Comments on: A Soviet-style election ?

By: Idiot/Savant

Idiot/Savant — Tue, 09 Nov 2004 11:01:49 +0000

Sam, While many other countries use list-based proportional representation systems, one of the fundamentals is that you get to choose between lists. In Iraq, where there are substantial barriers to being on the ballot, and where the regime can exclude anyone they like by calling them terrorists, this may not be the case.

By: dsquared

dsquared — Tue, 09 Nov 2004 10:45:21 +0000

George: I’m referring to the occupied territories (and, as giles points out, the Palestinians in Lebanon). I agree with you that there are significant points of disanalogy. But I’m not really trying to make a moral or political point one way or the other here. I’m just suggesting that, as a practical matter, since one of the things we hope to achieve in Iraq is a reduction of the threat from terrorism, then it’s probably bad news that we appear to be creating a place which looks very like another place which we know has contributed significantly to the global supply of terrorists.

By: abb1

abb1 — Tue, 09 Nov 2004 08:43:03 +0000

Come on, folks. Totalitarian-style one-set-of-candidates-vote-them-up-or-down-and-no-alternative election is nothing like ‘Israeli-style democracy’ nor it’s ‘the norm in parliamentary systems’ nor it’s anything ‘like Northern Ireland’. It’s a typical Soviet-style (and Saddam-style) election, just like John said.

By: John

John — Tue, 09 Nov 2004 06:10:14 +0000

liberation I think you mean! The US forces are the welcome guests of the 20 million people in Iraq. The war finished last year. Why of course! The hundreds of American servicemembers dead and thousands wounded and scarred and tens of thousands traumatized for life must have just had an accident. Yeah, that makes sense. Maybe it was a "police action". You know, Vietnam wasn't a declared war either. We won that one too! Dunno about you, but I always try to blow up my welcome guests.

By: Peter

Peter — Tue, 09 Nov 2004 02:03:57 +0000

I’m trying to understand exactly what you mean Don’t, George. “Israeli-style democracy”… “helicopter gunships”… Dsquared just likes the snarky sound of them. To try to understand how the words might actually apply to the facts is to defeat their purpose.

By: pj

pj — Tue, 09 Nov 2004 01:09:35 +0000

Didn’t Saddam also stand for yes/no elections in which the outcome was preordained? So has Iraq improved at all, much less changed enough to balance out the “transition costs” of up to 100,000 deaths.

By: George

George — Tue, 09 Nov 2004 00:56:03 +0000

dsquared: I’ve seen you make that argument (about Israeli-style democracy) before, and I don’t necessarily disagree. But I am curious about exactly what you mean. By “one or two enclaves containing about a million people where there is no effective democracy at all and where the locals are only kept under control with helicopter gunships”, do you mean the Occupied Territories or Israeli Arabs? If the former, I’d say there’s a crucial distinction to made, in that those territories are not part of Israel, and the Israelis have (I think) no legal or moral obligation to let them participate in Israel’s democracy. (They have other obligations toward them, of course.) If you mean the latter, I don’t think the Israelis are using heavy weaponry against Arabs in Israel. Again, I’m not trying to be provocative, and I think I understand your underlying point. But I’m trying to understand exactly what you mean.

By: Giles

Giles — Tue, 09 Nov 2004 00:53:51 +0000

I’m making the factual point that a very significant proportion of active international terrorists have served an apprenticeship in the Occupied Territories” Actually I think you’re thinking of Lebanon – virtually all the international PLO terrorists were exiles and the suicide bomber arrived and was developed in Lebanon, as was the roadside bomb, as was the homemade rocket, as indeed was Hamas. Once the research was done in Lebanon, all these ideas then moved it into Gaza. So I think it’d be truer to say that Gaza is an objective, or possibly a finishing school for terrorists – but its certainly not a training ground.

By: Lewis Hyde

Lewis Hyde — Tue, 09 Nov 2004 00:45:40 +0000

When John Agresto, the U.S.’s former senior advisor overseeing the Iraqi Ministry of Higher Education, spoke at Kenyon College on October 25th he was asked about the timeline for establishing democracy in Iraq. In his reply he said that we can’t expect a “Jeffersonian democracy” there, nor even a “Lockian democracy.” The best we can have is a “Hobbsian democracy.” I have no idea what that is, but maybe it helps explain the “Yes-No slate” you describe. —Lewis Hyde

By: John Quiggin

John Quiggin — Tue, 09 Nov 2004 00:35:10 +0000

I agree with commenters who observe that Sistani is not going along with this plan, and that it is therefore probably doomed, which is good. As for the suggestion that the plan would have allowed a free choice between the government and opponents like Sadr, the rules give the government immense power to harass its opponents, for example by banning parties on all sorts of pretexts. And of course the US is spending millions to promote the parties it supports. Plebiscites on governments imposed by force have never been free and fair and would not be in this case.

By: q

Tue, 09 Nov 2004 00:11:19 +0000

“occupation”…? liberation I think you mean! The US forces are the welcome guests of the 20 million people in Iraq. The war finished last year.

By: dsquared

dsquared — Tue, 09 Nov 2004 00:09:00 +0000

Giles, the slagging each other off about Israel thread has been closed. I’m making the factual point that a very significant proportion of active international terrorists have served an apprenticeship in the Occupied Territories, and most of the machinery of terrorism has been either invented or substantially developed there; the Tamils invented the concept of a suicide bomber, but the Palestinians invented the belts and most of the processes for carrying out a suicide attack. We’re in danger of turning Fallujah into an alternative proving ground.

By: rd

rd — Mon, 08 Nov 2004 22:25:47 +0000

giles, I agree that a Northern Ireland-esque sectarian politics is most likely. What I don’t understand is the automatic condemnation by Ottaway and others of an apparently failed effort to give Iraqi politics a non-sectarian choice.

By: Giles

Giles — Mon, 08 Nov 2004 22:13:50 +0000

Rd – In reality it looks more like Northern Ireland than Soviet democracy – you can vote for who you like, but both religions have got to be represented or you’ll revert to westminster rule.

By: rd

rd — Mon, 08 Nov 2004 22:08:34 +0000

the ottaway article is badly out of date. Sistani has vetoed the participation of Shiite parties in a cross faith coaltion. Instead, as discussed in yesterday’s NY Times by Edward Wang, he’s demanding an all Shiite alliance that includes Sadr as a partner. But if the Allawite plan for a grand coalition across sectarian lines had gone through, I’m at a loss to see why its ipso facto illegitimate or “Soviet-style.” The coalition would have excluded Sadr, so you’d have a cross-faith coalition in favor of pluralistic politics lined up against Sadr and other rejectionists among both Shiites and Sunnis. Why is this a less meaningful choice than one on purely sectarian grounds?