The show (i.e., the elections in Iraq) must go on as scheduled, say William Safire and Charles Krauthammer. Safire has an interesting angle: he says that the Iraq elections will complete the cycle of four elections that all signal popular commitment to the War on Terror:
So far, voters who support implanting freedom in the Middle East have won three in a row, electing President Hamid Karzai in Afghanistan, the American ally John Howard in Australia, and George Bush here.
Now pessimists are trying desperately to call off the fourth election - the one scheduled for late January in Iraq to elect a 275-member national assembly that will write a constitution - lest they lose that vote, too.
The election might become a mess--for pollsters, vote counters, and prognosticators--but the vote must go on:
It's simplistic to prognosticate the coming election as 60 percent Shiite, 15 percent Sunni, 20 percent Kurd, 5 percent other. Only half the Shiites and Sunnis are fervent Islamists, while most of the Kurds are secular Sunnis. The result is an Oliver Hardy demographic: "a fine mess," susceptible to democratic surprises by charismatic local candidates.
The most important element in the two months leading up to this fourth election is a sense of inexorability. The U.N. may run, the Pachachi reactionaries may drag a foot, the terrorists may intimidate - but the vote must go on. Democracy delayed is democracy denied.
Quite a bold statement, that. Charles Krauthammer is equally bold:
There has been much talk that if the Iraqi election is held and some Sunni Arab provinces (perhaps three of the 18) do not participate, the election will be illegitimate. Nonsense. The election should be held. It should be open to everyone. If Iraq's Sunni Arabs -- barely 20 percent of the population -- decide they cannot abide giving up their 80 years of minority rule, ending with 30 years of Saddam Hussein's atrocious tyranny, then tough luck. They forfeit their chance to shape and participate in the new Iraq.
He makes an equally bold comparison between this election-to-be and two elections-that-were, over here, in 1864 and 1868:
In 1864, 11 of the 36 states did not participate in the presidential election. Was Lincoln's election therefore illegitimate?
In 1868, three years after the security situation had, shall we say, stabilized, three states (not insignificant ones: Texas, Virginia and Mississippi) did not participate in the election. Was Grant's election illegitimate?
The groups asking to postpone the Iraqi election have their own political motives--though they are not necessarily against the project of democracy per se, and their goal is not to leave Iraq, as was the case with those 11 states in 1864. But if 20 percent of the Iraqi population does not vote, will the vote be illegitimate? Well, what percentage of the American public votes--or did vote, before the unusually high turnout we had this year?
Then again, if the 20 percent are conducting an earnest boycott, they could argue that because of their boycott, the elections are illegitimate.
Funny how this works. My not-voting is worth something only if I don't vote on purpose. And if I get a lot of people to not do it with me.
So far, voters who support implanting freedom in the Middle East have won three in a row, electing President Hamid Karzai in Afghanistan, the American ally John Howard in Australia, and George Bush here.
Now pessimists are trying desperately to call off the fourth election - the one scheduled for late January in Iraq to elect a 275-member national assembly that will write a constitution - lest they lose that vote, too.
The election might become a mess--for pollsters, vote counters, and prognosticators--but the vote must go on:
It's simplistic to prognosticate the coming election as 60 percent Shiite, 15 percent Sunni, 20 percent Kurd, 5 percent other. Only half the Shiites and Sunnis are fervent Islamists, while most of the Kurds are secular Sunnis. The result is an Oliver Hardy demographic: "a fine mess," susceptible to democratic surprises by charismatic local candidates.
The most important element in the two months leading up to this fourth election is a sense of inexorability. The U.N. may run, the Pachachi reactionaries may drag a foot, the terrorists may intimidate - but the vote must go on. Democracy delayed is democracy denied.
Quite a bold statement, that. Charles Krauthammer is equally bold:
There has been much talk that if the Iraqi election is held and some Sunni Arab provinces (perhaps three of the 18) do not participate, the election will be illegitimate. Nonsense. The election should be held. It should be open to everyone. If Iraq's Sunni Arabs -- barely 20 percent of the population -- decide they cannot abide giving up their 80 years of minority rule, ending with 30 years of Saddam Hussein's atrocious tyranny, then tough luck. They forfeit their chance to shape and participate in the new Iraq.
He makes an equally bold comparison between this election-to-be and two elections-that-were, over here, in 1864 and 1868:
In 1864, 11 of the 36 states did not participate in the presidential election. Was Lincoln's election therefore illegitimate?
In 1868, three years after the security situation had, shall we say, stabilized, three states (not insignificant ones: Texas, Virginia and Mississippi) did not participate in the election. Was Grant's election illegitimate?
The groups asking to postpone the Iraqi election have their own political motives--though they are not necessarily against the project of democracy per se, and their goal is not to leave Iraq, as was the case with those 11 states in 1864. But if 20 percent of the Iraqi population does not vote, will the vote be illegitimate? Well, what percentage of the American public votes--or did vote, before the unusually high turnout we had this year?
Then again, if the 20 percent are conducting an earnest boycott, they could argue that because of their boycott, the elections are illegitimate.
Funny how this works. My not-voting is worth something only if I don't vote on purpose. And if I get a lot of people to not do it with me.
