This Election Will Change the World. But Not in the Way the Americans
Imagined
By Robert Fisk
The Independent U.K.
Saturday 29 January 2005
Shias are about to inherit Iraq, but the election tomorrow that will bring
them to power is creating deep fears among the Arab kings and dictators of the
Middle East that their Sunni leadership is under threat.
America has insisted on these elections - which will produce a largely Shia
parliament representing Iraq's largest religious community - because they are
supposed to provide an exit strategy for embattled US forces, but they seem set
to change the geopolitical map of the Arab world in ways the Americans could
never have imagined. For George Bush and Tony Blair this is the law of
unintended consequences writ large.
Amid curfews, frontier closures and country-wide travel restrictions,
voting in Iraq will begin tomorrow under the threat of Osama bin Laden's ruling
that the poll represents an "apostasy". Voting started among expatriate Iraqis
yesterday in Britain, the US, Sweden, Syria and other countries, but the
turnout was much smaller than expected.
The Americans have talked up the possibility of massive bloodshed tomorrow
and US intelligence authorities have warned embassy staff in Baghdad that
insurgents may have been "saving up" suicide bombers for mass attacks on
polling stations.
But outside Iraq, Arab leaders are talking of a Shia "Crescent" that will
run from Iran through Iraq to Lebanon via Syria, whose Alawite leadership forms
a branch of Shia Islam. The underdogs of the Middle East, repressed under the
Ottomans, the British and then the pro-Western dictators of the region, will be
a new and potent political force.
While Shia political parties in Iraq have promised that they will not
demand an Islamic republic - their speeches suggest that they have no desire to
recreate the Iranian revolution in their country - their inevitable victory in
an election that Iraq's Sunnis will largely boycott mean that this country will
become the first Arab nation to be led by Shias.
On the surface, this may not be apparent; Iyad Allawi, the former CIA agent
and current Shia "interim" Prime Minister, is widely tipped as the only viable
choice for the next prime minister - but the kings and emirs of the Gulf are
facing the prospect with trepidation.
In Bahrain, a Sunni monarchy rules over a Shia majority that staged a
mini-insurrection in the 1990s. Saudi Arabia has long treated its Shia minority
with suspicion and repression.
In the Arab world, they say that God favoured the Shia with oil. Shias live
above the richest oil reserves in Saudi Arabia and upon some of the Kuwaiti oil
fields. Apart from Mosul, Iraqi Shias live almost exclusively amid their own
country's massive oil fields. Iran's oil wealth is controlled by the country's
overwhelming Shia majority.
What does all this presage for the Sunni potentates of the Arabian
peninsula? Iraq's new national assembly and the next interim government it
selects will empower Shias throughout the region, inviting them to question why
they too cannot be given a fair share of their country's decision-making.
The Americans originally feared that parliamentary elections in Iraq would
create a Shia Islamic republic and made inevitable - and unnecessary - warnings
to Iran not to interfere in Iraq. But now they are far more frightened that
without elections the 60 per cent Shia community would join the Sunni
insurgency.
Tomorrow's poll is thus, for the Americans, a means to an end, a way of
claiming that - while Iraq may not have become the stable, liberal democracy
they claimed they would create - it has started its journey on the way to
Western-style freedom and that American forces can leave.
Few in Iraq believe that these elections will end the insurgency, let alone
bring peace and stability. By holding the poll now - when the Shias, who are
not fighting the Americans, are voting while the Sunnis, who are fighting the
Americans, are not - the elections can only sharpen the divisions between the
country's two largest communities.
While Washington had clearly not envisaged the results of its invasion in
this way, its demand for "democracy" is now moving the tectonic plates of the
Middle East in a new and uncertain direction. The Arab states outside the Shia
"Crescent" fear Shia political power even more than they are frightened by
genuine democracy.
No wonder, then, King Abdullah of Jordan is warning that this could
destabilise the Gulf and pose a "challenge" to the United States. This may also
account for the tolerant attitude of Jordan towards the insurgency, many of
whose leaders freely cross the border with Iraq.
The American claim that they move secretly from Syria into Iraq appears
largely false; the men who run the rebellion against US rule in Iraq are not
likely to smuggle themselves across the Syrian-Iraqi desert when they can
travel "legally" across the Jordanian border.
Tomorrow's election may be bloody. It may well produce a parliament so
top-heavy with Shia candidates that the Americans will be tempted to "top up"
the Sunni assembly members by choosing some of their own, who will inevitably
be accused of collaboration. But it will establish Shia power in Iraq - and in
the wider Arab world - for the first time since the great split between Sunnis
and Shias that followed the death of the Prophet Muhammad.
***
"Sadr's Subtle Defiance of 'Demonstration Elections'" (The January
30, 2005 elections in Iraq are the textbook definition of
"demonstration elections." Unlike Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani,
who issued "a fatwa saying all Shiia men and women have an obligation
to vote in the upcoming election," the Moktada al-Sadr faction
"uttered not a single word about the vote" at Friday Prayers,
according to the New York Times, foreshadowing "a less than
overwhelming voter turnout in many parts of Iraq." The Times, doing
a job expected of the corporate media in "demonstration elections,"
industriously tries to create an impression that the Sadr faction are
against democracy itself, solely by virtue of their quiet refusal to
browbeat their "vast following" into embracing the elections on the
30th. Needless to say, the idea that it is people's right to
evaluate whether or not an election is free, fair, and democratic and
that boycotting an unfree, unfair, and undemocratic election is a
time-honored tactic of democrats everywhere is unspeakable in the
corporate media) -- FULL TEXT:
<http://montages.blogspot.com/2005/01/sadrs-subtle-defiance-of-demonstration.html>.
