Beyond Tomorrow in Iraq

Jim Hoagland writes, in Beyond Tomorrow in Iraq: Elections Are the Start of What Was Once Deemed Unachievable,

For nearly two years, they have followed the patient "quietist" leadership of Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani and defied the predictions that they would do unto the Sunni Arab minority as they were done unto, by launching pogroms and a civil war of vengeance. They have instead stoically tolerated the religious war directed at them by the intermingled forces of Salafi extremists and Baathist remnants.

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The election serves to define and limit the reach of the dead hand of the past, which must be understood and remembered so it will not be repeated. But the election also opens a future in which Iraqis and Americans should move rapidly to end a misbegotten military occupation that has become a liability for nearly everyone.

What is unsaid in this opinion piece is that, if Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani cannot get the Americans to withdraw, then he is finished politically in Iraq. The Ayatollah has invested considerable prestige in getting the Americans to agree to these elections, and has, for the time, being sidelined his main rival, Moqtada al-Sadr.

For the US administration, any meaningful withdrawal is an admission of defeat. They went into Iraq to prove that US military might is unbeatable. Retreat from Iraq will be seen in the same light as the Israeli retreat from Lebanon. With the collapse of the myth of US invincibility (again) will come the collapse of the US economy.

The best thing Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani to hope for is to lose this election so that the blame for the failure to secure the withdrawal of the US forces will not fall upon his head (possibly literally!). He will have to concede political power to Moqtada al-Sadr in order to survive. This would entail supporting the Iraqi Shiite military and political resistance to the occupation.

All the Americans have brought with these elections is a postponement of the spread of the Iraqi resistance to after the US presidental elections. This is good enough for the current administration. The mid-term congressional elections are still 21 months away.