I heard some Shiite Muslim Fundy Nut Case is leading in Iraq's elections.

[Quixote1818]

Anyone know anything about him and have any predictions as to what is likely to come of this?

So in a nut shell, we have spent 200 Billion dollars, killed 100,000 Iraq citizens, lost almost 1,500 American lives not to mention over 10,000 wounded only to see Iraq being run by the American equivalent of Pat Robertson with an AK-47? Not to mention Iraq is becoming a breeding ground for more terrorists while all along their were NO weapons of mass destruction found.

And people are proud of this? What the fuck is this country coming to?

Anyone know anything about this Shiite Pat Robertson guy?

[Negatron]

1. I predicted a win for someone named "Ayatollah"

Before the Iraqi elections, and without even knowing much about who the candidates were, I made a prediction to those around me that some Shiite fundie would end up winning. Why we would want to help install another Ayatollah is beyond me, but hey, it's all in the name of FREEDOM, right?

I like democracy and the idea of people voting as much as the next guy, but I also know that when you try to export your own preferences to others, things often go awry. This interventionism is going to blow up in our faces, I think.

[Quixote1818]

4. Yes you are right, it was Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani leading

He was leading by a Million Votes over the Secular American guy.

[Yupster]

27. Sistani is hardly a nut case

I think he's been the most positive influence in Iraq since we've been there. He's kept the majority of people at peace without appearing to be a US toady.

I think it's the best if his slate wins.

[punpirate]

2. Well, not exactly...

... as of this moment, the Iraqi National Alliance is leading in the vote count. While the INA is supported by al-Sistani, the leading Shia cleric, its principal candidate for Prime Minister is Iyad Allawi, the US-supported candidate who is the current interim council leader, and who is secular.

Effectively, the fix is in for Allawi, the US's man. This is not about religious fundamentalism--it's about expediency, and the US getting the government it wants in Iraq.

Cheers.

[Maple]

5. Allawi is

not even close.

"The results showed that the United Iraqi Alliance, backed by Iranian-born Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, was leading – with 1.1 million votes out of the 1.6 million counted and certified so far. Some 14 million Iraqis were eligible to vote.

The ticket headed by interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, a US-backed secular Shiite, trailed second with more than 360,500 votes"

http://breakingnews.iol.ie/news/story.asp?j=108908340&p=yx89x89zx

[Quixote1818]

6. Yes, thats exactly what I heard on the radio.

[Maple]

7. Well they back

Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim and he said a couple of weeks ago he wanted the Americans out now.

So if Allawi ends up somehow 'winning' all hell is likely to break loose.

[Yupster]

28. I had read that Sistani's coalition

might ask Allawi to stay on as PM for the next year until the permanent government is elected.

Sistani seems to be operating very carefully and shrewdly. I think we're lucky he's there.

[Carni]

43. I will believe it when he doesn't take a 180 turn if he wins

Time will certainly tell!

[punpirate]

10. The vote is only the beginning...

... and the process is that the leading parties in the election will pick a presidential council composed of a president and two vice-presidents. That council will pick a prime minister who must then be confirmed by the general parliament. The vote thus far has counted about 11% of the total votes, not including those from expatriates in other countries.

Therein lie the details. Allawi, of the Iraqi List, rather than a theocracy led by Sistani, will prevail, whether or not Allawi represents the will of the people. Remember that the US runs things, including the elections. 1.6 million votes represents roughly a tenth of the total votes. No sense in making absolute predictions based on that return.

Beyond that, Sistani is not a wild-eyed nutcase. He's a very shrewd and politically adept person who knows that during Hussein's time, the country existed as a secular society, and that the people want security, and Allawi has promised that. One way or another, Allawi will have a prominent place in the government, probably through a coalition which Sistani will hope to control. Even if Allawi does not prevail, is buried in the popular vote, Sistani will recognize that the Shia majority can lose their place if they do not accept US occupation, at least in the near future. If they demand that US forces leave, they lose, anyway--the US will not leave, and Allawi, supported by the US occupation, will seize power to ensure that US troops do not leave. Neither Allawi nor Chalabi will be gone forever because of this vote.

