The contemporary state of Iranian influence amongst the Shiite population of Iraq was one of the biggest analytic misjudgments of US planning prior to the 2003 war. Nationalist and Arab-ethnic sentiments of the Iraqi people, prominent during the Iran-Iraq War and strong still at the time of the 90/91 Gulf War, were somewhat eroded over the course of the subsequent ten years, as the faultering Saddam, in desperation, tried to reinvent himself from a nationalist, pan-Arab leader to a leader of the Islamic world. Some of the restraints on the Shiite religious network were lifted, thus allowing a local grid for Iranian Shiite proselytization (cum “Islamic Revolution”/Iranian nationalism) to quickly plug into in 2003, as the Saddam regime collapsed.

Sad as war is, once a nation has taken that step, the logic of statecraft dictates that the victorious nation must impose such conditions upon a defeated territory that it becomes less an existential threat to the victorious nation than when it initiated military actions. In this case, in keeping with US political and foreign policy ideals, the means for doing so would have been monitoring the establishment of a democratic state with a constitution which protected individual and minority rights, promoted internal development and allowed for the building of a civilian and military infrastructure which defended such principles (if for no other logical reason than we wouldn’t want to have to go to war again in five years against the state we just helped establish). This is very frustrating and immensely serious. A see-no-evil, hear-no-evil, speak-no-evil US policy in regard to Iraqi political independence is naive and irresponsible (granted, the sensitivities involved in letting the Iraqis establish their own political infrastructure at this point). I hope we remain at least in a position of “political overwatch” to maintain the integrity of these principles, and don’t cut and run for the sake of domestic political expediency.

Americans cannot expect that Iraq will elect a George Washington type democracy.

We can hope for the best.

However, Iraq could simply vote in leaders who will dismantle the democratic machinery in place which got them elected.

Perhaps they will vote in a religious theocracy. Who knows.

Countries which are able to make peaceful transitions of power are the exception and not the rule.

“Tomorrow there will be a preliminary result,” Melkert said.

http://www.alarabiya.net/articles/2010/03/11/102718.html

Let’s hope that whatever group(s) fail to prevail in the election will nevertheless agree to abide by the results.

It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven

Upon the place beneath: it is twice blest;

It blesseth him that gives and him that takes:

‘Tis mightiest in the mightiest: it becomes

The throned monarch better than his crown;

His sceptre shows the force of temporal power,

The attribute to awe and majesty,

Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings;

But mercy is above this sceptred sway;

It is enthroned in the hearts of kings,

It is an attribute to God himself

Holder Forcefully Defends Criminal Justice System After Terrorist Guilty Plea

Attorney General Eric Holder forcefully defended the criminal justice system as a venue to try terrorists on Monday, following the guilty plea his department secured from a terrorist suspect who had plotted to blow up the New York City subway system.

“This demonstrates that our federal civilian criminal justice system… is a powerful tool in our fight against terrorism,” he said. “It doesn’t mean it is the only tool we should use. We have to couple it with what we do on the military side, what we do on the intelligence gathering side. But to take this tool out of our hands, to denigrate the use of this tool, flies in the face of the facts, flies in the face of the history of the use of this tool. It is more politics than about facts. ”

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/02/22/holder-forcefully-defends_n_472362.html