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Excellent analysis: Feb 1, 2005 THE ROVING EYE Why the US will not leave Iraq By Pepe Escobar <snip> History may still reveal the case that Sunday's elections under occupation, with rules established by the occupier, suit everyone except the long-suffering 27 million Iraqis.
Up to 8 million Iraqis, about 60% of eligible voters, are believed to have voted nationwide, although this could not be verified. Voters in Shi'ite and Kurdish areas turned out in large numbers. The turnout in Sunni-dominated areas such as Fallujah and Mosul, where the insurgency is strongest, and where Sunni leaders had called for a boycott, was substantially lower.
The contenders
The White House, the Pentagon and the neo-conservatives were forced - by Shi'ite leader Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani's brilliant brinkmanship - to accept these elections, in which a Shi'ite victory is assured. For many Iraqis, Sunni and Shi'ite, Washington's endgame is not withdrawal, but finding the right proxy government: only the naive may believe that an imperial power would voluntarily abandon the dream scenario of a cluster of military bases planted over virtually unlimited reserves of oil.
Washington doesn't even try to disguise it, and in Baghdad, US-appointed interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi is widely referred to as either "the man from the Americans" or "Saddam without a moustache". In these elections, where security was extremely tight - many candidates dared not appear in public for fear of being shot - Allawi benefited from three exclusive assets: name recognition; protection by 1,000 heavily armed guards; and US-sponsored saturation television exposure (although most Iraqis have no electricity at the moment). His campaign slogan was "A strong leader for a strong country". Allawi is a secular Shi'ite, but as a former Ba'athist, he also appeals to moderate Sunnis.
<snip>
Shi'ites swamped the polls in part because Sistani told them it was a "religious duty" to vote. It's unclear how far the next Sistani-blessed government will go to dispel the widely-held Sunni perception of the elections as "a movie" directed by the Americans and packaged to the rest of the world. The Shi'ite leadership at the UIA cannot afford an enduring, widely held Sunni perception of a Washington-Shi'ite alliance. Things may get much worse. Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, the No 1 in the UIA list - who has ruled out becoming the new prime minister - was the leader of the Badr Brigades for almost 20 years. The Badr Brigades - trained by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards - were the armed wing of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI). Now they're rebranded as the Badr Organization, a political party also represented in the UIA. One can imagine the volcanic possibility of the Badr Brigades being employed by the Shi'ites to fight the Sunni resistance.
Muqtada will immediately pounce at any suggestion of a Shi'ite cozying up to the Americans and denounce a Jaafari, Mahdi, or better yet Allawi II government as an American puppet. Sheikh Hassan al-Zarqani, the Sadrists' press officer, has already delivered the message in unmistakable terms: "The Iraqi people want a pullout timetable, security, job opportunities and social services. We will obey the new elected government if it serves the best interests of the Iraqi people. If not, we will be its arch enemies." If the US stays, the resistance will become even bloodier. In the unlikely possibility of the US leaving soon, this could open the way to civil war and a balkanization of Iraq. If the US leaves following a negotiated timetable, an elected Shi'ite government in Iraq will be more than empowered - a terrifying prospect for its undemocratic Sunni Arab neighbors.
<more>
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/GB01Ak02.html
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