A fascinating article in Time about the architect of this Sunday's election and the man who is poised to become the most powerful man in Iraq - if he isn't already:
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1022720,00.html
The bit I found illuminating:
But hang onto your hats:
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1022720,00.html
The bit I found illuminating:
It's funny, and offers a good deal of hope for the future of the country, that there appears to be a man at the helm who is more enthusiastic about direct democracy than the occupiers.But even as President Bush claimed vindication for his Iraq strategy in the spectacle of millions of Iraqis braving terror and intimidation to go to the polls, the real author of Sunday's election —Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani — confined himself to a simply thanking voters for turning out, and expressing regret that his own Iranian birth prevented him from joining them. It may be easily forgotten in the post-election spin that Sunday's vote was not the Bush administration's idea—quite the contrary. The U.S. had never intended for Iraqis to democratically choose the body that would write their new constitution; Washington had envisaged an election only after a constitution had been written by a body appointed by, and under the tutelage of the U.S.
Initially, the plan had been to hand power to returning exiles after toppling Saddam Hussein. When the exiles proved too unpopular, the U.S. then sought to have its handpicked Iraqi Governing Council write the new constitution. Even after the IGC proved incapable, the Bush administration consistently rejected Sistani's demand for democratic elections. Instead, U.S. administrator J. Paul Bremer proposed, that a constitution-making body be appointed by a series of caucuses comprising handpicked elites around the country. Sistani was having none of it. He insisted on democratic elections, used his influence among Shiites on the Governing Council to block Bremer's scheme, and then brought his supporters onto the streets to warn that anything short of democracy would be deemed illegitimate by the Shiite majority.
And it was this pressure from the Iranian-born Ayatollah—certainly an unlikely Tom Paine figure —that forced the administration to scrap its own plans for Iraq and agree to hold elections by the end of January 2005. Still, once the decision was made, President Bush stuck to his guns despite repeated entreaties at home and abroad—and from a number of Iraqis that had worked closely with Washington—to postpone the poll. And the election could mark a major turning point for the U.S. mission in Iraq.
But hang onto your hats:
Most reporting from polling stations suggests that the big winners, as expected, will be the Shiite-dominated United Iraqi Alliance, backed by Sistani. But the extent of its dominance remains to be seen. There were indications in the weeks preceding the election that the coalition of Prime Minister Iyad Allawi was reeling in the UIA's lead, drawing support not only from a middle class secular constituency but also from Shiites wary of giving clerics political authority. Allawi may have been helped by what appears to have been a de facto boycott by supporters of the radical Shiite cleric Moqtada Sadr, on whose votes the UIA may have been counting. Indeed, if the 57 percent turnout figure is accurate, then the high Kurdish turnout and the fact that there was a substantial if small vote among Sunnis would suggest that a significant number of Shiites stayed away. UIA leaders remain confident, however, that they'd carried a comfortable majority among the Shiites.
I could not agree more - although let's hope "interesting" in this case is not synonymous, as it has been in Iraq, with "bloody".If getting the U.S. out is one point of consensus between the radical Sunni Arab insurgents and the moderate Shiite Arab Islamists that look set to emerge with the largest share of Sunday’s vote, they also share a common hostility to Kurdish secessionism. Grand Ayatollah Sistani has made no secret of his hostility to the provisions of the Transitional Administrative Law — the interim constitution crafted under U.S. direction — that gives the Kurds an effective veto over a new constitution. The Kurd-Arab distinction may yet prove as powerful a destabilizing factor as the Sunni-Shiite one in the months ahead.
Iraq, or rather a large part of it, has spoken, no matter how imperfect the process. And as a result, the country's future appears to be up for grabs, with all players forced to rewrite their scripts. Now, it gets interesting.
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