Anyone who has studied history at all, let alone someone who has studied the history of this region, could tell you that having an election would not improve things in Iraq very quickly.
Like Yogoslavia, it needed a hard man to hold it together. It does not hang together naturally. It is an externally generated political entity.
History is already repeating itself.
When the British threw out the Sunni regime after the first world war, they changed their minds after 18 months and reestablished the Sunni minority in power through what became the Baath regime that they and the Americans have just overthrown. they found the Shia difficult to manage.
But the Americans and British do not want a stable democracy any more than they did before. They just want to control the oil.
The Baathists had built up a stable and quite wealthy city society based on oil wealth. They had a good hospital service; better than ours, I believe.
Are the Americans and British rebuilding that? No chance. they are rebuilding the oil business, which was running down, and they are building permanent miltary bases to control things from the background.
They won't mind too much about a little civil war, as long as they are safe behind their concrete walls.
But as the Shia grow stronger they will grow nervous. They might even be silly enough to invade Iran, as the Shia people get together across boundaries.
It is official U.S. policy to export democracy. The real policy is to divide and rule.
With little social cohesion, violence has soared, fueled by anger over foreign occupation and religious differences, while a semi-sovereign, disjointed government has taken over with little ability to control or appeal to groups behind the killings. At least 400 Iraqis have died in two weeks. U.S. casualties are also up. According to Icasualties.org, a Web site that tracks Iraq coalition casualties, 46 American service members died under fire in April, and 28 have died so far in May.
The heady, hopeful days surrounding the election seem more distant with each early-morning explosion that rouses Baghdad with the reliability of an alarm clock."
