may judge to be the most democratic ayatollah ever, trumped the CPA when Sistani refused to go along with the plan and called for, you guessed it, elections. So faced with a common sense argument from the left and the prospect of looking less democratic than a guy with a long beard and robes, Bush took a page from Sun Tzu and adopted his opponents position as his own. While we instinctively hate him for this political win, it is the Iraqi people who deserve all the credit and are the true victors.