Allawi isn't trusted in the country, that's true. But, he's supported by the US. That counts, even to Sistani, who's supporting his opposition.

The other important consideration in this is that this vote is so temporary as to be meaningless--the process of election begins anew very shortly, since the president, vice-presidents, the appointed prime minister and the members of parliament must be elected again this coming December--this election puts people in power for only eleven months.

I suppose I'm suggesting that the fix is in--the INA, supported by Sistani, will have to accommodate Allawi, and likely, Chalabi, as well. Because of the December elections, any party's hold on power is quite temporary and tenuous, if only because the US has designs on Iran. For that, it needs those bases being built in Iraq. That makes this election a moveable feast. Sistani will accommodate the Iraqi List, and the US, until the US makes its future moves clear. Those moves will likely be made clear before December, 2005. If Sistani shows support for Iran any time shortly after the election, his government will simply fall sooner than it might otherwise.

The neo-cons are only interested in results, not absolute democracy. That's why Allawi is a player in this, and a player in anything that the United Iraqi Alliance decides. No religious nutcases will come to the fore in Iraq. If they do, they will be swept aside by US troops. Quite an irony, if one considers the state of politics in this country, where the religious nutcases are embraced, at least in spirit, by the current White House.

Cheers.

[shrike]

16. Great post

You stated so well why I think all the jubilation over this election is nonsense.

[welshTerrier2]

19. "neo-cons are only interested in results, not absolute democracy"

that raises the question about what results are being sought and what conditions will help them be realized ...

the question i have here is whether the neo-con agenda is to resolve the conflict in Iraq or prolong it ...

do they really believe elections without Sunni participation will lead to peace? they could have opted for some type of regional negotiating process before holding elections ... trying to legitimize a democracy by holding elections that will not be seen as credible by most Sunnis does not seem like a genuine path to peace ...

[punpirate]

37. It's hard to say, without seeming...

... wholly one-sided about the neo-cons, but I don't think their aims are centered on creating peace. In a way, they expected peace to happen as a consequence of the invasion itself. There were no other plans--peace was simply supposed to happen. Now that there is no peace, they have ignored that flaw in their thinking (as they consistently do in all matters).

My sense of current events is that they have already begun to think about the further items on their agenda, rather than addressing the genuine problems created by their initial steps in the Middle East. To them, they have accomplished the first task--that of invading Iraq and disposing of Hussein--and are going on to the next item, without any acknowledgement of the wreckage in their way.

Cheers.

[Quixote1818]

35. I get the impression you know a lot of stuff! Interesting post.

[Jacobin]

Unless I am misreading your post,

Allawi has 17% and is expected to be blown away when the final count is done.

Sistani's folks seem to have a massive lead at this point.

[punpirate]

38. I suppose this is reasonable...

... if the election were well-regulated and observed, which it most assuredly was not, and if the Bush administration were keeping its hands firmly at its sides, which it is not. As for the way the vote is going, it can't realistically be determined from reporting in the US:

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/columns/pressingissues_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000788083

As I suggested in another post, the Bush administration simply won't allow an Iraqi government to surface which is either religiously or ideologically aligned with Iran. That's just not part of the program. Nor will the Bushies allow a government to evolve which will demand a speedy end to the occupation, or will demand a timetable to do so.

Allawi will prevail, either in the vote, or in the government. If the Sistani forces in government manage to lock him out of power, I suspect that some crisis will be invented to justify US intervention or "guidance" of the new government, mostly likely (and ironically) by claiming evidence of election fraud. Call me cynical if one must, but I have no belief that the neo-cons expected anything other than that things would go their way. If they don't, the measures they will take to change the situation on the ground will be fairly obvious.

Cheers.

[Carni]

41. But you are forgetting

Fat, stupid, GOP operatives didn't have enough balls to hang around in Iraq and screw with computer databases to get the fix in.

I don't think bushit was able to fix this one.

