Iraqi elections: America’s final hurdle

March 7, 2010 · Posted in NEWS
Posted: Saturday, March 06, 2010 5:33 PM
Filed Under: Baghdad, Iraq

By Richard Engel, NBC News Chief Foreign Correspondent

BAGHDAD _ For a country recovering from a single-party dictatorship, Iraqis have had more elections in the last five years than Americans. But elections in Iraq, while once hailed as a proof of success, have also created bloodshed and chaos. This election has the potential to be no different, but could also put Iraq on a peaceful path and allow American troops to leave here with their heads high and finally – honestly – say, mission accomplished.

The blue finger moment
Iraqis held their first election after the U.S. invasion in January 2005. I remember the hope and excitement in Baghdad then. U.S. troops had been in Iraq less than two years. Stories of suffering under Saddam were still bubbling to the surface. Iraqis were traveling, marrying and opening businesses. But optimism was already starting to fade. Sunni Muslims were feeling increasingly excluded and punished by the Shiite Muslim majority. It was victims’ revenge for the Sunnis, who were favored by Saddam, himself a Sunni.

Just before the vote, U.S. troops carried out a major and highly destructive offensive in the Sunni city of Falujah, “the city of mosques,” as it is known here. The offensive only seemed to prove to Sunnis that America and the Shiites were in cahoots, both out to get them. Several elder Iraqi statesmen called on the United States to postpone the election until Iraq was more stable. It wasn’t right, they argued, to hold a vote while Sunni lands were war ones. But the United States refused any delay. The march of democracy had to continue, but not surprisingly Sunnis boycotted the elections across Iraq.

Uncontested, a coalition of religious Shiite parties swept to power. Ibrahim al-Jaafari, a soft-spoken but largely ineffective Shiite doctor and poet, was sworn in as prime minister. The United States, especially officials at the White House, declared the January 2005 elections an unabashed success. Images of Iraqis dancing at polling stations were “proof” that democracy was blooming in the Fertile Crescent. But many Iraqis, especially Sunnis, saw the election as a failure. Iran heavily influenced the vote, buying off many politicians. After the vote: Sunnis were out; Shiites were in; Iran was empowered; and Iraq was on a volatile course.

Second election
In December 2005, less than 12 months after the first election, Iraqis went back to the polls. There were again voting for parliament, but this time it would be “official.” Iraq now had a new constitution, also passed with extensive American help and pressure. With the constitution in hand, Iraqis went back to the ballot boxes and bottles of purple ink. This time, Sunnis, feeling they’d erred and were being left out of the political process, participated in the vote. Sunnis were going to take back power, or at least some of it, through elections. But the Shiite parties saw the threat coming.

To block the emerging Sunni challenge, Shiite parties banded together and pried an endorsement from their normally tight-lipped religious leadership in the Holy Shiite city of Najaf. Shiite clerics – including the highly respected Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani – quietly approved of what became known as the “Shiite List.” With the clerics’ support, the Shiite list won Iraq’s second election, formed and alliance with Kurdish parties and excluded Sunnis from power once again. Nouri al-Maliki from the Shiite “Dawa” party (Islamic Call party) was chosen as the new prime minister. Sunnis had tried to enter politics and failed, but the situations was about to get much worse.

VIDEO: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/35740505#35740505

Security deteriorates
After participating in the second election and failing to win power, Sunnis began to feel hopeless and open to new ideas, even radical ones. Militant Sunni groups including al-Qaida told Iraqis Sunnis they were wasting time participating in government and its infidel election process. It was better, they said, to fight against a US-Shiite-Iranian conspiracy, or die trying. The actions of increasingly violent Shiite militias only helped convince Sunnis of al-Qaida’s argument. After the second election, armed Shiite groups – emboldened by growing Shiite power and acting at times with government support – took over huge swaths of Baghdad.

Oddly, and perhaps incorrectly, the American media labeled Sunni militants “terrorists,” but branded equally brutal Shiite killers “militias.” The difference was most likely a result of the tactics they used. Sunni groups drove car bombs into crowded Shiite mosques and markets killing dozens of civilians at a time. Sunni groups carried out the kinds of atrocity that look and feel like terrorism. Shiite “militias” on the other hand preferred night raids, breaking into Sunnis homes, pulling civilians from their beds and torturing and assassinating them. It seemed more like the activities of death squads or militias. Some Shiite assassinations squads were backed by officials in the new Shiite-led government.

