A lot has been going on in Moqtada Sadr’s movement in Iraq recently. The WaPo’s Ann Scott Tyson is reporting from Baghdad in today’s paper that Gen. Petraeus,
- said Thursday he applauds Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr for helping, through a cease-fire, to reduce violent attacks in Iraq by 60 percent since June.
Also, Sadr spokesperson Salah al-Obeidi has just completed a tour of three Arab countries (Saudi Arabia, Syria, and Egypt), where he told his hosts that the Sadrist movement “has no objections to Arab states playing a role in stabilizing Iraq.” That report is a Stratfor rendering of a Thursday Sharq al-Awsat article (which I can’t find in the original Arabic. Help, anyone?)
Stratfor also reported that Obeidi,
- accused Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, the Kurds, the American occupation, al Qaeda and pro-Iranian Shiite groups [of being responsible] for instability in Iraq.
And he told his hosts on the trip that Iraq’s ethnic-Kurdish (and politically very Kurdish) Foreign Minister was not doing enough to take into consideration Iraq’s relations with the other Arab states.
This AP report meanwhile tells us that, back in Najaf today, Obeidi criticized the Sadrists’ Shiite rival, IISC head Abdel-Aziz Hakim, for his current visit to the US, calling it an “act of surrender.”
It is hard to gauge and assess these developments from a distance– except to note that the Sadrists seem to be treading a fine line between cooperating, de-facto and in some delimited spheres, with the Americans and not cooperating with them in others. It is also, certainly, significant that Obeidi– whom we have no reason to doubt at this point is accurately representing Moqtada’s views– is trying to position the group as a firmly Arab Iraqi movement, in contrast to the Hakim/IISC (formerly known as SCIRI) crowd who have historically had much closer ties to Iran.
We should recall that, in the parliamentary election of December 2005, all of Iraq’s Shiite parties collaborated, running on a joint list called the United Iraqi Alliance (UIA). Within the UIA, the Sadrists were probably the largest single bloc. But SCIRI (now the IISC) had by far the best links with the US occupation authorities and– perhaps equally importantly– with MSM journos in the US, who routinely came to describe SCIRI head Abdel-Aziz Hakim as “the leader of the UIA”, “the leader of the Iraqi Shiites”, etc etc.
(The occupation authorities maintained their close relationship with Hakim despite his longterm– and continuing– links with Tehran. Go figure.)
So in the jockeying for positions in the Iraqi “government” that followed thoseelections, the US and its allies did all they could to prevent the Sadrists from getting the leading posts, and to impose their own choice, Hakim, or one of his party henchmen. The result was a sort of stand-off. Eventually the weak non-entity Nouri al-Maliki, a member of another longtime pro-Iranian party called the Daawa Party, became Prime Minister… Of course, the “government” was still quite unable to deliver any actual services to the Iraqi people, especially public security, which is an absolutely essential element for the resumption of anything resembling normal life.
Then, fast forward to this year and the arrival of Petraeus. I have to say at this point that I think Petraeus is smarter than I earlier gave him credit for. Despite the many ethical flaws that I identified and still identify in, for example, the Counter-insurgency manual that he co-wrote, he does seem to have a strong grasp of the core fact that a smart politics of political inclusiveness is the best way to cobble together just enough social/political peace within Iraq that the US military can draw down its forces there significantly without that drawdown being an extremely destabilizing and humiliating rout.
I’m assuming that was the goal he was assigned when he took over as military commander in Iraq.
And, as is now clearer than before, he has been “reaching out” not only to Sunni former insurgents but also to strong elements within the Sadrist movement.
Tyson’s piece in the WaPo gives these additional details about Petraeus and the Sadrists:
- Among several factors leading to the reduced violence, Petraeus pointed to what he called the decision by “a majority . . . of the militia” associated with Sadr to honor a cease-fire.
