They told us the elections in South Vietnam were a success. \U.S. Encouraged by Vietnam Vote: Officials Cite 83% Turnout Despite Vietcong Terror,"" read The New York Times of September 4, 1967. Now they tell us the elections in Iraq were a success.
We hope so. But even if the recent elections are a success, what was the cost? What have we gained for our $200 billion beyond a theocratic victory at the polls orchestrated by Iranian Grand Ayatollah al-Sistani, official American policies of torture, 1,449 dead soldiers and the uncounted dead civilians?
An old Arab story and the teachings of a philosophy professor can illuminate the nature of the predicament. The predicament suggests that evacuation is the best way to support the troops and provide Iraq's people the opportunity to fix the mess created in the first place by Saddam Hussein and in the second by the Bush Administration.
The Arab story concerns a water bull that steps out of the river during the pitch black of night to graze. In order to see the grass, it drops a shining jewel from its mouth. The jewel lights the pasture and the bull feeds.
We are a nation of such creatures when it comes to Iraq. Last Sunday, with Fox and CNN too busy cheerleading to remember WMDs, we disgorged a gem on the benighted sands between the Tigris and Euphrates to enlighten not only Iraq but the entire Middle East with democracy. Now that Iraq is lit with our gift, the costly export of franchise, our representatives in Congress display their own ink-stained fingers in affected solidarity and hope that the occupied will become our friendly global partners.
With the exceptions of Halliburton and such subsidiaries as Kellogg, Brown & Root (known as Kellogg, Burn & Loot in the Vietnam era), rebellious Iraq has already proven a poor place to feed (i.e., make money). Profits in cash or democracy are hard to come by because many Iraqis resent our black SUV convoys, fight against our soldiers or sit in their homes patiently waiting for an end. About one out of three Iraqis voted in that democratic miracle two Sundays ago. Discouraged and apathetic, the Sunnis stayed home. Some Shi'ites voted, though they chose Sistani's confederacy of devout politicians.
To write a new, Shariah-influenced Constitution under the interim government's laws, the majority will need around two thirds of the Iraqi assembly's votes. Al-Sistani's faction will probably get those votes. There may be a showdown with Kurds or Sunnis over a pro-cleric government.
Why did those voters choose the religious candidates? UW-Madison philosophy Professor Keith Yandell's teachings on religion are a model for understanding. Yandell teaches that every religion is a philosophical system that assumes that there is something fundamentally wrong with human beings, and provides ""a diagnosis and a cure."" For example, the Christian diagnosis is original sin. The cure is salvation through Christ.
Perhaps the voters and non-voters of Iraq, 2.5 times more likely to die today than four years ago, feel they are in need of salvation. Maybe they don't like the baggage that comes with the shining jewel of liberation. It is certain that they see the United States as the diagnosis of their national problems. They voted, though in small numbers, against the occupation; across the Middle East, only the occupied nations of Iraq and Palestine hold elections. On the fringes, Turkey and another occupied country, Afghanistan, do as well.
In such strange circumstances, might the Iraqis believe that salvation is a faith-based Constitution, the de facto rule of clerics or the rejection of our enlightening jewel?
Hopefully they do not. Hopefully they will become a secular democracy. It's only sane to hope. But then again, it's also sane to think that Iraq will only begin to improve when we withdraw our suffering army, leave the Iraqis to light their own pasture and remove ourselves as the popular diagnosis of their fundamental problem.
Teddy O'Reilly is a senior majoring in history.