After the second election, the Sunni-Shiite civil war was brewing. It exploded in February 2006, two months after the second vote when Sunni extremists destroyed the holy Shiite mosque in Samaraa. After that, Sunnis and Shiites started to openly kill each other in the streets. Both sides entered a furious blood feud, targeting civilians, religious leaders and American troops trying to keep the two sides apart.

VIDEO: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/35737937#35737937


The surge
As the meat grinder of civil war chewed through Baghdad neighborhoods, U.S. military leaders and the White House (despite consistent claims that everything in Iraq was going well) decided to change policy. A new general, David Petraeus, was tapped to lead and save the war. Gen. Petraeus developed a new strategy. He realized that Sunnis felt disenfranchised. To give the Sunnis power, General Petraeus helped create tribal ‘Awakening Councils,’ arming and paying Sunnis to fight al-Qaida themselves. Not surprisingly, the Maliki government resisted the Awakening Councils, but eventually relented to American pressure. Gen. Petraeus also reinforced American troops by 30,000, and pushed U.S. soldiers off bases so they could live among Iraqis and try to stop the bloodshed.

It was a big gamble. Petraeus armed roughly 100,000 Sunni tribesmen and thrust American troops deeper into a civil war that at times looked impossible to win. Militarily, the strategy was a huge success. By the summer of 2007, violence plummeted. But the “surge” was never followed up by political reconciliation. As violence continued to fade in 2008, the United States turned its attention to the increasingly urgent and long-neglected war in Afghanistan. Iraqi was put on the back burner.

Today
In many ways this week’s elections are Iraq’s most important. They have the potential to end a brief, but exceptionally bloody explosion of sectarianism, or return it to the streets. The success of the election will also determine when and how America leaves Iraq. The only reason American troops are still here is to make sure the elections and the post-election transition go smoothly. If they do, seven years after it began, the American war in Iraq will be over.

Who’s running?
While there are more than 6,000 candidates, there are four main blocks that really matter.

1. A Shiite religious coalition, bringing together followers of ancient clerical families of al-Sadr and al-Hakim.
2:.A government list, led by Prime Minister Maliki. Maliki is taking credit for the drop in violence that began with the US troops surge. The success of the surge is his campaign.
3. A secular-Sunni bloc led by Ayad Allawi, a Shiite who briefly served as a U.S.-appointed prime minister before the first elections.
4. A Kurdish alliance, which is expected to win Kurdish regions in northern Iraq.

Who will win?
No single group is expected to win outright. Instead the four main blocks will have to share power. The negotiations to form new government could take six months or more. Maliki’s bloc, according to polls and western diplomats, might win the most votes and therefore be in the best position to try form a government. Maliki’s biggest rival is Ayad Allawi’s secular list. Maliki vs Allawi is the race to watch.

Best-case scenario
The elections go smoothly. The winning parties quickly form a government (in 2-3 months) and U.S. troops withdrawal on schedule, leaving behind a functioning Iraqi political system that can run on its own.

Worst-case scenario
Elections are violent, or perhaps more dangerously, riddled with fraud. Iraqi politicians bicker for months (six months or more) creating a power vacuum that al-Qaida and Shiite militias gladly try to fill. Security deteriorates. The United States is forced to decide whether to continue its pullout and watch Iraq burn, or stay longer and try to right the ship of state once again.

“Iraqi best” scenario
Elections go relatively smoothly, but are marred by a few accusations of fraud. Al-Qaida and Shiite attacks increase after the election, but not by enough to significantly derail the American withdrawal. Some US combat forces are briefly extended beyond August to safeguard against further violence, but the ultimate withdrawal date of December 2011 holds.

End game
This election is America’s final hurdle in Iraq. If the system holds, the main U.S. commitment in the war is over. Americans soldiers in Iraq become trainers until they leave. If the system fails and Iraqis – even with US troops still here – can’t manage a peaceful transition, then the seven year war effort defeated Saddam, beat an insurgency, but failed to build a stable country. We should know which way it goes in the next six months to a year.

http://worldblog.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2010/03/06/2221287.aspx