We just spent 300 million dollars to "liberate" Iraq and hand it over to Iran IMO

[punpirate]

46. Perhaps...

... but I don't think the Green Zone is now empty of those fevered GOP types, nor do I think Negroponte was pulled out of the UN and installed in Iraq because he needed a change of scenery. :)

Cheers.

[Maple]

3. Well of course the Shi'ites would win

They're 60% of the population, and the Sunnis didn't vote.

Now you have another Iran.

[Igel]

15. Half of the Sunnis did vote.

It's like Al-Jazeera, frequently forgetting that there are non-Arabs in the country.

Kurds may have a large Sufi population, but they're mostly Sunni.

[shrike]

17. Complicated ethnically over there, isn't it? n/t

[Igel]

20. Yeah, and I keep getting a little irritated by over-arching

misgeneralizations. I can see the NYT doing it (as they often do), but you'd expect people to try to be a bit more careful.

Gotta stop caring.

[RafterMan]

23. It's just shorthand for Sunni Arabs

which is fine, since the whole Sunni/Shia thing is just shorthand for the complicated sets of loyalties that create the divisions, not a marker for the points of religious doctrine that separate the groups.

[Igel]

32. So when people say the Sunnis didn't vote,

that's just shorthand. And therefore "Sunnis didn't vote, but 1.5 million Sunnis voted" isn't self-contradictory. (Number is a guess.)

I see. So how misleading does shorthand have to be before it's judged inaccurate?

[RafterMan]

33. It has to be misleading in some significant way

How would the world be different if commentators stopped saying Shiites/Sunnis/Kurds and started saying Shiites/Sunni Arabs/Kurds?

Not at all, as far as I can see.

[Igel]

34. But they don't always stipulate that the Kurds aren't the Sunnis

in question.

If all the oppositions are present, it's clear enough. Leave out one, and it's ambiguous between false and true.

[RafterMan]

8. He's not a fundie nut-case

He's shown himself to be a pretty reasonable politician. I've been impressed.

[Yupster]

29. Me too rafter

I think we're lucky he's there.

He's the hope for a democratic stable Iraq.

[illuminaughty]

9. Many voted as a religious duty

by order of Shiite Cleric Al-Sistani. And of course, we're trying to make this look like a fair gig...so we hear reports that they (group that is supported by Sistani) are ahead, with a convenient close following by CIA puppet Allawi's group.

Soon all votes go to a CENTRAL COMPUTER (sound familiar?) after the hand counts and I'm sure Allawi will emerge the winner. They'll throw some bones in the way of General Assembly seats to the Shia, Kurds but WE will remain in charge. As this will be obvious to the people, violence will escalate into civil war, which is what anyone who knew the area predicted to begin with.

Yep, in a nutshell we're nuts and it's amazing how anyone could fall for the "democracy on the march" crap.

[passy]

11. " any predictions as to what is likely to come of this? "

do you need to even ask? Huge an utter f**k up that's what's gonna happen, but how can things get any worse you ask.
Well how about a civil war spreading to Turkey and Iran with US soldiers outnumbered and stuck in the middle not able to do anything about it.
It might well turn out to look a lot more like Vietnam, with the country split along religious and ethnic lines, the Kurds in the North probably fighting the Turks and the Shiites supported by Iran fighting the Sunnis in the rest of the country. Well unless they all unite to get the US out, which is unlikely anyway.
The only way out is to get massive amounts of UN and NATO backed forces in the country and the US out and create a federal state.
But If dumb-ass is still at the helm for the four next year that is highly unlikely to happen since his friends want to keep their hands on that petrol.

[many a good man]

12. The Iraq sandwich

You have Kurds to the north, Shia in the south, and a volatile Sunni/Shia mixture in the populous middle. Since the Sunnis refused to vote, the Shia-backed lists will get about 70% of the vote nationwide, with the one and only Kurdish party sweeping its region. The spicy meat in the middle is where the action is.

