Are Iraqi Elections a Panacea?

By Ivan Eland

"President Bush, in his second inaugural address, used soaring idealistic rhetoric to tell us that he was going to democratize the Middle East. After the recent Iraqi elections, he declared a triumphant moment in that effort. Yet those elections—with their predictable results—may not mean much for the future of Iraq and might, when combined with other U.S. policies in the Islamic world, reinforce world perceptions of U.S. foreign policy as hypocritical.

"Iraqis should be commended for risking their lives to vote. Sadly, it may ultimately be in vain. The heavy turnout in Shi’ite localities and the light turnout in Sunni areas were predictable. The problem is that the Sunni insurgents may actually benefit from the increased estrangement of the Sunni community from the rest of the country, once it becomes clear the Sunnis are underrepresented in the new national assembly. The heavy voter turnout in the Shi’ite areas is not an endorsement of the continued U.S. occupation of Iraq. Instead it reflects a desire for the traditionally oppressed Shi’a to rule the other ethnic groups and the novelty of a real choice in elections after decades of sham plebiscites under multiple dictators.

"Merely having elections doesn’t guarantee that a unified Iraq will achieve a violence-free liberal federation. If the elected Shi’ite regime governs oppressively, the Sunni rebellion will be further inflamed. In any democracy, the majority—if given political power—can oppress minorities. After all, the Sunnis are now fighting, in part, to prevent “paybacks” from a Shi’ite government for all of the oppression that the Sunnis dished out to the Shi’a over the years ..."
Source: The Independent Institute