Why Should We Heed Anything Allawi Has To Say Now? He's Losing.

With 3.3 million votes in from mainly Shi'ite provinces, the United Iraqi Alliance forged by top Shi'ite cleric Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani has polled 2.2 million or 67 percent, way ahead of their nearest rival, the group led by interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi.

Allawi's Iraqi List has 17.5 percent and the Kurds, who are expected to make a strong showing, have so far scored far fewer votes, with none of the results from the three Kurdish-dominated provinces counted.

http://www.newshub.com/rd.php?nh_id=4f77c828c02b7bb39e1978cad1aa0fc8

Looks like the new government is already being pressured by their followers to eject U.S. troops. Bushies have already indicated that we will not leave immediately if asked. That will expose their canard about 'freedom' and 'democracy' for what it really is, imperialism at best, tyranny at the worst.

Suporters of Shiite cleric Moqtada Sadr pray on the street in Basra, southern Iraq , during the Friday prayer. Sadr demanded his community's senior Shiite leaders insist on a timeline for a US troop withdrawal.(AFP/Essam al-Sudani)

this could actually fix alot of problems (and start a new set).

unless Bush finds a way to screw this up even more.

Will indeed accept A. Sistani provided he takes a line agaisnt continued U.S. presence in the country with this vote at his back....

"Simple arithmetic is the essential skill in politics."

HE wants. It will be interesting to see how the new government reacts to pressure from Bush with our guns at their backs. I predict more violence directed at our troops, this time sponsored by the 'ruling' authority, coupled by demands for their oil back. This thing has only just begun to get messy. Wait until the new government gets the backing of all of the radical elements in the region that we have been trying to suppress. I can't imagine how Bush could have screwed this up any worse. Only brute force will be able to suppress this new majority now that so many Iraqis expect them to rule. Talk about a resistance! We aint seen nothin yet.

Sadr is a political leader for his movement. Sadr organized marches "in support of Sistani" during a crisis period which caused the occupation to back down on storming the Najaf holy places. Clearly, SCIRI and others, including Sadr, want the troops out and want to deal with the minority of insurgents that are Wabbabists, on their own. Ba'athist, Arab patriotic and other insurgents will likely diminish or join the political process if the occupation ends.

And Bremer too!



Undersecretary of State Marc Grossman took the same tack, but Lt. Gen. Walter Sharp set his ass straight...



See, fellas? Only an elected government can order a withdrawal of U.S. troops!

Hey...but wait a minute...this is an elected government!

Hot damn...lied to again.

http://www.rednova.com/news/display/?id=58248

Report on the Rice hearing:

One remark in particular raised the possibility that Kerry might emerge, in Bush's second term, as an insistent critic of the president's war policy. "Our troops are stunning, superb," Kerry said, but "they're going on missions that are questionable in terms of what they're going to achieve." Was it by chance or intention that this statement—more than anything Kerry has uttered publicly in the last 30 years—stirred memories of the famous line during his testimony before this same committee in 1971, as a protesting Vietnam veteran: "How do you ask someone to be the last man to die for a mistake?"

Throughout the long day, Rice said little that so much as suggested a pending departure from any of the Bush administration's present policies, toward Iraq or any other issue. In her opening statement, she uttered a few remarks that were obviously meant to imply a new course—"The time for diplomacy is now" and "I will work to strengthen our alliances." However, since she maintained under questioning that the administration has all along been engaged in diplomacy and paid attention to allies, it's unclear, really, that much will change after all.

The most substantive—perhaps the only substantive—exchange came late in the afternoon, during the second round of Q and A, when Biden asked Rice the question that he said everyone, including U.S. military officers, had asked him during his most recent trip to Iraq: Are we really staying? Or does the planned scenario go like this: The election is held Jan. 30; the new leaders tell us to get out; we declare victory (Saddam's gone, the WMD have vanished) and leave? Biden, who opposes leaving under these circumstances, asked more specifically, "Is there any reasonable possibility that the U.S. will withdraw the bulk of its forces before the end of 2005," when the second round of elections is scheduled to take place?

