An Election That is Likely to Do More Harm Than Good in Iraq
Kevin Zeese
December 21, 2005
While President Bush was able to use the Iraq election to temporarily bolster his political support in the United States, the sad reality is the election is very likely to do more harm to Iraq than good. In reality the election is a victory for people and countries that Bush defines as enemies of the United States.
The election is likely to increase violence in Iraq, strengthen the hold of those that favor a religious government, increase ties between Iran and Iraq, heighten calls for an independence in the Kurdish region of Iraq and increase the likelihood of terrorism against Americans at home and abroad. The Iraq elections may become a premier example of the law of unintended consequences.
The legitimacy of the election is being brought into question as a result of widespread claims of corruption with approximately 1,000 complaints including forgeries, fraud and intimidation – 20 of which could change the outcome. In the last election there were only five complaints that were considered that serious so electoral corruption is on the rise in Iraq.
The Washington Post reported that “Sunni and secular political groups angrily claimed Tuesday that last week's Iraqi national election was rigged, demanded a new vote and threatened to leave a shambles the delicate plan to bring the country's wary factions together in a new government.” The Post quotes Saleh Mutlak, who headed an independent Sunni slate, as saying:
"I don't think there is any practical point for us for being in this National Assembly if things stay like this. This election is completely false. It insults democracy everywhere. Everything was based on fraud, cheating, frightening people and using religion to frighten the people. It is terrorism more than democracy."
The New York Times reported that “The growing fury threatened to build into a protracted confrontation that could delay the formation of the new four-year government.” A boycott by Sunni political leaders is a possibility. There have been calls for international intervention to review the election results as well as calls for a new election if the allegations of corruption are not seriously investigated.
Juan Cole reports: “The Kurds so far have about 45 seats of the 230 being voted for, and the Sunnis have 35. The latter are split between the neo-Baathist National Dialogue Council of Salih Mutlak and the fundamentalist Sunni National Accord Front of Adnan Dulaimi. These totals will probably increase when the unallocated seats are reapportioned.” Further “The LA Times estimates that the United Iraqi Alliance, the Shiite fundamentalist party, has 110 seats so far. To form a government, it will need 138. But its totals may increase. AP says that Husain Shahristani of the UIA (someone very close to Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani) is predicting that the Shiite religious coalition will end up with 230 seats, ten less than its current total. Moreover, a group of Sadrists, the Messengers, ran separately from the UIA in the south and are getting 3% of the seats. If that holds, they will have about 7 or 8 seats, and they will certainly ally with the United Iraqi Alliance."
The election results also increased the strengths of those who support a theocracy in Iraq. Early voting results announced by Iraqi electoral officials indicated that religious groups, particularly the main Shiite coalition, had taken a commanding lead. The front-runner among Sunni Arab voters was a religious coalition as well. Secular coalitions won only meager support in crucial provinces where it had expected to do well.
What does all this add up to? Juan Cole summarizes: “In other words, the Shiite fundamentalist parties have won again. The secularists lost badly. Allawi and Chalabi are out of the game.” Patrick Cockburn writes in The Independent: “Religious fundamentalists now have the upper hand. The secular and nationalist candidate backed by the US and Britain was humiliatingly defeated.” He sees this election as the final shipwreck” -- there is no hope for “establishing a pro-Western secular democracy in a united Iraq.” The United States seems to be making Iraq safe for a government ruled by Ayatollahs.
In addition to being a religious state Iraq will be pro-Iran, and unlikely to recognize Israel. Mullah Rafsanjani, Iran's influential former president called Iraq's parliamentary elections a “victory” for Iran and said the vote had shattered any US expansionist ambitions in the Middle East, according to the Persian Journal. The allies with the theocracy in Iran are gaining power with their counterparts in Iraq. Indeed, as the alliance between the Shiva's communities in Iraq and Iran unite, the United States will become increasingly dependent within Iraq on the co-operation of the Iranian President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who has repeatedly called for the eradication of Israel. The U.S. will find that as it criticizes Iran and its president they will anger the Shiaa's in Iraq.
