Will The Iraqis Kick Out the US After the Election?

Can The Iraqis Kick Out the US After the Election?

 

They couldn't keep us out while Saddam had his iron fist ruling the country, so I would guess that it would be extremely difficult for them to force us out after elections.

 

Will the democratically elected theocratic government of Iraq kick us out?

Yes...

Here we go boys and girls. The war Bush wanted has begun.

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Iraqi Sunnis dispute election results

BAGHDAD (AFP) - Iraq's opposition factions, including the largest Sunni group, contested Shiite election gains in Baghdad and threatened to demand a new ballot as preliminary results exposed a heavy sectarian bias.

Even as Iraqi President Jalal Talabani and US ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad called for unity governments to transcend the country's divisions, the results show that Iraqis voted primarily by their ethnic or sectarian identity.

The National Concord Front, a coalition of three major Sunni powers that competed in parliamentary polls for the first time, condemned what it described as fraud and violations in the election.

Amid high sectarian tensions between the majority Shiites and the fallen Sunni elite, the Sunni coalition cast doubt on preliminary results that favored the largest Shiite coalition in Baghdad.

"We reject these results announced by the commission," Adnan al-Dulaimi, one of the leaders of the National Concord Front coalition, he told a news conference.

The predominantly Shiite provinces in the south voted overwhelmingly -- to the tune of 75 percent to 95 percent -- for the religious Shiite United Iraqi Alliance.

Similar percentages were recorded in the three northern Kurdish provinces voted for the Kurdish Alliance.

The strongly Sunni province of Al-Anbar voted almost 74 percent for the National Concord Front and nearly 18 percent for Sunni rivals, the National Dialogue Front.

Initial results in mixed provinces such as Diyala and Nineveh threw up inconclusive results matching ethnic and sectarian breakdowns.

The big loser was the cross-sectarian secular coalition of former prime minister Iyad Allawi, which broke the 10 percent barrier in only a handful of provinces, despite expectations that he would perform well.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20051220/wl_afp/iraq_051220205341

 

There's probably some scheme to shoe in a rube president who will give us a 99 year contract to build a base or two there....

 

We must move quickly. The dissenters are relentless; if they are not all destroyed, it will be civil war without end. First, I want you to go to the Shiite Temple. We will catch them off balance. Do what must be done, Lord Vader. Do not hesitate. Show no mercy. Only then will you be strong enough with the dark side to save The President.

Or something like that.

 

From what I've read, the ideal scenario, that the Kurds and the Sunnis (with any secular candidates that miraculously pull out a win) would get enough seats to be a check on the theocratic Shia ticket has not come to pass. If anything, a worse scenario has come true... the Sunnis and secular candidates are screaming that the election was a fraud, and there is widespread reports of fraud, so I don't think they're blowing smoke. With an outcome like that, the future looks grim.

I think we will be asked to leave at some point, but whether it is during a big increase (compared to recent the reduction in violence by Sunni insurgents, in hopes of the "ideal scenario" coming to pass) in violence, because of a widespread perception by Sunnis that the election was stolen, is another question. This election was to write the constitution to finally have one that "counts," right? If so, things look grim.

Can we be forced to leave, if we are asked to do so? One would imagine that to be the case, but "we" have done what an Administration thought was needed before (usually a huge mistake), which is to cause something to happen that makes the current (read "future") government to collapse, creating the chaos that allows continued US presence in the country.

I feel dirty just typing the above. We have done this many times during our history. It would be nice to think that behavior was beneath the United States, finally. With this Administration, I fear the worst.



Keep D&D Civil.

 

Again, no matter the situation, Rummy and his ilk will force down a Gitmo-like contract.

They won't be able to kick us out then....

 

Jr doesn't seem to be mentioning the Iraq election much these days. Wonder why?

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Iraq's election result: a divided nation

Iraq is disintegrating. The first results from the parliamentary election last week show the country is dividing between Shia, Sunni and Kurdish regions.

Religious fundamentalists now have the upper hand. The secular and nationalist candidate backed by the US and Britain was humiliatingly defeated.

The Shia religious coalition has won a total victory in Baghdad and the south of Iraq. The Sunni Arab parties who openly or covertly support armed resistance to the US are likely to win large majorities in Sunni provinces. The Kurds have already achieved quasi-independence and their voting reflected that.

The election marks the final shipwreck of American and British hopes of establishing a pro-Western secular democracy in a united Iraq.

Islamic fundamentalist movements are ever more powerful in both the Sunni and Shia communities. Ghassan Attiyah, an Iraqi commentator, said: "In two and a half years Bush has succeeded in creating two new Talibans in Iraq."

The success of the United Iraqi Alliance, the coalition of Shia religious parties, has been far greater than expected according to preliminary results.

It won 58 per cent of the vote in Baghdad, while Iyad Allawi, the former prime minister strongly supported by Tony Blair, got only 14 per cent of the vote. In Basra, Iraq's second city, 77 per cent of voters supported the Alliance and only 11 per cent Mr Allawi.