In striking contrast to the U.S. military’s previous wariness — if not hostility — toward the young firebrand cleric, Petraeus praised Sadr personally for “working to rid his movement of criminal elements” and making a “pledge of honor” to uphold the cease-fire announced in August. He said the United States is in indirect dialogue with “senior members” of Sadr’s organization to maintain the cease-fire.
“The Sadr trend stands for service to the people,” and the goal is for Sadr and his followers to become “constructive partners in the way ahead,” Petraeus said in an interview with defense reporters traveling with Gates.
Earlier this year, U.S. military and defense officials said Sadr had been weakened and his organization fragmented since the cleric left for Iran before the start of the boost in U.S. troops, apparently out of fear of being targeted.
“I wouldn’t say he has been marginalized,” Petraeus said Thursday. “He very much maintains contacts with his leaders and continues to give direction. . . . And there is an effort ongoing to try to get a grip on some of the nefarious actors who are associated with his movement.”
Meanwhile, Sadr’s rhetoric remains as anti-American as ever. “I speak to the head of evil Bush, go out of our land, we don’t need you or your armies, the armies of darkness, your aircrafts, tanks . . . your fake freedom,” said a statement issued under Sadr’s name two days ago.
The cease-fire has helped U.S. and Iraqi forces target Shiite extremist groups, many of them based in Baghdad’s large Shiite enclave of Sadr City, that continue to launch attacks despite the Sadr order. U.S. commanders have long sought to expand the presence of security forces inside Sadr City, which is now effectively controlled by Sadr’s militia, the Mahdi Army.
If you want to get more background on developments within the Sadrist movement, the longer Stratfor piece referred to above gives one view of these, though I don’t agree with all the judgments made by their anonymous analyst there. One example: my view of Sadr is that he is much more authentically “Arab nationalist” in his beliefs and approach than Stratfor gives him credit for– though yes, it is true that some proportion, perhaps not trivial, of his followers became caught up in the frenzy of sectarian (in this case, anti-Sunni) violence that swept over much of Iraq from February 2006 on. And indeed, it has probably been a hard job for him and the more politically savvy, nationalist-minded people around him to regain their discipline over the broader movement.
If Petraeus is to have any hope of executing an orderly or near-orderly drawdown of US forces from Iraq, he will need forces in both the Sunni and Shiite community who are prepared to (a) cooperate somewhat with each other, and (b) gain substantial control over most of the Arab-majority parts of the country, so that the US troop drawdown is not a rout– and to prevent as much as possible the direct military intervention of Iraq’s neighbors in the country as the drawdown occurs. Of course, if those newly emerging forces stick hard meanwhile to the sihgtly longer-term political goal of “an end to foreign military occupation”, then the US may be forced to make the drawdown considerably more far-reaching– or indeed total— than Petraeus or his current political bosses may currently desire.
A total withdrawal of US forces from Iraq is certainly what I would like to see. That is why I welcome these most recent signs of greatly increased political coherence and sophistication among the Sadrists– on a clearly “nationalist-minded” basis. And I welcome the signs of Petraeus’s realism, as well.
Might these two end up being the Boumedienne and De Gaulle of Iraq’s national liberation?
Petraeus, at least, would not have to face the prospect of an OAS-style revolt from within his own army, if and when he and his political masters take a decision for complete withdrawal….
You’ve got the wrong Algerian for your point of comparison. Boumediene was the head of the army of the exterior as the provisional government, led by Benyoussef Behkhedda, began to negotiate with de Gaulle on what came to be the Evian Accord. Boumediene actually opposed the Provisional Government (GPRA) and turned against it once independence came, supporting Ben Bella instead of Benkhedda to be the country;’s first president. Three years later, of course, he tossed him out and took over in his own name. I seem to remember a book about all this, titled Revolution and Political Leadership….