Regarding Israel, some point to a 1996 report entitled “A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm” as a basis for the Iraq War as a plan to help Israel. The reality is that one unintended consequence is that the war will decrease the security of Israel. “Clean Break” set out a plan for Israel to “shape its strategic environment,” beginning with the removal of Saddam Hussein and the installation of a Hashemite monarchy in Baghdad. With Iraq transformed, there would be a strategic axis of Iraq, Jordan and Turkey that would weaken and “roll back” Syria. They argued that the strategy would divide the Shia in Iraq with those in Iran and Syria.
Instead, the opposite has occurred. The Iraq War and occupation has brought Iran and Iraq together. Indeed, the effects of the American push for democracy in other parts of the Arab Middle East are also hurting Israel. In Egypt, the anti-Western Muslim Brotherhood have increased their presence in the Egyptian parliament. On the West Bank the anti-Israeli Hamas organization has won control of several major towns in local elections there and is expected to win at least 40 percent in the coming parliamentary vote. Israeli officials, who are not great fans of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, have warned the Americans that their drive toward "regime change" in Damascus could end up bringing to power radical anti-American (and anti-Israeli) Islamic groups.
Finally, Iraq is adding to U.S. security problems, Patrick Cockburn writes “Islamic fundamentalist movements are ever more powerful in both the Sunni and Shia communities. Ghassan Attiyah, an Iraqi commentator, said: 'In two and a half years Bush has succeeded in creating two new Talibans in Iraq.'” Just what we need! And, if the Shia with their electoral victory consolidate their hold over the military and police and direct their attacks on Sunnis, and the Sunnis respond – we can expect the magnetic effect of Iraq – pulling anti-US terrorists to the county and the opportunity for training in terrorism to increase. A decade from now U.S. citizens should expect someone whose family or friends were killed in the U.S. occupation to strike back. Every day the U.S. remains an occupying force more people who hate Americans and more danger in the world are created.
One piece of good news from the vote: Ahmad Chalabi, the former Bush Administration favorite who was critical to misleading the United States into war, won less than a half of 1 percent of the vote in Baghdad, very likely denying him a seat in the Council of Representatives. Of course, there are still the votes to count from Iraqis in the United States but in Iraq he does not seem to have much support.
Kevin Zeese is Director of Democracy Rising and a candidate for U.S. Senate in Maryland.
The election is likely to increase violence in Iraq, strengthen the hold of those that favor a religious government, increase ties between Iran and Iraq, heighten calls for an independence in the Kurdish region of Iraq and increase the likelihood of terrorism against Americans at home and abroad. The Iraq elections may become a premier example of the law of unintended consequences.
The legitimacy of the election is being brought into question as a result of widespread claims of corruption with approximately 1,000 complaints including forgeries, fraud and intimidation – 20 of which could change the outcome. In the last election there were only five complaints that were considered that serious so electoral corruption is on the rise in Iraq.
The Washington Post reported that “Sunni and secular political groups angrily claimed Tuesday that last week's Iraqi national election was rigged, demanded a new vote and threatened to leave a shambles the delicate plan to bring the country's wary factions together in a new government.” The Post quotes Saleh Mutlak, who headed an independent Sunni slate, as saying:
"I don't think there is any practical point for us for being in this National Assembly if things stay like this. This election is completely false. It insults democracy everywhere. Everything was based on fraud, cheating, frightening people and using religion to frighten the people. It is terrorism more than democracy."
The New York Times reported that “The growing fury threatened to build into a protracted confrontation that could delay the formation of the new four-year government.” A boycott by Sunni political leaders is a possibility. There have been calls for international intervention to review the election results as well as calls for a new election if the allegations of corruption are not seriously investigated.
Juan Cole reports: “The Kurds so far have about 45 seats of the 230 being voted for, and the Sunnis have 35. The latter are split between the neo-Baathist National Dialogue Council of Salih Mutlak and the fundamentalist Sunni National Accord Front of Adnan Dulaimi. These totals will probably increase when the unallocated seats are reapportioned.” Further “The LA Times estimates that the United Iraqi Alliance, the Shiite fundamentalist party, has 110 seats so far. To form a government, it will need 138. But its totals may increase. AP says that Husain Shahristani of the UIA (someone very close to Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani) is predicting that the Shiite religious coalition will end up with 230 seats, ten less than its current total. Moreover, a group of Sadrists, the Messengers, ran separately from the UIA in the south and are getting 3% of the seats. If that holds, they will have about 7 or 8 seats, and they will certainly ally with the United Iraqi Alliance."
