Reply #13: There were always two possibilities

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1. Elections and other steps toward establishing democratic institutions would be thwarted by chaos and violence, leaving the country to disintegrate toward civil war, and thus destabilizing the whole region.

2. Elections and other steps toward establishing democratic institutions would succeed despite the insurgency, empowering the Shiites and creating a Shiite-dominated state which will be allied with Iran, while alienating the Sunnis and Kurds, who will escalate their violent resistance to the new Shiite state, driving the Kurds toward seccession and the Shiites toward closer ties with Iran, while the Sunnis continue to fill the ranks of international terrorists networks, leaving the country to disintegrate toward civil war, and thus destabilizing the whole region.


These elections are just part of the ongoing effort of the Bush administration to overwhelm reality with banalities. Freedom is on the march and democracy has come to Iraq, and the true complexities of what is really going on there are irrelevant. The faith-based approach to history is only going to work for so long, and reality will assert itself at some point.