Democracy in Iraq

"Democracy," Winston Churchill pointed out, "is the worst form of government, except for all the others." There is a lot of wisdom in that. Americans, spoiled rotten by the success of our own institutions, take democracy entirely for granted. We whine incessantly that "government is broken" because it doesn't give us everything we want, right now, for free. We have no clue what life is like when government is really broken. See Haiti.

Today millions of Iraqis went to vote. Americans sometimes stay home on Election Day because it's raining or snowing. Iraqis are voting even though it's raining mortar shells and rockets. From the New York Times:

"Iraqis are not afraid of bombs anymore," said Maliq Bedawi, 45, defiantly waving his finger, stained with purple ink, to indicate he had voted, as he stood near the rubble of an apartment building in Baghdad hit by a huge rocket in the deadliest attack of the day.

Insurgents here vowed to disrupt the election, and the concerted wave of attacks — as many as 100 thunderous blasts in the capital alone starting just before the polls opened — did frighten voters away, but only initially.

The shrugging response of voters could signal a fundamental weakening of the insurgency's potency. At least 38 people were killed in Baghdad. But by day's end, turnout was higher than expected, and certainly higher than in the last parliamentary election in 2005, marred by a similar level of violence.

The establishment of democracy in Iraq will remain an uncertain proposition for some time to come. The most difficult matter is the reconciliation of two of Iraq's most important ethnic groups: Shiite and Sunni Muslims. But here there is also hope.

Sunnis who largely boycotted previous elections voted in force, and an intense competition for Shiite votes drove up participation in Baghdad and the south, election observers said.

After seven years of a war whose rationale is deeply disputed in the United States, the Obama administration viewed the vote as a test of Iraq's stability, a last milestone before the final withdrawal of American troops.

The short and fierce political campaign could end up either solidifying Iraq's nascent democracy or leaving the country fractured along ethnic and sectarian lines. But it was arguably the most open, most competitive election in the nation's long history of colonial rule, dictatorship and war.

Yes, the rationale for the invasion of Iraq is indeed deeply disputed in the U.S. But Vice President Biden has recently claimed Iraq as a success of the Obama Administration. Never mind that Obama opposed the thing from the gitgo, and flamboyantly bragged about it. If he wants to take credit for Democracy in Iraq, let him. Political points here at home are much less important than political realities in the Fertile Crescent.

George W. Bush's decision to invade Iraq may have been a very bad one. It certainly cost his party dearly. But that doesn't mean that it will turn out badly in the long run. Millions of men and women lining up to vote in defiance of murderous thugs is something beautiful. The establishment of a successful democracy in Arabia would be a profound achievement, whoever takes the credit.

But just right now let us honor the Iraqi voters. They are doing more than most living Americans have ever had to do for the cause of human freedom.

Comments

[Iraq War Vet (2 tours)]

But how are we going to pay for it all?

Value Added Tax.

You don't get to spend billions on wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and not have to pay for it, and the bill is past due.

Raise Taxes to pay for the wars! It is your patriotic duty.