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Wednesday, December 21, 2005Live from Pollyanna Central...I know the news from Iraq isn't good, but... in the view of a lot of people, the news from the 2004 elections here wasn't good... the news from the French elections a few years back wasn't good... the news from the Spanish elections was dispiriting... Democracy is a messy business. Government of the people reflects the people, and to mangle the quotes, that's the worst thing possible except for everything else. So, the Islamists have had a good day in the Iraqi elections. Next, they get to govern. That's not as easy as it looks. Just ask the Republicans. In a few months, factionalism among the Shia comes. They're on top of the world right now. But the top dogs are most likely not thinking about how they can work together now that they've got a mandate. Rather, the leaders are each thinking, individually, about what they can do with the mandate. And when disagreements arise, there are only two real possibilities: they figure out how to work them out and start evolving into the sort of political party with which business can be done or they split off so that none has the power they used to have collectively. That a) the second possibility seems more likely and b) firearms will probably be involved is unnerving. But we've been there ourselves. The greatest danger right now, I think, is not what the Shiites will do, but whether they'll step aside should it backfire. Once a government has lost power in Iraq and has peacefully stepped down, we can declare the thing a success. That only took what, 40 years, to happen in Japan? 
posted by gbarto at 1:49 PM |
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Day By Day© by Chris Muir.Old TurkeyBlog here.