Look for broad cooperation among the Kurdish and Shia leadership with the occupying forces' client government in exchange for a large degree of autonomy (Sharia law in selected provinces?). Will the Kurds and Shia band together to wipe out the Sunnis? That might enrage the rest of Arab/Islamic world-- which (outside of Iran and southern Iraq) is almost completely Sunni.

Watch out for growing severe government reprisals against ordinary secular Sunnis in the heart of Iraq if they don't aggressively help Anglo-American/native forces wipe out the Wahabiist and Baathist insurgents. Forget about winning hearts and minds-- its already way too late for theat. They have to win this thing using terror and fear in hopes that opposition will weary and wither. As we all know, this approach hasn't been working too well so far.

I think Rumsfeld is looking forward to a controlled civil war where we control the Kurd and Shia leadership and gang up on everyone that's left. The ordinary secular Sunnis will be caught in the middle begging for their lives. All in all, not much different than what we have today.

The long term objective is to get out of the meat grinder and retreat to our permanent military bases in Iraq to protect the oil fields and pipelines. What makes you think the goal is to withdraw completely? We still have bases in Germany, Japan, and Korea more than fifty years later...

[paulk]

13. While Sistani is not secular

he's not a nutcase.

you should google him up - he's kinda interesting, really.

[AntiCoup2K4]

14. So when is Junior sending Cruella Harris and Ken OREOwell over to Iraq?

...To "supervise" the ballot count?

[robbedvoter]

18. revelation: jan 30 date was set&kept so W can brag in SOTU BEFORE

the results would be in to upset the triumphalism.
Kinda like Sally reid died because Raygun wanted the Challenger launched on a set day so he can talk to them during SOTU.
The whole world is their PR pawns.

[TexasLawyer]

24. no doubt about that

the election date was written in stone, even though the security situation in Iraq is worsening by the day.

[TexasLawyer]

21. Don't worry

if someone like that gets on the council, his voice will be diluted by the hundreds of others on the council.

If he can't be shut up, I'm sure that he will have some kind of "accident". Iraq is a very dangerous country, you know.

[RafterMan]

22. He's not going to be on the council

It's his party that is ahead in the vote count.

I believe it's proportional representation.

[Mitt Chovick]

25. Ahmed Chalabi

Is in Sistani's Fundy Party. I guess he got religion. Looks like either way BushCo wins with the moderate Shias and Allawi or the fundy Shias and Chalabi.

We're fucked and so are the Iraqi people.

[RafterMan]

31. So is al Sadr

Is he a Bush puppet now, too?

[Mitt Chovick]

45. Nope

Sadr and Bush, no history.

Chalabi and Bush lots of history.

[DrWeird]

26. Why does he have to be a "fundy nut case" just because...

he's a muslim cleric.

Are bishops automatically fundy nutcases? The Pope?

[Yupster]

30. I'm surprised at this too

Everything I've read about Sistani is that he's acted very responsibly, has always called for peace, and has organized the vote. I don't know where the "nutcase" stuff comes from.

I just keep thinking how much worse things would be if he wasn't the chief Shia. There could be a different leader calling for violence and revenge, and we'd be in far worse shape.

I also like the way Sistani has kept a good distance between us and himself. Very astute politically.

[Quixote1818]

36. That's the way the local conservative talk show host discribed him.

[No Exit]

39. WAIT A MINUTE! ALLAWI'S S'POSED TO WIN! Get me Tom Feeney

on the phone!!



--Overheard at White House

[Carni]

40. He's kind of like bin laden lite...

But fear not..."Freedom is on the march"

[RafterMan]

42. In what way is he like bin Laden lite?

nt

[Yupster]

44. I guess the same way I'm Hitler lite

because I went to Austria once.

[gordianot]

47. Yes, they rigged the wrong election.

[leesa]

48. Why not? We have a Christian Fundie Nut Case running this one.

Which, of course is why we will be having a radical Muslim leadership in Iraq. Hate breeds hate.

[quaoar]

49. But the big return on our investment in Iraq is still coming

Civil war!!!!

Woo hoo!!!

Make some popcorn.