Written by: Beck
Well, time will tell. It's Sunday in Iraq, and that means election day. The future of Iraq will be decided today. More importantly, the future of the Middle East, of Bush's foreign policy goals, and potentially of the Republican party will be decided today.
Remember how the November elections here at home were said by many to be the most important ever? In a lot of ways, I agree with that assessment. The Western world has polarized around two opposing forces. One is represented by the EU and the UN. This faction thinks Palestinians are the noblest of savages and Israelis the most contemptible of war criminals.
The other faction is represented not so much by George Bush and Tony Blair, but rather, by the sort of people who don't think that the UN represents the conscience of the world; who don't think that all the world's problems could be solved if only Western nations would raise their taxes and give the difference to dictatorial regimes. I could go on, but you get my point.
Today is election day in Iraq. The news coverage will be negative. There will be bombings at polling stations. You will hear all about them. Voter turn-out will be lower in Sunni areas than in Shiite or Kurdish areas. You will hear about that and be told it makes the whole thing illegitimate. The terrorists will continue to blow stuff up even after the election, and the elected government will often be stymied by gridlock as it works towards creation of a permanent constitution.
Indeed, the forces of negativism have already begun to gear up the propaganda machine. A search of Google News for the term "Iraq election" yields these headlines:
Violence rages ahead of historic Iraq election
Six killed in Iraq election attacks as exiles turn out to vote
Iraq election has come at a heavy price: Analysts (and where would we be without analysts?)
I've already
made my predictions for how things will go. I think the forces of good will prevail in the end.
I have to think that. To think otherwise would be to give in to madness.