Ah, wouldn’t you know that one of the first people to read this post happens to be someone who knows more about this phase of Algerian history than just about any other American, living or dead? Since “Algeria Hand” then called me to tell me directly of my mistake I was able to talk the whole thing through with him. He told me the name of the person who did do the negotiations with De Gaulle, but Benkhedda’s is not a well-known name.
In the post and the perhaps ill-chosen original title– since then, changed to take out the “Bouemedienne” reference– title I was trying to get away from the shopworn old “Mandela/De Klerk” analogy, which is not totally inapposite. Also, De Gaulle as the (former) military boss is a nice analogue to Petraeus. And I liked the contrast it suggested between the French military’s response to the idea of leaving Algeria and the US military’s general response to the idea of leaving Iraq…
So I took Boumedienne out of the title but for now have left him in the text…
Anyway, as AH and I were talking about this we also agreed it was notable that Petraeus started talking in this new, much more respectful way about Moqtada the very day after he (P) was sitting there in Baghdad schmoozing with Gates. The content of what Petraeus said to Tyson presumably had either been cleared with Gates beforehand, or perhaps even suggested by him? Either way, this is not a rogue general.
I would just add that in Farsi, “Boumedi” refers to someone that smells bad!
Helena, on the political manouvrings that followed the Dec 05 election and the link to Reidar Visser:
According to Wiki in the UIA the SIIC/Badr’s had the largest bloc, 36, followed by the Sadrists 29, followed by Islamic Dawa (Jafaari/Maliki) 13, followed by the second Islamic Dawa Party – (a breakaway from the other) – 12.
From doing the sums it can be seen that neither SIIC nor Sadrists had the numbers on their own to take the PM position. The SIIC would have required the support of one of the Dawa parties to defeat a Sadrist candidate, whereas the Sadrists would have required the support of BOTH Dawa Parties to defeat an SIIC candidate.
However the Sadrists were in a position to act as a powerbroker by supporting a Dawa candidate against SIIC and this is what they did.
There were also 28 Independent votes, and they have appeared to split just over 50/50 SIIC’s way, as Jafaari only won over Hakim by 1 vote.
That was not the end of the story though. As I understand it the Iraq constitution requires that the PM be approved by a two thirds majority of the Parliament. The Sunni and Kurdish blocs refused to approve Jafaari and stood firm for months until Maliki emerged as the compromise candidate?
Sorry to go into such detail, but I am aware that Americans are not familiar with proportionally representative voting systems. In our neck of the woods they are not uncommon, and New Zealand has a similiar system to Iraq’s.
Helena, one thing that I think is missing before the Iraqi nationalism of the Sadrists can be said to be truly “coherent” is a more realistic and moderate position in the de-Baathification discussion. Lately, Sadrist representatives have been making a number of unhelpful public statements on that issue. The Sadrists are quite close to the Sunni parties on federalism and oil, but de-Baathification seems to work against any kind of rapprochement. Quite possibly, the Maliki government may be aware of that and may try to exploit it; it was only late this summer that de-Baathification seemed to overtake oil legislation and constitutional revision as the number one legislative priority.
BB, if you look closer at the Wikipedia article “Iraqi legislative election, December 2005” you will find that it is based on two sources: a (mis)reading of my article on the subject as well as Juan Cole’s discussion of that same article. I remember an earlier version of the Wiki article that clearly showed how the wrong numbers came out; I think they used the percentages from the preliminary results on the final numbers or something similar. The loyalties of UIA parliamentarians have been in flux over the last years, but I don’t think SCIRI at any point had more than 30 representatives, whereas the Sadrists, on the other hand, at one point had 32 – the highest number I have seen for any individual bloc within the alliance.
Reider,
Sadrist representatives have been making a number of unhelpful public statements on that issue.
Also you may know that Al-Hakim did same (his son rejecting de-Baathification).
There is wide rejection from Da’awa and others which really understandable, but no one realized that these guys who where accused old regime of banning them from political freedom in the past they doing same acts by themselves now as the old regime.