The election results also increased the strengths of those who support a theocracy in Iraq. Early voting results announced by Iraqi electoral officials indicated that religious groups, particularly the main Shiite coalition, had taken a commanding lead. The front-runner among Sunni Arab voters was a religious coalition as well. Secular coalitions won only meager support in crucial provinces where it had expected to do well.
What does all this add up to? Juan Cole summarizes: “In other words, the Shiite fundamentalist parties have won again. The secularists lost badly. Allawi and Chalabi are out of the game.” Patrick Cockburn writes in The Independent: “Religious fundamentalists now have the upper hand. The secular and nationalist candidate backed by the US and Britain was humiliatingly defeated.” He sees this election as the final shipwreck” -- there is no hope for “establishing a pro-Western secular democracy in a united Iraq.” The United States seems to be making Iraq safe for a government ruled by Ayatollahs.
In addition to being a religious state Iraq will be pro-Iran, and unlikely to recognize Israel. Mullah Rafsanjani, Iran's influential former president called Iraq's parliamentary elections a “victory” for Iran and said the vote had shattered any US expansionist ambitions in the Middle East, according to the Persian Journal. The allies with the theocracy in Iran are gaining power with their counterparts in Iraq. Indeed, as the alliance between the Shiva's communities in Iraq and Iran unite, the United States will become increasingly dependent within Iraq on the co-operation of the Iranian President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who has repeatedly called for the eradication of Israel. The U.S. will find that as it criticizes Iran and its president they will anger the Shiaa's in Iraq.
Regarding Israel, some point to a 1996 report entitled “A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm” as a basis for the Iraq War as a plan to help Israel. The reality is that one unintended consequence is that the war will decrease the security of Israel. “Clean Break” set out a plan for Israel to “shape its strategic environment,” beginning with the removal of Saddam Hussein and the installation of a Hashemite monarchy in Baghdad. With Iraq transformed, there would be a strategic axis of Iraq, Jordan and Turkey that would weaken and “roll back” Syria. They argued that the strategy would divide the Shia in Iraq with those in Iran and Syria.
Instead, the opposite has occurred. The Iraq War and occupation has brought Iran and Iraq together. Indeed, the effects of the American push for democracy in other parts of the Arab Middle East are also hurting Israel. In Egypt, the anti-Western Muslim Brotherhood have increased their presence in the Egyptian parliament. On the West Bank the anti-Israeli Hamas organization has won control of several major towns in local elections there and is expected to win at least 40 percent in the coming parliamentary vote. Israeli officials, who are not great fans of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, have warned the Americans that their drive toward "regime change" in Damascus could end up bringing to power radical anti-American (and anti-Israeli) Islamic groups.
Finally, Iraq is adding to U.S. security problems, Patrick Cockburn writes “Islamic fundamentalist movements are ever more powerful in both the Sunni and Shia communities. Ghassan Attiyah, an Iraqi commentator, said: 'In two and a half years Bush has succeeded in creating two new Talibans in Iraq.'” Just what we need! And, if the Shia with their electoral victory consolidate their hold over the military and police and direct their attacks on Sunnis, and the Sunnis respond – we can expect the magnetic effect of Iraq – pulling anti-US terrorists to the county and the opportunity for training in terrorism to increase. A decade from now U.S. citizens should expect someone whose family or friends were killed in the U.S. occupation to strike back. Every day the U.S. remains an occupying force more people who hate Americans and more danger in the world are created.
One piece of good news from the vote: Ahmad Chalabi, the former Bush Administration favorite who was critical to misleading the United States into war, won less than a half of 1 percent of the vote in Baghdad, very likely denying him a seat in the Council of Representatives. Of course, there are still the votes to count from Iraqis in the United States but in Iraq he does not seem to have much support.
Kevin Zeese is Director of Democracy Rising and a candidate for U.S. Senate in Maryland.
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