The Iraqi Elections

[erpowers]

Last night on Larry King Live Bill Maher said people should give credit to Bush for the elections in Iraq. I do not think Bush should be given credit for Iraq in that he did not want the election to happen. The election were forced on him.

[Itascapark]

1. Yes, I saw Maher

and thought he made a mistake...the Administration never wanted the election...indeed, it was forced on them.

[Name removed]

2. Deleted message

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[Tempest]

4. Democracy to Iraq?

What democracy?

The elections just ended and there's no way to tell what will come of it.

By all indications, the winners plan on a quasi-theocracy.

And by all indications, there will be a civil war if the Kurds are not willing to compromise on their desire to have an autonomous state.

[Igel]

3. The first plan--the one that was rendered impossible when

Baghdad "fell" the way it did, did call for elections very quickly, I believe, and the withdrawal of most US forces in short order. It was a case of "best-scenario" planning.

[erpowers]

5. Are You Sure

Do you think that plan may have been put out just to get the American people to support the war?

[Igel]

9. Don't know. It wasn't discussed much at all.

The idea was that you wipe out the top few people, and you keep the apparatchiki and military in place. They really shouldn't have discussed it at all.

The apparatchiki and military simply vanished. I watched CNN when Baghdad fell, they reported that nobody showed up for work ... and my first thought was, "There's one plan shot to hell."

[RuleofLaw]

6. I just have one question:

What the hell did people expect Bush to do?

Did they really think he would invaded Iraq and not have elections, but just install some kid of puppet government? Of Course not, He had to have elections, which, if memory serves me right, he did not want so soon, but was pushed into holding by Sistani.

No election = no legitimacy.

And a last note. When i first heard about the election result, I think it was projected that Sistani's block would get 75 % of the vote, a clear majority. Now, isn't it interesting, that his block only gets 48%, which is not enough for a majority, so he has to work with a coalition. I guess the recounting of the ballots really paid off.

[CWebster]

7. Chalabi---they had to make him go bye-bye.

They couldn't exactly outright steal it from the Shias--that was the entire point of it to the Shias, but they must maintain control through the usual chalabi types.

[RafterMan]

8. No, that isn't what you heard

You heard that shiites had a 75% lead among ballots already counted at that early date. You also heard in those early articles that they had only counted some heavily shiite areas so far, and that ballots from the kurdish areas were still to come. Had you really been reading closely, you would have further noted that there is nothing special about 50% in this eleciton -- a 2/3 majority is required to form a govenment and the fact that Sistani's party would have to find partners to reach that goal was never really in doubt.