Post-Election
Iraq: What Next?
By Gary Leupp
15 January, 2005
Counterpunch
1. What was
the original U.S. stance towards the idea of free elections in Iraq?
2. Why did L. Paul
Bremer, heading up the U.S. occupation, state in the summer of 2003,
"Elections held too early can be destructive," adding that
while there was "no blanket rule" against democracy in Iraq,
and he wasn't "personally opposed to it," it had to take place
"in a way that takes care of our concerns" and is "done
very carefully"?
3. Why were elections
held much earlier than occupation authorities had originally projected?
What did the violent Iraqi resistance, and peaceful mass protests called
by al-Sistani have to do with it?
4. Why were people
asked to vote for lists, rather than individuals? Why were individuals'
names kept secret? Did people know who they were voting for?
5. Why did the Sunnis
generally boycott the poll?
6. Why were there
no foreign observers?
7. The Kurdish list
did very well. One nearly uninhabited village submitted about 10,000
ballots. Will such irregularities be investigated?
8. Why, when Fallujah
was destroyed in order to flush out opponents of the poll so that Sunnis
might participate, did so few elect to do so?
9. Why did it take
two weeks to announce the results?
10. Why, when it
had been widely predicted that the Shiites' United Iraqi Alliance (UIA)
would win about 60% of the vote, did it only get 48%?
11. According to
a March 2004 poll taken by BBC and four other broadcasters, CIA operative
Ahmad Chalabi had "almost no" support among the Iraqi people.
How did he emerge as a likely cabinet minister, even possibly the prime
minister?
12. Why did Judith
Miller tell Chris Matthews on MSNBC's "Hardball" that the
U.S. was "reaching out" to Chalabi, after accusing him of
being an Iranian agent in May 2004, "apparently in an effort to
determine whether or not he would be interested in assuming a certain
portfolio"? After Bush told King Abdullah of Jordan (where Chalabi
was convicted of swindling) "You can piss on Chalabi"?
Why, around February 7, did a line of Humvees and American trucks deliver
Robert Ford, one of the senior U.S. diplomats in Iraq, to Chalabi's
home for a two-hour visit that left him beaming?
13. If U.S. officials
are in fact determining or even influencing distribution of portfolios,
what does that tell you about the legitimacy of the election?
14. Overall turnout
was reportedly 8.55 million votes, which was 58 percent of those registered
to vote in a country of 25 million people. This is higher than the turnout
in the last eight presidential elections in the U.S., a country not
wracked by violence, occupied by foreign troops, or forced to accept
an electoral procedure approved by an occupation. Is it plausible?
15. Might U.S. authorities
in conjunction with Iraqi partners deliberately falsify turnout figures
in order to legitimate the election?
16. Why did U.S.
officials including President Bush repeatedly state that U.S. forces
would withdraw if asked to do so by an elected Iraqi government, adding
that that definitely wouldn't happen? Why, knowing that a Zogby poll
taken last month showed that 82% of Sunni Arabs and 69% of Shiites (69%)
favor an immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops, do they assume that the
elected officials will approve their plans to maintain 120,000 troops
at least to 2007?
17. Why did Chalabi
state publicly during a recent trip to Iran that U.S. troops would have
to stay in the country for the time being?
18. Why did Ayad
Allawi, another known CIA operative, do fairly well in the election?
19. U.S. officials
accused Iran of pouring money into its favored parties prior to the
elections, as though this were improper. How much money did the U.S.
provide to the parties it favored? And what is the U.S. history of pouring
money into foreign elections to influence their outcome?
20. Why on CNN's
"Crossfire" Jan. 28 did Paul Begala ("from the left"!)
declare days before the election that, although he'd opposed the war,
he felt the Iraqi people should be grateful for this "enormous
gift from the American people" but was "struck by their spectacular
lack of gratitude"? Why was there absolute unanimity in the corporate
press before and after the elections that they were a big step forward
for the Iraqi people, and that whatever one's view about the war might
be, we should all acknowledge this? Why was there no critique of the
whole procedure?
21. Does the Bush
administration, which speaks often of democracy and freedom, really
care much about scrupulously fair electoral processes, in the U.S.,
Afghanistan, Ukraine, Venezuela or anywhere if those processes produce
results it finds disagreeable?
22. Does this election
in any way validate an invasion justified as needed to rid Iraq of its
nonexistent weapons of mass destruction, and to sever its nonexistent
ties to al-Qaeda?
23. The current
"transitional government" operates under an interim constitution
that describes Iraq as an Islamic state. Under U.S. occupation, Islamic
parties have been able to impose rules concerning female dress, the
sale of alcohol and music CDs, and the practice of Christianity which
have sent tens of thousands of Christians into Syrian exile. Saddam's
Iraq was a secular state; the new regime that emerges now will be inclined
to impose the Sharia. Is this a happy result of the U.S. invasion?
24. Is this all
just window-dressing for continued occupation, or might quite unintended
consequences occur, posing problems for the Bush administration's goal
of regional domination?
25. If that goal
is thwarted, even by Islamic fundamentalists, is that a bad thing?
Gary Leupp
is Professor of History at Tufts University, and Adjunct Professor of
Comparative Religion. He can be reached at: [email protected]