Haaretz
Shvat 21, 5765
"Fellow Shi'ite (or Sunni or Kurd), we assume
because of your current ethnic association that you will be voting Shi'ite
in the coming election. If you do not wish to vote, please return this
letter signed, otherwise your vote will be recorded according to our
assumptions."
This letter - paraphrasing the letters that credit
card companies send their customers - was suggested by screenwriter Lee
Kalcheim ("All in the Family") and satirist Marshall Efron in the Boston
Globe ("Voting, Iraqi style," January 26) as a way of enabling Iraqis who
are afraid of venturing to the polls to vote without risking their
lives.
The two also suggest taking the Iraqi citizens to the United
States - "say Florida or Ohio, where they can vote in absolute safety" -
and then taking them back to Iraq.
Perhaps a more effective way is
to send Iraqi citizens "who wish to martyr themselves for the democratic
cause" to vote at "flamboyantly marked polling places," which will
probably be targeted for terrorist attacks, while the rest of the citizens
cast their ballot at "secretly designated fruit and vegetable
stands."
Mocking the elections that will take place in Iraq today -
the first such vote in half a century - is not directed at democracy. It
is ridiculing the sanctification of the democratic process, even when it
is a circus. Even if the elections pass relatively smoothly, without
unusually harsh attacks - that is, up to 50 casualties per attack - and
even if the voting rate is higher than 40 percent, this is not a
democratic process, certainly not a political remedy to a convulsive
patient like Iraq.
Iraq will continue to be an occupied state after
the elections. This election campaign, which itself is not free of
profound corruption and political threats, will not replace the present
regime's system - distributing large benefits to cronies. It may even lead
to the state's breaking up into at least two factions: the Kurds, who act
like an independent state anyway, and all the rest, including an
unsatisfied Sunni minority.
The Iraqi "democracy" will not be able
to ensure the vision that every democratic rule brings with it: real
rights for minorities, protection for women, freedom of expression and,
mainly, the citizens' real participation in government. If the political
predictions are realized, then any parliament established after these
elections will be subjected to the pressures of Shia spiritual leaders.
Just like these elections were arranged according to the timetable
dictated by the Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, the prime spiritual reference
for Shia Muslims, and the format he approved.
Another threat was
implied by Jordan's King Abdullah, who warned three weeks ago of the
establishment of a "Shia crescent," which will lean on Iran and Iraq. He
was not referring to the religious threat but to the fear of a new
strategic constellation in the region, which would not be conducive to
creating a more liberal Middle East and serve as a basis for violent,
uncontrollable developments.
The democracy in Iraq could find
itself very quickly in the predicament of the democracy in Afghanistan: an
elected government that does not rule the state and is forced to give up
parts of its powers to local strongmen who are running a state within a
state. This situation enabled the Taliban's rise to power in
Afghanistan.
U.S. President George W. Bush will today explain to
the nation the historic importance of the elections in Iraq. He will try
to persuade other Middle East states and leaders to adopt this way. It is
all too convenient to adopt this call and bandy the Iraqi example as the
beginning of a new order. It would be better to wait. Iraq consists of all
the components required to tar and feather the term democracy.