The Goal of Stability in Iraq

Now that Iraq is on the other side of its historic democratic election, we're called upon to reorient our thinking as to what now has become possible and in what structurations the possiblities will be sorted out. Here's what PolicyWire is saying:

"The January 30 elections, the first of three Iraqi votes scheduled for this year, will accelerate the process of empowering a new Iraqi leadership with greater popular support and legitimacy, but the elections will not end the violence. The elections are expected to establish a leading role for Iraq's Shiite Arab majority, which has long been excluded from power. The chief immediate problem is that Iraq's Sunni Arabs, a minority that has dominated Iraqi politics for centuries, will likely be underrepresented in the new National Assembly due to intimidation from insurgents, who are strongest in the Sunni Arab heartland in central Iraq. However, creating an Iraqi government elected by Iraqis--not hand-picked by Americans--could eventually help to generate the conditions for defeating the insurgents. After the elections the Bush Administration should help the new Iraqi government build stability by including many Sunni Arabs and other minorities in the new administration and in the writing of the new constitution, while rapidly building up Iraqi security forces to protect all Iraqis from insurgent attacks."

The next vote scheduled, if all goes well (or perhaps we should say as did our forebears, Lord willing, deo volente, DV), is that of October 15 by which the drafting a constitution is to be finalized and on that submitted to a referendum of the Iraqi people. So, once the vote count is announced for the Jan 30 election, and the winners installed in office, and the new Transitional National Parliament called to session, it's work will consist of making the draft for submission and vote on Oct 15. Again, if all goes well, DV, and on schedule, elections will be called and preparatory work performed, so that the Iraqui electoral can go to the polls for that third time in 2005 on Dec 15. They will vote for the first regular, rather than transitional, National Parliament. At that point, the University of Baghdad should issue Bachelor's degrees in political science to all Iraquis.




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