New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman offered an educated and basic argument against postponing the Jan. 30 Iraqi elections. His basic point: How will that help us? He frames the election pessimists’ argument first and then rebuts it:
"Their main argument is that an Iraqi election that ensconces the Shiite majority in power, without any participation of the Sunni minority, will sow the seeds of civil war.
"That is probably true -- but we are already in a civil war in Iraq. That civil war was started by the Sunni Baathists, and their Islamist fascist allies from around the region, the minute the U.S. toppled Saddam. And they started that war not because they felt the Iraqi elections were going to be rigged, but because they knew they weren't going to be rigged.
"They started the war not to get their fair share of Iraqi power, but in hopes of retaining their unfair share. Under Saddam, Iraq's Sunni minority, with only 20 percent of the population, ruled everyone. These fascist insurgents have never given politics a chance to work in Iraq because they don't want it to work. That's why they have never issued a list of demands. They don't want people to see what they are really after, which is continued minority rule, Saddamism without Saddam. If that was my politics, I'd be wearing a ski mask over my head, too.
"The notion that delaying the elections for a few months would somehow give time for the "Sunni moderates" to persuade the extremists to come around is dead wrong -- literally. Any delay would simply embolden the guys with the guns to kill more Iraqi police officers and to intimidate more Sunnis. It could only convince them that with just a little more violence, they could scuttle the whole project of rebuilding Iraq."
Friedman is talking straight. There’s already plenty of tensions and ethnic conflicts in Iraq. Trying to turn the Iraqi election into a public relations campaign for peace among religious factions that have fought against each other for centuries on end is neive at best.
A much better idea would be to push through with the elections in a well-planned manner and confidently uphold the results.
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