Rice replied, "I can't judge that, but I will say we will help the Iraqis get that done"—that is, get the second round of elections accomplished—with "whatever force levels" are required. This wasn't even a "non-denial denial." It wasn't a denial. She declined to assure the Iraqis or anyone else that the United States is firmly committed. Biden threw her a softball pitch, but she didn't swing. The question that Biden said everyone is asking in Iraq—are we staying, or are we plotting to cut and run?—remains, remarkably, unanswered.

http://slate.msn.com/id/2112386/

Bush SOTU:

"That country is a vital front in the war on terror, which is why the terrorists have chosen to make a stand there. Our men and women in uniform are fighting terrorists in Iraq, so we do not have to face them here at home. (Applause.) And the victory of freedom in Iraq will strengthen a new ally in the war on terror, inspire democratic reformers from Damascus to Tehran, bring more hope and progress to a troubled region, and thereby lift a terrible threat from the lives of our children and grandchildren."

until everyone believes them.
Repetition makes reality...the shrub media machine makin' it happen.

I hope he isn't actually stupid enough to believe it; his bushbots are, of course, but to think the POTUS is that stupid is seriously frightening.

Couldn't Diebold rig this one for the bushies?

I guess Katherine Harris and Ken Blackwell weren't available to do the vote count.

It was obvious from the git-go that this was going to be beyond fixing. Sistani demanded this election because he knew the Shias would win. Any other outcome would rightly be viewed with suspicion.

The United Alliance is not a scion of democratic virtue; getting two-thirds of the vote, as they have at this count, will not make them so. One fears that, contrary to democratic principles, they will impose a political system on Iraq that will be much like Iran's, where one's ability to participate depends on whether some clerical elites think one is a good Muslim or not.

Nevertheless, there is more of a sense here that, if not democracy, it is government at the consent of the governed at a level not seen in an Arab country before. Mr. Bush and his pals would be wise not to frustrate this experiment just because it didn't go the way they would have liked.

The best anyone is going to get out of this is another "One man, one vote, once" polity....

The United Alliance, an Islamic republican faction, may have been the best popular choice under the circumstances. Allawi and his people would simply legitimize the colonial occupation of their own country. Not voting may have been seen as support for nihilists like Zarqawi; no good can come from his kind.

The unfortunate people of Iraq would seem to be tied to the tracks of history, and that for a long time, not just at the moment.

At the risk of resuming our perrennial debates on the nature of democracy, or of what can be rightly called a democracy, it does seem to me that a degree of religious tyranny is genuinely popular with a great number of people in that unhappy cpountry, and A. Sistani does strike me at least as a pretty reasonable fellow for one of his sort, and as you know my general view of fundamentalist theocrats, you may judge the worth of that faint praise for yourself....

"Democracy is a system based on the idea that the people know what they want and ought to get it, good and hard."

At least he isn't creepy as Khomeini. However, since I mention Khomeini, we should recall how the early days of the republican revolution in Iran also had signs that things wouldn't be "so bad." The Imam surrounded himself with some secular advisers and filled important government positions with secular people such as Medhi Bazargan and Dr. Abolhassan Bani Sadr. That, unfortunately, came to an end with the embassy hostage crisis.

These are people to watch cautiously. Nevertheless, these elections have given them a degree of legitimacy than cannot be ignored.

It is contrary to every one of their ambitions in the region save their bullshit about democracy. Democracy is the last thing they are actually concerned with in Iraq. Power and leverage to dominate and steal for their own hunger, zeal, and greed are the only factors that attracted Bush into this manufactured conflict. That won't change because of this rushed election. Remember, we still have our guns at their backs.

Remember, they, too, have guns at our backs.

I agree with what you say about the neocons' anti-democratic ambitions in the region. What they call democracy is nothing more than unbridled free market capitalism in which wealthy foreigners can buy out entire developing nations, the welfare of the natives be damned.

However, Bush painted himself into a corner with his own lies. He said he was going to let the Iraqi people choose for themselves, and they seem to have done so. If he doesn't respect that choice, expect the natives to get restless. His hypocrisy will be so naked that no reasonable person will lift a finger to help him out of this pickle.

More conflict. To assume Bush knows he's in a hole would suppose that he appreciates gravity of the 1500 or so Americans killed, the 7,000 plus wounded, the tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians reported killed, the billions spent and being spent, and the chaos that is and will inevitably occur as a result of our indiscriminate meddling.

I agree that his hypocricy will be revealed for all of the world to see. I would hope that then we would, collectively, be able to shame or drive Bush from Iraq, but I am not optimistic. The public expressed their opposition to this occupation througout the election but he managed to get a good deal of those same objector's votes. I fear the worst . . . hope for . . .

What's that saying? "Fool me once, blame the CIA..."

Sistani is the most powerful Shiite in Iraq. He told his followers to vote and to vote for his party and they did in droves. Allawi has no popular support in Iraq and only got the votes he did by virtue of being able to campaign. His power in Iraq comes now as it has always come from the US governemnt who still controls Iraq completely.

