What is your most realistic assessment of Iraq after this election?

[kentuck]

With 7000 candidates up for election, more than 6700 will be losers. We can put on our rainbow shades and pretend that everyone will accept the election results as simply part of the "democratic" process. But unfortunately, they do not know the definition of "democratic process". So, no one can say with certainty how the losers and their followers might react after the election. If they were like the American people, they would simply shrug their shoulders and say, "the people have spoken". But they are not like the American people.

Everyone was at the county circus because it was a happening. But the circus will have left town tomorrow and reality will return. It will take at least two more weeks to count the vote but there will be leaks of probable winners, etc before it is officially announced. Perhaps it was better to have the election than not have it but the next few months will tell the tale. I would suspect assassinations and more bombings, perhaps assassinations of the newly elected Parliament members?

It is doubtful that the "insurgents" voted or give a damn about who else voted. It is doubtful that they will simply stop what they were doing. More than likely, the status quo will return after a couple of days - unless we think the "insurgents" will accept the decisions of the Iraqi voters. The bigger question will be : Will the Iraqi citizens accept the decisions of the voters? It is totally unpredictable in my viewpoint.

[Bucky]

1. A small bit of good news in a sea of shit. I welcome it, but not the spin

I'm glad they're voting. If it convinces even a handful of insurgents to quit avenging their dead family members, it's worth the cost. We've created a generation of America haters in the middle east and the sooner they can get their minds on hating each other again instead the better off we'll be.

[stray cat]

2. Not optimistic but I sure hope Iraqis come together

I think this is a critical time and I'm afraid how it will play out. I think this is our last chance to see things turn around if they are going to.

[KoKo]

3. Frankly? I'm sick of Iraq.......I worry more about New Orleans and my own

State than I think about Iraq. I protested BEFORE THE INVASTION against this war for the Iraqi's "so called Freedom." If they didn't like Saddam eventually they would have rid themselves of him. But MY TAX MONEY...MY HEALTH CARE...MY CHILDREN'S FUTURE AND MY COUNTRY have Gone to Hell in a Handbasket for Iraq.

I'm sick of Iraq....I don't want to hear any more about it. It's coming up on to a high Holy Day for us Christians here in America...and all I hear and see are a bunch of TOADY US POLITICIANS running around with purple fingers being so PROUD OF WHAT THEY VOTED FOR.

I've done all I can for the Iraqi's. I fought for those lives that were lost by standing on Street Corners with signs and losing friends and family over my views to protect the Iraqi's.

I'm tired of it...Go Away...I want MY LIFE BACK!!!!!!!!!!!!

[MadisonProgressive]

6. KoKo - you were quoted by Mike Malloy a few nights back

[tocqueville]

4. they only promote different agendas.....

the real settlement will use AK47s, not ballots... matter of time. Clark sees a window of 4 months. It's hardly believable that the US will SUBSTANTIALLY pull out within 4 months...

besides other factors are maybe more important : Iran is deliberately provoking an attack by Israel. This will result in retaliation in ... Iraq. Syria is in a situation where they have nothing to lose... but fight.. the latest bombing is a proof of that. Hamas has taken over the control of the Palestinians...

There are high probabilities that the whole region is going to explode next year...

thanks George's brilliant approach

look how it went for Vietnam... it worsened after the elections, guns talked again... then Cambodia and Laos...

[MadisonProgressive]

5. If the religious faction wins - civil war

If the secular faction wins - probably civil war

[The Magistrate]

7. A Mere Census For The Civil War, Sir

Doubtless a great many Iraqis wish for and badly want something else, but that is what they are going to get. This simply counts the sides in advance of general hostilities, and allows certain factions to try shape the battlefield in their favor by gaining state budget for their militia forces, and consolidating power in their sections under color of state authority....

[kentuck]

8. Sir, I would say that is a very realistic assessment....

That makes more sense than anything I have heard from this Administration.

[KoKo]

9. Kentuck and Magistrate....I wish I could "remove myself" from Emotional

Rhetoric" the way the both of You Do...and maybe both of you view me as an "Hystrionic Female," here on DU. BUT, I've got to tell you that SOME TIMES CALL FOR PASSION...and our Fuckin' Dems can't seem to call up an "inner well where the Passion can be dragged from" so I figure it's up to FOLKS LIKE ME TO GET REALLY UPSET about ALL THIS SHIT GOING ON!!

IT's AWFUL/DREADFUL and it's GOOD TO VENT ABOUT IT...Because it's IMPORTANT!

[kentuck]

13. Passion is as important as any other ingredient...

and perhaps more important than most, because it is passion that stirs the tea.

[Monkey see Monkey Do]

10. see this re al-Sadr's pan-Iraqi "Pact of Honour"

As part of his effort to influence the political forces in Iraq prior to the forthcoming parliamentary election, at the end of November Muqtada al-Sadr had his supporters distribute the draft of a "Pact of Honor," and called on Iraqi parties to discuss and collectively adopt it at a conference to be organized before the election.

(...)

In the case of the recent conference, the vast array of forces that were represented and that signed the "Pact of Honor" is in itself already worthy of attention. Aside from the Sadrists, chiefly represented by their MPs, those represented and who signed the document included: SCIRI, al-Daawa (al-Jaafari's personal representative even apologized in his name for his absence due to his traveling outside of Iraq), and the Iraqi Concord Front (the major Sunni electoral alliance in the forthcoming election), to name but the most prominent of a long list of organizations, along with several tribal chiefs, unions and other social associations, members of the De-Ba'athification Committee and a few government officials. Ahmad Chalabi -- who definitely deserves to be called "The Transformer" -- attended in person and signed the document in the name of his group. It seems that the Association of Muslim Scholars did not attend, as its name is not mentioned in any of the two sources.

(...)

http://www.juancole.com/2005/12/guest-editorial-achcar-on-sadr.html

"Among the crucial points of the pact are: withdrawal of the occupiers and setting of an objective timetable for their withdrawal from Iraq; elimination of all the consequences of their presence, including any bases for them in the country, while working seriously for the building of (Iraqi) security institutions and military forces within a defined schedule; no more immunity for the occupation troops; no relations whatsoever with Israel; a condemnation of terrorism ("We condemn terrorism and acts of violence, killing, abducting and expulsion aimed at innocent citizens for sectarian reasons."); a condemnation of the Ba'ath Party as "a terrorist organization" and an urge "to speed up the trial of overthrown president Saddam Hussein"; and a decision to "postpone the implementation of the disputed principle of federalism"."

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/GL15Ak03.html

(Of course, there will be an independent Kurdistan which will go to war with Turkey, but hey.)

[TallahasseeGrannie]

11. I have absolutely no idea

and I think you have to spend time there to know.

[Jacobin]

12. More of the same

Remember the last 'election?'

Anything change since then?

We need to leave and let them figure out their own fate. It is their country after all.

[sinkingfeeling]

14. In all reality, we are probably seeing Iraq being turned over to

those with a long history of hating Americans and consolidating with Iran. Did anybody read Will Pitt's latest on Truthout? He explains that the two largest Iraqi political parties are backed by Iran and have been involved in terrorism for decades.

[Sparkly]

15. Well, it'll identify targets, for one thing...

Anybody who's elected to anything will likely be in real danger.

Other than that, unless BushCo actually DOES something to change course, the course Iraq has been on will just keep going, imho.