I remember an earlier version of the Wiki article that clearly showed how the wrong numbers came out;
Reider there were incident that the voting box went missing in the south! (Was reported in Iraqi media) those boxes returned or found after ONE day? so did those boxes was holding the original vote papers? Considering the chaos Iraq living in and who may have did or benefits from this all story.
Also there is another story heard from Iraqi that some handed $100 per voting form (One of Iraq neighbor) collecting them! Why?
But in the end if you ask Iraqis in the street most of them will laugh on you about their election
Moqtada Sadr’s movement approved to be when squeezed will come to obey, we saw that first in Najaf, also Moqtada Sadr’s movement demonstrated a lot of acts make them in one way or another doing jobs on behalf of their handlers.So this move not surprising at all if we look to the Moqtada Sadr’s movement behaviors by trying to play in hard way to gain some “Iraqi Walk Cake”.
Recently there is some news that there is break down within the opposition to occupations / Nationalist one rep. visited Saudi, Syria and Egypt. So there are quite many works behind the curtains happing may be initiated by US in one way or another.
There is one story tells US forces visiting Iraqi homes and shops owners offering them $US2000-$US2500 for opening their shops and restoring the life in the streets of Baghdad, as if is a shift course in Iraq, a significant turnabout from two months ago, to proclaim that the surage has indeed worked, US now pushing toward seeing the surage of its forces works and AQI defeated and keep hearing from US sources that AQI moving from Baghdad north.
In the end the bottom line looks US need to reach to some calm statuation in Iraq specially in Iraq to bring all parties to some sort of agreements to pass the OIL bill, which recently some news and high US officials made surprise appearances in Baghdad and mentioning the OIL in particular for steel Iraq may note John Negroponte surprise visit to Baghdad and North the gave visit to Kurdish parties and Al-Hakim visit to US.
(The occupation authorities maintained their close relationship with Hakim despite his longterm– and continuing– links with Tehran. Go figure.).
In case some the did not reading Iraqi news mentioning Al-Hakim’s visit to US, as for health checks, then to discussing with US the Maliki / Bush agreement of long US presence in Iraq But while he is in US another surprising break happened which is NIE report about Iran and finally when return to Iraq announcing that US/Iran talk will start within two day!
So what his visit all bout? Wonder
Iraqi legislative election, December 2005”..clearly showed how the wrong numbers came out;
Its so laughable to talk about Iraqi legislative election while US criticism of election in Russia in same time you regarding Iraqi election as “Iraqi legislative election” Soooo funny
“It seems inappropriate for the foreign policy agency of one of the world’s countries, even such a large one as the United States, to teach other people how to live,” the Foreign Ministry statement said. It pointed to the controversial U.S. presidential election of 2000 as evidence of flawed American democracy.
Russian Foreign Ministry
December 7, 2007
Reidar: Thank you for your reply. When I went back to the Wiki page I realised I had left Fadhila out of the equation (!). But while this weakens my point about the Sadrists being powerbrokers as Fadhila would have been equally placed, I believe my underlying point, ie that SIIC was better placed than the Sadrists by virtue of it having a higher number of “seats” is still correct.
This is bceause I was not referring to the Wiki “article” but to the accompanying chart on the page that shows the breakdown of the number of seats each party holds within the alliance. In the article of yours that Helena linked to, your “percentages” did not take into account the distribution of the compensatory seats? The Wiki chart shows that the SIIC/Badrs took 15 of the 19 compensatories taking their numbers up to 36 as against the Sadrists 29.
It also appears to me that SIIC/Badr are the major grouping inside the UIA because they hold the position of Vice President. That opened the way for Dawa to argue they should have the PM’s position? In contrast the Sadrists hold none of the key positions and only 4 (or is it 6) ministries? In addition, even since Fadhila, the Sadrists and the Accord Front have quit the government they have not been able to marshall the numbers to topple it, a further indication that SIIC and Dawa share a certain solidarity?