His position as leader of the #2 party will put him in a very good position to get placed very high in the government they hope to form.

As far as asking us to leave, not any time soon. Iraq doesnt have a government yet. This election was to pick people to pick people to draft a constitution.

some mandate for U.S. withdrawl and the return of their oil. Even if we did release the oil, which is not likely, who would we release it to?

The issue of whether American troops will be asked to leave is going to be relevant all throughout the next several months leading up to the point where a constitution is drafted and voted on. Indeed, it will be either the glue that holds any coalition together or the wedge that drives them further apart.

We would disband the government and start over if they stopped playing ball with the US. We are allowing them this election because right now the Iraqi leaders are helping the US, but as soon as the Iraqi leaders threaten the US position, the US will remove them.

It is clear that the people are going to call for it, and that the US isnt going to let it happen, so it will become increasingly difficult for the Iraqi leaders to bridge the gap between the people and the US.

The elections were held because Sistani demanded them and was ready to lead mass demonstrations to back up his demand. He knew that his people would win any free and fair vote.

The vote was far from perfect, but about as free and fair as one could have under the circumstances. Ironically, Sistani was helped by the refusal of the Sunnis to participate. Had they not boycotted the elections, there is no doubt that the United Alliance's share of the vote would have been diminished, but so, too, would have the share won by the Bush-backed slate led by Iyad Allawi, and that share is feeble as it is. In other words, while the Shias' win would not have been as great, the repudiation of the occupation would have have been greater.

Iraq has been in a chaotic state for some time and would have been in a worse state had these elections not been held. If they had not given the Shias something to which to pin their hopes, they, too, would have made up a faction of armed insurgents shooting at Americans. That is what they will become if Bush in any way fails to respect their victory.

As for Allawi and those who have been playing ball with the neoconservatives for the past two years, they are irrelevant. They are fortunate not to go the way of most quislings.

Seems to me to call the bluff of the administration on this democracy business, in perfect confidence of his own popularity, and keep U.S. forces about just long enough to cripple the Sunni's and Kurdish irridentionists for him, after which he will be presented with an intact Iraq to ally with Iran in rivalry to the Saudis as both an oil power and a sacred power....

I think the early returns call the bluff for him.

What could happen? The Iraq army, which isn't ready to take over security of the country, stage a coup against the Shia majority? Tell me that wouldn't have Bush's fingerprints all over it.

Could the Bushies start supporting a three-way partition of Iraq as a way to counter him? One could justify it on the grounds that Iraq, like many post-colonial nations, had its borders drawn for her by a colonial power.

Or would that get too many other interested parties upset? Turkey, for example, has no desire to see an independent Kurdistan, even if confined to Iraqi Kurdistan. Bush may not care what Iranians and Syrians think, but the Turks would be another matter.

Beyond frustrating Sistani, what good would it do Bush and his allies in neocon think tanks and corporate suites to resist Sistani's power, based as it is in popular appeal?

I think their goose is cooked.

One thing our home-cooked "hard-boiled" types do not seem to understand is that personalities shaped in a culture where the penalty for failure is a profitable tour on the lecture circuit are seldom a match in ruthless acumen for personalities shaped in a culture where the penalty for failure is death by slow torture....

"Don't try to out-wierd me; I get wierder things than you for free in my breakfast cereal!"

he must be the only man in Iraq without a moustache.

I feel that he will push for Kurdish and Sunni power sharing and after a Constitution is drafted request that the U.S. Troops withdraw, even from those 14 Military bases. I have suspected for many months that there would be no civil war in Iraq. Al Sistani is too wise to allow that to occur. I also feel that it is real possible tha Iraq will not end up with a stringent Theocracy but a semi-secular Govt. based on the British model. If any deals have been made with al Sistani one such could be that after the dust settles Iraq will sell oil to the U.S via dollars at a reasonable price. The outcome could be favorable for Iraq and the U.S.

Has no interest whatever in power sharing either with Sunni Arabs or Sunni Kurds. He intends to dominate both utterly, and is quite likely to achieve his goal: the arithmetic is strongly in his favor....

"God is one the side of the biggest batallion."

You aren't under the impression Dubya is REALLY allowing a free election, are you? All I can say is if the regime chosen by Washington doesn't win, Iraqis had a more honest election than we did.

With just over a third of the vote counted, the United Alliance has two-thirds of the vote. The kind of shift you are taking about would not be credible to anybody except the analysts on FoxNews.

The election is beyond fixing. The occupation has been repudiated by the Iraqi people.

That kind of shift.

!!