Democracy Ahead in Iraq?

Prime Minister Allawi of Iraq has entered a huge theoretical question into the picture. What, he asked, in visiting with President Bush, would happen if, indeed, there were not full participation in the elections scheduled for January? So it’s an imperfect world. One has to get on with what one has.The generality is easily communicable. Everything of this world is worldly. Still, a democratic exercise presupposes comprehensiveness in at least one dimension. It may be that, as within America for about 100 years, the black vote was undercounted. But there was never an election in which specified geographic areas were disfranchised.If you insist that the validation of democracy requires a vote by the entire community of voters, you run into an immediate problem, inasmuch as less than one-half the eligible voters in America actually vote, so that the political exercise isn’t a clinically established confirmation of the people’s will.But Dr. Allawi is venturing very far from that kind of cavil. When the American Constitution was up for ratification, the language specified that when nine of the states had signed on, the government of America would be promulgated – never mind those states that had not ratified. Thus, North Carolina, Rhode Island, and Vermont were left free, in 1789, to make their own arrangements, while the new Constitution had sway over its constituent members.It sounds, in theory, perfectly reasonable. Dr. Allawi enumerated: There are 18 provinces in Iraq, and “14 to 15 are completely safe.” Three are “pockets of terrorists.” And they, of course, seek to subvert Islamic self-rule elsewhere.The analysis ran head-on into political criticism from Senator Kerry. His point being in two parts, the first that the situation is so fluid, it can’t be predicted what would be the affirmative provincial constituency of the new Iraqi government. The second, that the insurgents are growing in power and authority and that neither Dr. Allawi nor his sponsor, America, has devised reliable means of stopping this. President Bush took the occasion to repeat that if in the estimate of commanders on the scene more troops were needed to maintain order, more troops would be dispatched.Meanwhile, the internal political scene is agitated. The Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, who is the unchallenged leader of the Shiite community, professes a general dissatisfaction with electoral arrangements, but is interpreted as saying in effect that any election that fails to return a Shiite majority can’t faithfully reflect reality, inasmuch as the Shiites now constitute 60% of the population. But Shiite ascendancy is done at the cost of the Sunni, who, through the Baath Saddamite wing, exercised power for so many years.The quarrel is over the electoral ballot, with precedence being given to those names that appear higher on the list of candidates. But in order to influence or effect any redesign, political power must be exercised, and the betting is that Mr. al-Sistani will not boycott the election, since that would result in eliminating, or reducing, Shiite influence on the outcome.The whole thing does appear a bit like a mock convention. At Washington and Lee University, every four years, students devote themselves almost full-time to a convention that will nominate the Democratic and Republican “candidates.” There is lobbying, there are votes on political alternatives – and its entrepreneurs reflect with satisfaction that in most years, the students correctly anticipate what in due course happens in the real election.It pays to remind ourselves that working democracies depend for their existence on one thing and one thing alone: It is the submission of the minority. When that isn’t forthcoming, as in America in 1860, confederations break apart.Dr. Allawi eloquently described the historical narrative: “I stand here today as the prime minister of a country emerging finally from dark ages of violence, aggression, corruption, and greed.”His devout hope is that Iraq can move forward from its past, but to succeed, the insurgents need to be discredited and neutered, and the great surviving units must ratify a constitution from which no province can abstain, and which, above all, divides church and state.

Democracy Ahead in Iraq?

Democracy Ahead in Iraq?

More from the New York Sun

Mike Tyson, the Middle East, and Fashion’s Skewed Moral Standards

Israel Is on High Alert After Terror Attack Amid Fears War Will Disrupt Election

Truth and Consequences Out of Tulsa Return To Torment Ethan Hawke in ‘The Lowdown’

Billion Dollar Startup Claims It’s Genetically Engineering Military Dogs To Be Ready for Battlefield Before End of Decade

Cook Political Report Now Has Democrats ‘Outright’ Favored In Enough Districts To Win House

Trump Faces Unappealing Choice: Testify Under Oath on Video or Forfeit $10 Billion BBC Lawsuit

The Assisted Death Clinic That Has Helped Ten New Yorkers To End Their Lives

Melania Trump Secures Ceasefire in Besieged Ukrainian City, White House Announces

More from the New York Sun

Mike Tyson, the Middle East, and Fashion’s Skewed Moral Standards

Israel Is on High Alert After Terror Attack Amid Fears War Will Disrupt Election

Truth and Consequences Out of Tulsa Return To Torment Ethan Hawke in ‘The Lowdown’

Billion Dollar Startup Claims It’s Genetically Engineering Military Dogs To Be Ready for Battlefield Before End of Decade

Cook Political Report Now Has Democrats ‘Outright’ Favored In Enough Districts To Win House

Trump Faces Unappealing Choice: Testify Under Oath on Video or Forfeit $10 Billion BBC Lawsuit

The Assisted Death Clinic That Has Helped Ten New Yorkers To End Their Lives

Melania Trump Secures Ceasefire in Besieged Ukrainian City, White House Announces