One man, one vote or else

Juan Cole is worried. If you follow Iraq closely, that's not a good thing. Why is he concerned? Because the followers of Ayatollah Sistani are saying, bluntly, it's either one man, one vote, or we go in the streets. The last time the Shia hit the pavement, we got Khomeni and 444 days of hostage standoff. With the stakes exponentially higher, thousands of US lives, we see the sort of self-centered game playing which happens when amateurs enter politics.

Sistani is a cautious man, Hairi and his pupil Sadr, is not. He's more than ready to toss his lot in with the Sunni clerics and go toe to toe with the US. But the idea of defying Sistani, who is by far the most popular figure in Iraq, is reckless beyond reason. Because if he says go, the Shia go. You have the parties angling for power they would not otherwise have. Western educated feminists angling to enhance the role of women in this new body, the Communists and SCIRI being armed.

The resistance must be cackling as the US plots to deliver the one thing that was beyond them, Sistani's active support.

Let's talk about SCIRI for a moment. The US, once scared witless of the Hakim's family private army, is now willing to arm them to hunt their enemies. Most Iraqi Shia hate SCIRI because when they were in the Iranian POW camps, the SCIRI boys asked them to join up. When you said no, you got a shot to the gonads. The widespread impression is that they're wild-eyed fanatics best left on the sidelines of power. They've already said, by word and deed that their ideology trumps Iraqi nationalism and that's a no-no.

Arming the Communists is insane for many reason, most of which we already know, mainly that they always have their own agenda.

In short, we're settiing up our very own death squads run by people willing to collaborate with the enemy for personal gain. Despite depicting the Peshmerga as our allies, they sat on their hands for the most part during the war, waiting to collect their stolen land. They also have a nasty history of cutting deals and killing each other. Al Daiwa isn't much better. Arming this motley crew, people who have no loyalty but to their leaders, is a sign that we're desperate. It's also the kind of thing which triggers civil wars. These people all want power, but have no means to get it. Establishing a private army is one way. Having the US fund and train this private Army is even better, regardless of how many SF troopers you place in charge.

This is forcing Sistani's hand. He's an old man and the people around him are not nearly as patient or moderate. He's right here,
working out direct elections is the only fair way to do things. Anything else is an insult to the educated Iraqi populace. This is not Afghanistan. Developing voter rolls could and should be done, and many of the excuses are just that, desgned to keep power.

US policy in Iraq seems to be the following: pick the worst, most inefficent practices and enforce them vigorously.

posted by Steve @ 1:21:00 PM