Finally, I hoping hoping you might be able to clear up whether I have been under a misapprehension about the following: my assumption has always been that when the Iraqis went to vote the ballot paper showed only the UIA: ie the ballot paper was not broken down into the individual party components? My understanding was that the allocation of the seats between the parties had basically been negotiated BEFORE the election, probably based on the results of the Jan election? I believe this is particularly true for the Sadrists as they did not run as a party. Muqtada gave support to a group called the “Upholders of the Message” who won 2 seats. Certainly the Sadrists did not have a party figuring on niqash.org
But if I am wrong about this I would be grateful for the correction!
If I may inject a note of cynicism here….
I really don’t see Petraeus’ nice words about Sadr as signifying some kind of reapproachment. Sadr has always been, and continues to be, the Shiite leader most adamantly opposed to the US occupation — the only cooperation that Sadr is likely to offer the occupation forces is an agreement not to attack them on their way out.
I’d like to suggest that Petraeus’ remarks were aimed at exacerbating the disorganization of the Shiite movement, and perhaps an effort on Petraeus’ part to take credit for things he had no role in. (Sadr’s ceasefire decision was doubtless greatly influenced by Sistani, who does not want to see intra-Shiite violence fracture the fragile Shitte coalition.).
Saying nice things about Sadr sends a message to Maliki that his government is not the only game in town, and that it would be quite easy for Maliki to be replaced by a coalition of Sadrists, Kurds, and various parliamentary representatives on the US payroll.
Petraeus’ remarks may also be intended to discredit Sadr himself within his own movement–the mere suggestion that Sadr would co-operate with the occupation in any meaningful way would be anathema to most of Sadr’s supporters.
Petraeus’ own tactics are the proximate cause in the hardening of opposition to changes in the de-Baathification laws… the “tribal leaders” that Petraeus is now empowering in the Sunni communities are, by and large, Baathists who remain dedicated to a return of the status quo ante — the Shiite government understands this, and isn’t about to contribute to the creation of a “rebel” army dedicated to the overthrow of the elected government.
BB, sorry to be so brief, again, the sources are the same, but the Wiki writers got the mathematics wrong. I covered the certified results with the additional seats in an article at http://www.historiae.org/SCIRI.asp
SCIRI had around 21 seats after the initial distribution and managed to pick up another 9 in the distribution of compensatory seats (an entirely undemocratic backdoor procedure over which voters had no influence). They ended up with around 30, the same as the Sadrists, after 2 non-UIA Risaliyun candidates joined the Sadrists. It is true that there was some kind of pre-election distribution formula within the UIA, but this was only theoretical given that the voters voted for lists of candidates where the names of individuals were given. SCIRI subsequently used the compensatory seats mechanism to promote people who had received very few votes (like a couple of hundred votes in a mainly Sunni area etc.) I have never ever seen the number 36 for SCIRI’s representatives in any article except this Wiki one (and those who copied it), and would be curious to know the names of these 5 alleged extra SCIRI MPs.
Daawa has certainly been supportive of SCIRI for most of the time since 2005, but lately there have been moves by Ibrahim al-Jaafari to create a breakaway faction of what they see as the “real” Daawa, supported by Daawa members who are unhappy with the close alliance between Maliki and SCIRI.
Thanks for all the comments, which I think really are helping to clarify the situation further.
P. Lukasiak, I do agree that your interpretation of Petraeus’s motivations and political “strategy” in this matter is one extremely plausible one. Occupying powers and before them more classically colonial powers have certainly been well known to try to undertake such such tricky, divide-and-rule maneuvers. It doesn’t mean they always get what they want. For example, look at Israel’s role in giving substantial help to the Muslim Brotherhood in Gaza in the 1980s, which later brought them Hamas; or Israel’s role helping empower the Shiites of Lebanon in 1981-82– also aimed against the PLO/Fateh– which ended up bringing them Hizbullah.
