The Big Lie: The Islamic Republic of Iraq at politburo diktat 2.0

The Big Lie: The Islamic Republic of Iraq

Juan Cole, the Kossacks, and other Lefties have adopted the Party Line of the week, comrades. Thus:

“The elections in Iraq will install an Islamic Republic, so there is no cause for celebration by the wingnuts.”

They lie.

All we need to do is look at the results of the January 2005 election and compare that to last week’s election.

Broadly speaking, there are four electoral segments in Iraq: Sunni Arabs, secular Shiites, religious Shiites, and Kurds. To be sure the religious Shiites are the largest of these groups.

In January, the Sunni Arabs largely boycotted the elections. Even so, the religious Shiites had to include secular types and Kurds to form a government. I hesitate to characterize anything that the American forces have done as “wise,” but there may have been a degree of wisdom in the super-majority provisions that the Jan. 05 government operated under. That is to say, the Transitional Administrative Law (TAL) required that the provisional government obtain supermajorities to elect a Prime Minister and to approve a Constitution. Further, that Constitution had to be submitted to a popular referendum, with more supermajority requirements.

Thus, that government was dominated by religious Shiites (more so than any future government, elected with Sunni participation, will ever be) and it produced a wholly acceptable Constitution. It imposed no theocracy, no Islamic Republic.

Now, we have had broader elections. The Sunnis will gain more seats. The Kurds will hold thier own. Juan Cole trumpets early leaked returns that shows the religious Shiite list out-polling the secular Shiite lists. That may be. Even so, the religious Shiites will inevitably have fewer seats in the new Parliament. They have reached their high-water mark. And they knew this all this past year. It was common knowledge amongst the Shiites and in the press that they would seek to “go as far as they could” with the Constitution. And it was a fine document.

Now, a broad-based Parliamentary government will take shape. No doubt its machinations, deals, and crises will resembel those of any other parliamentary democracy. Hah. Every time a Minister leaves the government, Kos and Cole will declare a “failed government.” No doubt violence in Iraq will continue. But no theocratic Islamic government has been elected this week. It only serves the purposes of the lying, anti-American Lefties to say so.