Election Day

What do you do in Venezuela during Election Day?  Your options are pretty limited as everything is closed while the country votes its legislature.  Don't even think about drinking alcohol as the entire country has been "on the wagon" for the last three days,  I suppose someone doesn't want a bunch of intoxicated people participating in democracy, as if somehow the results would be different :)

Two Camps In Iraq

Another shot of the Crossed Swords. Last one, I promise.

I got involved in a discussion the other day with one of the correspondents about her views of the state-of-play here in Iraq. She divides the country's political landscape into two camps; those of the pragmatist and the ideologues.

The pragmatists, Iraqi President Maliki being one, realize that the U.S (Coalition) presence is necessary to provide stability to a very volatile society. The Americans are not the "occupying force" that the other camp would have one believe, but are trying desperately to get Iraq to be able to stand on it's own two feet, albeit for selfish reasons.

The ideologues, on the other hand, are quite willing to watch Iraq burn so long as there are no American or foreign forces "occupying" the land. They represent the radical Islamists that would rather sacrifice their country and their lives, or more over the lives of their followers, than tolerate the presence of a foreign culture on their land.

This is the fight that is waging within Iraq today as it struggles with the status of forces agreement that is necessary to give U.S. forces legitimacy in Iraq in the coming year(s). It has been primarily a political struggle, one which Maliki has demonstrated a great amount of deftness. At times the struggle has turned violent as the ideologues use their greatest weapons to influence the public's opinion. So far it's not looking good for the pragmatists as they continue to use political slight of hand and resorted to putting the decision to a public referendum in the coming months, a public that is heavily sided with the ideologues.

Conspiracy Theorists

The most recognizable landmark in Baghdad, the famous "Crossed Swords". People come from all over to be photographed under the swords.

Explaining the American presidential election process to our Iraqi staff is always an entertaining challenge. They cannot accept the fact that everyone gets only one vote. Iraqis understand that Americans go to the polls and vote, but they have it in their collective head that in the end, a "group of powerful Israel-supporting senators" will have the ultimate say and choose the candidate that it wants; in this case John McCain. It's telling of their culture and political process.

There is no greater conspiracy theorist than the Iraqi man on the street. Over the years I've heard some outlandish claims such as Iraqi dust storms are purposely caused by nuclear explosions somewhere in the world, or the American tethered radio antennae balloons that dot the Baghdad horizon are armed with powerful cameras and Hellfire missiles constantly searching for miscreants. Iraqis love to believe the outrageous; the bigger the story the more conviction they have that it's true. Weaving some tale that would even make Hollywood blush makes an Iraqi appear powerful and knowledgeable to his family and friends. No one ever calls "bullshit' as that would be a slap in the face, so the stories just keep getting bigger and better.

Think Long And Hard

Muslim prayer rug hung up in concertina wire

I listened carefully to President Bush’s speech yesterday, as did everyone else in the bureau. While he mentioned it several times I don’t think that the President communicated very well the foreseen results of the inevitable U.S. military withdrawal from Iraq.

When the United States soon leaves Iraq this country will cease to exist. The government will fold almost immediately and a sectarian war will ignite claiming hundreds of thousands of Iraqi lives over the next decade. This is something that almost everyone that I’ve met in Iraq agrees upon wholeheartedly regardless of where they stand on the current struggle.

Sectarian warlords sponsored by Iraq’s so-called neighbors will carve up Iraq and biblical scale genocide will ensue. The West will have squandered its last, best hope of achieving some modicum of stability in the region.

At home thhe American public will politically bury its head in the sands of isolationism and pray to God that the violence does not come to the United States. It will come; and come and come and there will be nothing that any government agency can do about it. Jack Bauer does not exist, and the septic violence will spill out from the Middle East and flow right into the heart of the United States and its allies.

To return to the Middle East and aggressively root out the cancer of radical Islam e.g., terrorism will take an exponentially larger military force a much, much longer time and cost tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of U.S. lives.

Americans might want to think long and hard about banging the politically popular tambourine of “withdrawal at all cost”. There will be a cost; and it will be globally catastrophic.