However, it is a complex political game for an outsider to try to play. However much raw military power the outsider has, he is always at a disadvantage trying to play inside the political milieu of a sturdy indigenous people; and indeed, having and using the raw power can very often itself prevent the victory of the outsider’s schemes.
Meanwhile, Petraeus has evidently felt himself obliged to make some kind of public acknowledgment of Moqtada’s role, and him having done this changes the political dynamic, I believe, in the US as well as in Iraq. The story is by no means yet over– or, indeed, clear to outsiders.
And perhaps even unclear to Petraeus himself. How much does he really know, with confidence, about the internal relations among the various factions within Iraq? Presumably, considerably less than the Israelis know about internal matters within, say, Hizbullah, whom they’ve been studying and trying to infiltrate for >20 years but whom they have been quite unable to defeat.
infiltrate for >20 years but whom they have been quite unable to defeat
It’s too much to say this! Israelis failed with Hezbollah?
Israelis joyfully stating SIX DAYES WAR when they defeated SEVNE MILITARY ARMIES IN SEX DAYES they are not able to infiltrate Hezbollah?
There is BIG secret here.
I would not underestimate the self-promotional component of ANYTHING Petraeus says or does. It is, in fact, the only thing he has succeeded at in Iraq.
Reidar, thank you again. Your Sciri article clarified alot.
As to my other question: Did the ballot papers give the voters the opportunity to vote SPECIFICALLY for the component parties in the UIA – eg Dawa, Virtue etc or were they confined to just voting UIA?
BB, in December 2005, people voted for party lists in the governorates, i.e. in this case a UIA coalition list. Individual party affiliations were not indicated on the ballot paper, but the names were ranked and so people knew who they were voting for. The fascinating thing about the compensatory mechanism is this: many SCIRI candidates were placed far down on lists in the Shiite-majority provinces, although they topped the lists in some obscure locations where there are very few Shiites (some hundreds), like Anbar and Sulaymaniyya. Thus, after the votes had been counted, SCIRI had only 20 seats. But during the distribution of compensatory seats – which in the peculiar Iraqi system is completely subjected to the whims of party elites and has no correlation whatsoever to the popular vote – SCIRI candidates emerged from places far down on the lists and from Sunni areas to such an extent that they ended up forming a third of SCIRI’s parliamentary bloc.
R. Thanks. My assumption appears to have been correct. If the voters were only able to mark “UIA” and not mark a preference for the individual parties, then the seat ratio of parties in the alliance must have been allocated in negotiations prior to the election as the proportions could not be determined by the vote? This would have included the compensatory or national seats.
I also notice that in the Jan 05 governorate elections, Sciri or a combination of Sciri/Dawa won nine of the governorates, with the Fadhila and the Sadrists gaining 1 each? I feel this is another indicator of the Siic/Dawa primary vote as compared to the Sadrists in 2005.
It will be interesting to see if the Sadrists decide to run separately in the next election, or stay under the UIA umbrella.
Helena will love this?
Many analysts say what may reemerge is an Iraqi version of Lebanon’s Hizbullah – a state within a state that embraces politics while maintaining a separate military and social structure that holds powerful sway at home and in the region.
“He is now in the process of reconstituting the [Mahdi] Army and removing all the bad people that committed mistakes and those that sullied its reputation. There will be a whole new structure and dozens of conditions for membership,” says Sheikh Abdul-Hadi al-Mahamadawi, a turbaned cleric who commands Sadr’s operation in Karbala.
http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/1211/p01s06-wome.htm
“New Zealand has a similiar system to Iraq’s.”
Not particularly similar as far as I can see. The NZ MMP electoral systems differs from that of Iraq in that:
Voting:
In NZ each voter votes for both an electorate member and a party. It is not a governate and near secret “closed party list” system but rather a district based “mixed party list” system.