--
Yoshie
***
Iraqi President Says Most Iraqis Won't Vote
Reuters
Saturday 29 January 2005
BAGHDAD - Iraq's president said on Saturday he expected violence to deter
the majority of Iraqis from voting in Sunday's landmark election.
"What we hope is that most Iraqis will take part in the election, but we
know that the majority will not because of the security situation," President
Ghazi al-Yawar told reporters.
"The majority will decide not to take part, not because they are boycotting
the election, but because of the security situation," said Yawar, a Sunni
Muslim Arab.
There has been a sharp increase in violence, including car bomb blasts,
mortar attacks and shootings, this week as polling day approaches. The U.S.
military said attacks on U.S. and Iraqi troops had trebled in the past seven
days.
Yawar's remarks contrasted with an appeal by interim Prime Minister Iyad
Allawi for all Iraqis to defy violence and vote.
"I ask them to participate in the elections whether they are inside or
outside Iraq: Sunnis, Shi'ites, Kurds, Christians," Allawi told Sky television
in Baghdad. An estimated 14 million Iraqis are eligible to vote on Sunday in
Iraq's first multi-party election since the 1950s.
Insurgent groups, particularly the organization headed by Jordanian
militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, have vowed to disrupt voting and stop people
from going to polling centers.
Around 6,000 polling centers have been set up around Iraq, but the location
of many is being kept secret until the last minute to minimize the risk that
they will be bombed.
Turnout is expected to be low in Sunni Arab areas, where the insurgency
gripping Iraq for nearly two years is focused. The government has said it hopes
for a national turnout of around 50 percent.
Yawar, whose position is mainly ceremonial, also said any political process
that did not include Sunnis, Kurds and Shi'ites, Iraq's three main religious
and ethnic groups, would be invalid.
Shi'ites, who make up about 60 percent of Iraq's population and were
oppressed during Saddam Hussein (news - web sites)'s rule, are widely expected
to dominate the polls.
***
Survey Finds Deep Divisions in Iraq
Zogby International | Press Release
Friday 28 January 2005
Sunni Arabs overwhelmingly reject Sunday elections; majority of Sunnis, Shiites
favor U.S. Withdrawal, New Abu Dhabi TV / Zogby poll reveals.
Iraq's Sunday elections will be held against a backdrop of deep division
between the country's ethnic groups, with an overwhelming majority of Sunni
Arabs refusing to vote in the January 30 elections, a new Abu Dhabi TV/Zogby
International poll finds. The poll also finds majorities of both Iraq's Shiites
and Sunnis calling for a rapid withdrawal of U.S. forces from their soil. Zogby
International polled 805 Iraqi adults from January 19 to 23, 2005 on behalf of
television broadcaster Abu Dhabi TV. The margin of error is +/- 3.6 percentage
points.
The survey, to be released at 5 p.m. ET on Abu Dhabi Television, found
three-quarters (76%) of Sunni Arabs say they definitely will not vote in the
January 30 elections, while just 9% say they are likely to vote. A majority of
Shiites (80%) say they are likely to vote or definitely will vote, as are a
smaller majority of Kurds (57%).
Majorities of both Sunni Arabs (82%) and Shiites (69%) also favor U.S.
forces withdrawing either immediately or after an elected government is in
place.
The poll also found that of Iraq's ethnic and religious groups, only the
Kurds believe the U.S. will help Iraq over the next five years, while half
(49%) of Shiites and a majority (64%) of Sunni Arabs believe the U.S. will hurt
Iraq.
There are deep divisions that exist, "divisions that are so deep and
pronounced that this election, instead of bringing people together, may very
well tear them apart," said Dr. James Zogby, an analyst for Zogby International
and host of Abu Dhabi TV's "Viewpoint". The closest thing to this in America
isn't red and blue states. It's probably the election of 1860.
The poll also finds that, while a majority of Shiites (84%) and Kurds (64%)
wish to hold the elections Sunday as planned, Sunni Arabs overwhelmingly favor
delaying the vote (62%).
What's truly alarming isn't the number of Sunni Arabs who want to delay
Sunday's vote, Zogby said. What's alarming is that more than half, 53% in this
survey, believe that ongoing attacks in Iraq are a legitimate form of
resistance. With this group already boycotting the election, this makes for a
very violent combination.
Only the Kurds seem to favor a continued U.S. presence, and are likely to
outright reject violent resistance, Zogby added.
The survey also asked Iraqis which nations they believed it was possible to
foster improved relations with. While a majority of Iraqis believe relations
can be improved between Iraq and neighbors Kuwait, Turkey, and Iran, all ethnic
and religious groups overwhelmingly rejected improving relations with the State
of Israel.
Iraqis do not desire to remake their country in the image of neighboring
Iran, however. Three-in-five (59%) favor a system where citizens are allowed to
practice their own religion, while one-in-three (34%) would prefer an Islamic
government.
The survey was conducted throughout Iraq, including the cities of Baghdad,
Hilla, Karbala and Kirkuk, as well as the Mohafazat (provinces) of Diala and
Anbar.
Abu Dhabi TV/Zogby International conducted interviews of 805 Iraqis. Field
work dates were from 1/19/05 thru 1/23/05. The margin of error is +/- 3.6
percentage points. Slight weights were added to education, ethnicity, religion,
gender to more accurately reflect the population. Margins of error are higher
in sub-groups.
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
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