The election was portrayed by President George Bush as a sign of success for US policies in Iraq but, in fact, means the triumph of America's enemies inside and outside the country.

Iran will be pleased that the Shia religious parties which it has supported, have become the strongest political force.

Ironically, Mr Bush is increasingly dependent within Iraq on the co-operation and restraint of the Iranian President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who has repeatedly called for the eradication of Israel. It is the allies of the Iranian theocracy who are growing in influence by the day and have triumphed in the election. The US will fear that development greatly as it constantly reminds the world of Iran's nuclear ambitions.

Iran may be happier with a weakened Iraq in which it is a predominant influence rather than see the country entirely break up.

Another victor in the election is the fiery nationalist cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, whose Mehdi Army militia fought fierce battles with US troops last year. The US military said at the time it intended "to kill or capture him".

Mr Bush cited the recapture of the holy city of Najaf from the Mehdi Army in August 2004 as an important success for the US Army. Mr Sadr will now be one of the most influential leaders within the coalition.

All the parties which did well in the election have strength only within their own community. The Shia coalition succeeded because the Shia make up 60 per cent of Iraqis but won almost no votes among the Kurds or Sunni, each of whom is about 20 per cent of the population. The Sunni and the Kurdish parties won no support outside their own communities.

The US ambassador in Baghdad, Zilmay Khalilzad, sounded almost despairing yesterday as he reviewed the results of the election. "It looks as if people have preferred to vote for their ethnic or sectarian identities," he said. "But for Iraq to succeed there has to be cross-ethnic and cross-sectarian co-operation."

The election also means a decisive switch from a secular Iraq to a country in which, outside Kurdistan, religious law will be paramount. Mr Allawi, who ran a well-financed campaign, was the main secular hope but that did not translate into votes. The other main non-religious candidate, Ahmed Chalabi, won less than 1 per cent of the vote in Baghdad and will be lucky to win a single seat in the new 275-member Council of Representatives.

"People underestimate how religious Iraq has become," said one Iraqi observer. "Iran is really a secular society with a religious leadership, but Iraq will be a religious society with a religious leadership." Already most girls leaving schools in Baghdad wear headscarves. Women's rights in cases of divorce and inheritance are being eroded.

Sunni Arab leaders were aghast at the electoral triumph of the Shia, claiming fraud. Adnan al-Dulaimi, the head of the Sunni Arab alliance, the Iraqi Accordance Front, said that if the electoral commission did not respond to their complaints they would "demand the elections be held again in Baghdad".

Mr Allawi's Iraqi National List also protested. Ibrahim al-Janabi, a party official, said: "The elections commission is not independent. It is influenced by political parties and by the government." But while there was probably some fraud and intimidation, the results of the election mirror the way in which the Shia majority in Iraq is systematically taking over the levers of power. Shia already control the ministry of the interior with 110,000 police and paramilitary units and most of the troops in the 80,000-strong army being trained by the US are Shia.

Mr Khalilzad said yesterday: "You can't have someone who is regarded as sectarian, for example, as Minister of the Interior." This is a not so-veiled criticism of the present minister, Bayan Jabr, a leading member of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, the largest Shia party. He is accused of running death squads and torture centres whose victims are Sunni Arabs.

It is unlikely that the Shia religious parties and militias will tolerate any rollback in their power. "They feel their day has come," said Mr Attiyah.

For six months the Shia have ruled Iraq in alliance with the Kurds. Kurdish leaders are not happy with the way this government has worked. The Kurds, supported by the US, will now try to dilute Shia control of government by bringing in Sunni ministers and Mr Allawi. But one Kurdish leader said: "We have a strategic alliance with the Shia religious parties we would be unwise to break."

The elections are also unlikely to see a diminution in armed resistance to the US by the Sunni community. Insurgent groups have made clear that they see winning seats in parliament as the opening of another front.

The break-up of Iraq has been brought closer by the election. The great majority of people who went to the polls voted as Shia, Sunni or Kurds - and not as Iraqis. The forces pulling Iraq apart are stronger than those holding it together. The election, billed by Mr Bush and Mr Blair as the birth of a new Iraqi state may in fact prove to be its funeral.

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article334476.ece

 

Damn, glynch. I frequently disagree with you about certain issues, but I can easily see a scenario somewhat similar to what you just posted coming true. The only way the Kurds will be able to have their mini-state is if the US puts major bases there, and tells Turkey, quietly, to sod off. I shudder to think of a theocratic Iran with major influence over a theocratic Iraq. Hopefully, they'll relearn to hate each other, and the Iranian people will overthrow the mullahs. It's a slim hope.

 

Chalabi’s defeat puts U.S. friends in quandary

Should his backers go with his view that it was a fraudulent election?

WASHINGTON - Iraqi politician Ahmed Chalabi appears to have suffered a humiliating defeat at the recent Iraq polls, according to the uncertified preliminary results.

