| John Burns from the NYT. He's usually pretty good, but watch a promising start hit the rocks in this piece. |
"The people, particularly the Sunni folks that I talk to, want a government that is seen as broadly representative of all the different ethnic and sectarian groups of Iraq," Gen. George W. Casey Jr., the American commander in Iraq, told a Pentagon news conference by video link from Baghdad. "That is the one thing I think that will help pull this country together in relatively short order."
A similar statement was issued by the American ambassador, Zalmay Khalilzad, an Afghan-born Muslim who has been an energetic conciliator here. He is expected to help broker the compromises necessary before Iraqis get their first full-term government since the toppling of Saddam Hussein.
The public statements by the two most powerful Americans in Iraq - the general who will guide military strategy and the ambassador who will coach and nudge Iraqi politicians - were a rare, and apparently coordinated, display of American influence at a key juncture in the Iraq war. With the election over, the last major milestone in the American-sponsored political process here has been passed, and Iraq's future course will depend increasingly on the four-year government that will emerge from the results.
General Casey and Mr. Khalilzad appeared concerned that the momentum gained through a largely peaceful election with wide participation from all Iraqi groups, crucially including large numbers of Sunni Arabs who had previously boycotted the political process, could be lost amid a new round of political squabbling. After the Jan. 30 elections for a transitional parliament, it took Iraqi politicians three months to form a government, creating a power vacuum that the insurgents exploited with one of the most violent passages of the war.
In effect, the Americans seemed to be saying that Thursday's election has given Iraqi politicians their best chance - and, implicitly, their last chance - of winding down a conflict that has cost at least 30,000 civilian lives, paralyzed large areas of the country and prolonged the presence of 160,000 American troops.
| Here's where JB goes off the rails. It's the Iraqis' best chance but not their last chance, and I don't see Casey or Khalilzad exactly wringing their hands. They're reminding the Iraqis that now that the election is over, the government has to .. govern. |
The main Sunni, Shiite and Kurdish groups and a centrist, multiethnic political bloc led by the former interim prime minister, Ayad Allawi, are deeply divided on issues like the role of Islam, the division of oil revenues and the powers of the central government and provinces, as well as the future role of American forces and whether, as Sunni Arab groups have demanded, there should be a fixed timetable for their withdrawal.
| Sure they're divided. That doesn't mean doom, gloom and Fairbanks have set in yet. It means that the new coalition government has to sort this out. It will take months, it will be messy, and there will be setbacks, each breathlessly reported by the NYT as a 'major Bush failure'. But the Iraqis have shown remarkable fortitude in getting their country back together so far, and I'm betting they continue to do that. |
General Casey told Pentagon reporters that he expected a turnout of 65 to 70 percent among the 15.5 million eligible voters, the highest on any of the three occasions that Iraqis have gone to the polls this year. He said the American command expected the turnout in Anbar province, the vast desert territory west of Baghdad that is the principal bastion of the insurgency, to be "in the 45 to 50 percent" range, up from less than 10 percent in the constitutional referendum two months ago.
He credited the new political opening partly to American-led offensives that have disrupted insurgent infiltration down the Euphrates River valley from Syria, which he said had brought suicide attacks across Iraq down to 26 in November, from more than 60 in June. Also, he said, the offensives "pushed Al Qaeda out of the small villages" along the river, clearing the way for heavy voter turnouts in a string of desert towns that were virtual no-go areas for American troops before.
But the general also credited a new split in the insurgency - between Qaeda-linked Islamic militant groups that he said had tried to disrupt the election in Ramadi, the Anbar capital, and other insurgent groups with links to Mr. Hussein's ruling Baath Party that he said "came together and frustrated the Al Qaeda in Iraq attempt to halt those elections." He added, "So we're seeing the political process, and particularly these elections, causing tensions within the insurgents."
After January's elections for a transitional government, the deal-making over top government posts and policies was mostly between Shiites and Kurds who had worked closely with the Americans after Mr. Hussein's overthrow in April 2003. This time, the negotiations will have to factor in the demands of Sunni Arabs, who appeared to have voted Thursday in broadly similar proportion to the other main ethnic and religious groups, after boycotting the January elections and showing up in only limited numbers for the constitutional referendum in October.
"The election has shown the potential for Iraqis to choose politics as a means to resolve differences," Ambassador Khalilzad said in his statement. But he added: "More needs to be done to nurture this. The newly elected leaders should come together quickly and build bridges for national unity and establish an effective, broad-based government that Iraqis across ethnic and sectarian lines have confidence in. Iraqis should join together in condemning terrorism, isolating Saddamists and renewing their call on insurgents to refrain from violence."
| And he said that as a reminder, not as an appeal or a plea. |
| Then again, the Iraqis could cut a deal that doles out the, er, blunt-nosed beef for everyone. |