There are 50 electorate seats to 69 party seats, 1 in 10 of the later being Maori seats (Maoris can chose to vote for instead of the general seats). So nearly 40 % of seats are party seats.
In Iraq, just over 15% of seats are “compensatory”
Winning Seats:
In NZ the critera for winning seats is simply all party votes won over a 5% threshold (party vote)and/or a simple majority in any seat(electorate vote).
Candidates:
Minimum age is 21 not 30
There is no threshold based on gender
There is no equivalent to the Ba’ath Party exclusion
There is no past “illegitimate enrichment” exclusion clause
There is no “bad reputation” exclusion
Iraq does not have MMP, as NZ and Germany do.
BB sorry to be so brief but I am really busy with something else. But, no, the pre-determined quotas had no impact on the 110 UIA seats that were distributed based on the popular vote, simply because that would have usurped the preferences of the voters who voted for list of named candidates. The crucial point is that these pre-election quotas were not reflected on the ballot papers and thus not reflected in the popular vote! For example, in Basra, UIA won 13 seats. These were allocated to the 13 individuals ranked on the top of the UIA list in Basra (whose names the voters were aware of when they voted). They were 3 from Fadila, 3 independents, 2 Sadrists, 2 from SCIRI/Badr, 2 from Daawa (Tanzim al-Iraq) and 1 from Daawa. Just for the sake of the argument, if UIA had managed to take all 16 Basra seats, the next ones would have gone to one independent and two Daawa members (one Tanzim al-Iraq). No pre-arranged distribution quota could have changed this, and the more seats UIA had won on a popular basis, the less the backroom deals between the elites could have been used to engineer a total distribution that would approximate the pre-arranged distribution of quotas, simply because there would have been more “clean” (i.e. popularly elected) seats and less compensatory seats. The existence of a pre-election formula is well-known but the point is that it was not used as a basis for ranking candidates from different parties on the coalition ballot papers.
And no, SCIRI did not win 9 governorates outright in Jan 05, but it took part in majority coalitions in many governorates and ended up with the governor in around half of these governorates. The Sadrists mostly boycotted these elections except some places like Maysan where they won the governorate.
Presumably the order of candidates on the UIA lists was decided by negotiation before the election. I recall stories at the time that Chalabi pulled out of the UIA because he’d been offered too few guaranteed seats?
Roland: I didn’t say Iraq had an identical system to NZ. “Similar” was used in the sense that NZ also has a system based on proportional representation, which is a system not very well understood by Americans.
In your reference to Iraq’s “near secret” closed party list system: I think you are referring to the Jan 05 election where the candidates lists had to be withdrawn from public view because the insurgency was intending to assassinate them? My understanding is the lists were publicly available in the Dec election 11 months later because the Sunnis supported that election and security was therefore better.
In the first election the entire country was treated as one electorate – this was for means of convenience given the short time the then interim govt had to prepare. In the Dec election, the electorates were based on the governorates. When the insurgency is finally finished it is possible Iraq will move to more to an MMP.
bb, I simply quoted you and responded to what I quoted, which to any reasonably educated New Zealander was a preposterous comparison.
But no matter, it’s cleared up now.
When the criminal American occupation ends the Iraqi people will be in an infinitely better position to determine their own future as a sovereign people. It’s their country. Say Hi to John Howard for me. I hear he’s out jogging a lot more.
The American occupation army will never stop Meeting Resistance.
BB:
1. There is no insurgency in Iraq. What happened in 1991 was an insurgency. There are a lot of different things going on in Iraq, including legitimate resistance, but none of them is insurgency.
2. The resistance will not be finished until the Americans are gone.
The PR variant Iraq is closest to is probably that chosen by post apartheid South Africa in 1994. It wouldn’t be surprising if SA was used by the Iraqis as the model given it too was coming out of a long period of totalitarian rule at the hands of a 20% minority.