The news comes just a month after Chalabi had conducted a tour of Washington in an effort to patch up his tattered image in America. Paperwork shows that in November Chalabi’s Washington representative hired a powerful D.C. lobbying firm.

The election results in Iraq may present Chalabi’s ardent U.S. supporters with a quandary: Chalabi, as well as other losing candidates, is alleging fraud in the election, even though the Bush administration hailed the vote as a historic step for democracy in Iraq.

Poor showing for the man who ‘liberated’ Iraq

Preliminary results in the Iraqi capital of Baghdad indicate that Chalabi’s Iraqi National Congress scored a minuscule 0.36 percent of the votes.

Out of almost 2.5 million voters in Baghdad, only 8,645 voted for Chalabi.

In the Shiite city of Basra, the results indicate he had an equally dismal showing of 0.34 percent of the vote.

In the violent Sunni province of Anbar, 113 people voted for him.

During the election, Chalabi’s campaign posters proclaimed, "We Liberated Iraq."

The reference was to Chalabi’s role in pushing the United States toward war against Saddam Hussein. Over the years, Chalabi’s group received tens of millions of dollars from the CIA and the State Department.



http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10575121

 

I could think of some more deserving places I would like to send him.

 

Gee...a real shocker. The minority Iraqis claim the election was rigged and fraud was everywhere. It never occurred to them that the majority in the country are going to have the most voters and, thus, their candidates are going to get most of the votes. Like we didn't see this bullsh*t coming.

They don't want no f*cking elections unless their own side wins. They might as well start the civil war right now. Sunnis seem to think their going to have an equal or higher representation than the Shiites in the government. And, if not, then their going to continue to throw their hands in the air any chance they get and fight on.

The elections are a freaking joke when the people voting can't live with the results. Sure, fraud should be investigated. However, that's still not going to change the fact that the majority is going to come out on top. Things don't go your way...cry wolf.

Yea...the elections were great. That is...up until the time they happened and the results came in.

 

What I'm hearing from a lot of you are that the elections were a bad idea and have gone badly. I believe the elections were a good idea and even though there have been some major problems were still a good step. The mere fact that many of Sunnis voted is a positive sign and in this regard I will agree with GW Bush that democracy takes a long time to implement and the problems with fraud and irregularities is part of that.

I agree though that the real danger is now that the Sunnis have voted will they have faith in democracy coming out on the losing end and in light of fraud? That is going to be the kew question to whether Iraq will remain a stable and single country after we leave. The problem from our standpoint is what are we going to do about it? After all of our praise of democracy and self-determination can we now pressure the new Iraqi government to heed the Sunnis more or are we going to just let them figure it out on their own? Even though I'm one of those war opponents who think we shouldn't withdraw quickly I'm starting to think that now is the time to start getting out or at least looking for a transitional strategy. If we stay the more we are going to get sucked into staving off Iraqi civil war by either suppressing the Sunnis or strongarming the Shiites into working with the Sunnis. That will just prolong the insurgency and have us keep on sinking into the quagmire. If we leave yes there will be chaos but it might give the Iraqis the chance to sort things out without the crutch or hammer of us.

As I proposed in the thread "My solution to Iraq" I still think the best solution would be to have the UN step in. That's going to take a lot of diplomatic skill that I'm not sure this Admin. has.

 

Why would the U.N. step into Iraq now? Henry Kissinger couldn't convince them at this point. The U.S. broke Iraq; the U.S. bought Iraq. When the Brits pull out next year only our troops will be left.

 

I don't know if you read my proposed solution.

http://bbs.clutchfans.net/showthread.php?t=105677&highlight=solution+iraq

Its premised on the following things:

1. Admitting that we were mistaken in invading and overestimated the threat.

2. Admitting we've handled things badly.

3. Emphasizing how lack of stability in the region isn't in anyone's interests.

4. Agreeing to cover most of the costs of the training of the Iraqi military.

5. Agreeing to cover most of the costs of reconstruction.

6. Re-opening reconstruction contracts to open bidding.

7. Helping to arrange repayment of Iraqi debts.

Its important we do the first two things because that will show contrition on our part and help to soften the mood of the international community to us. The third part will show how its in other's interest to see Iraq unified and stable. The next two to show that we are still willing to bear a burden and help out and the last two address the sore points of contries like Russia, France and Germany who would very much like to have a chance to get part of the lucrative reconstruction and also don't want to lose the money they loaned to Iraq already.

I agree none of this will be easy and it will take a major shift in attitude and strategy on the part of the Admin.. Something that may be impossible. It was my hope that if Kerry had won then we might've been able to do something like this since a new Admin. would've come in without the baggage of the current.

 

If we could turn the clock back to 2 years ago, your proposed solution would have some viability. At this point it has no chance of working because of the "progress" since then. The situation is too mature. Right now, we can only hope the new government is competent and able to lead the country and the Iraqi army continues improving.