Posted on 05/16/2004 9:02:12 AM PDT by Piranha
WASHINGTON : The United States signaled its readiness to put up with an Islamic theocracy in future sovereign Iraq, with Secretary of State Colin Powell saying the US administration "will have to accept" any government created as a result of free and fair elections there.
The remark, made in an interview with NBC television, marked a policy reversal for the administration of President George W. Bush, which up to now had vowed to fight tooth and nail any attempt by Iraqi Shiite leaders to follow in the footsteps of their brethren in Iran.
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The policy of resisting future Islamic rule in Iraq has been repeatedly spelled out by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who stated publicly a year ago that "a vocal minority clamoring to transform Iraq in Iran's image will not be permitted to do so."
US occupation authorities have also resisted attempts by Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani and other leading Shiite clerics to insert clauses in Iraq's provisional constitution that would have established Islam as the philosophical foundation of future legislative activities.
But asked Sunday if a theocratic government fashioned after the regime in Tehran would be acceptable to Washington now, Powell indicated it was ready to entertain this possibility.
"We will have to accept what the Iraqi people decide upon," he said in comments to be broadcast later in the day of the "Meet the Press" program.
The secretary of state cautioned, however, that to gain acceptance around the world, any future Iraqi government will have to respect basic human rights.
He also expressed confidence that after decades of totalitarian rule, the Iraqi people will opt for a true democracy after their sovereignty is restored on June 30.
"Surely, everybody understands it is a nation that rests on the faith of Islam," Powell said.
"But they also know that in order to be successful as a 21st-century country, they have to respect the rights of all individuals and not allow a purely fundamentalist regime to arise in the country," he continued. "And my sensing of what the Iraqi people want is a democracy."
The reversal appeared to chart for Iraqi Shiites a path for achieving power without resorting to violence.
The group, which represents more than 60 percent of the Iraqi population, had refrained from actively resisting US forces in the early stages of the occupation.
But the situation changed in early April, when a militia loyal to radical Shiite cleric Moqtada Sadr launched attacks against US troops, marking the start of a bloody standoff in the holy Shiite cities of Najaf and Karbala.
Some US lawmakers and Middle East experts are concerned that, given Shiites' sheer numbers, a free and fair election in Iraq, which is expected to be held in early 2005, was likely to produce a government dominated by their group.
That concern was also echoed by Powell, who warned that in order to remain a single nation and live in peace, Iraqis "have to have a nation, which understands to role of a majority but respects the role of minorities within the country."
Mindful of the political clout of the Shiites, two prominent US senators urged the Bush administration Sunday to consider bringing forwards the date of planned elections, from January to this fall.
Republican John McCain and Democrat Joseph Lieberman wrote in The Washington Post that the United States and the United Nations should move ahead "as quickly as possible with a full plan for democratic elections, one that will ensure that Iraqi liberals can compete fairly in local constituencies with Islamists organized nationally."
- AFP
What will the US do during the next wave of Kurdish massacres? What will we do when Iraq allies itself with Iran on WMD development programs? Will we turn Saddam Hussein over to these people for prosecution?
I am shocked! I thought the Saddamist generals were secular dictators? </s>
Oh No
That's not a policy reversal.
It's an inherent part of free elections - you accept the results.
It is the direct opposite of this:
"a vocal minority clamoring to transform Iraq in Iran's image will not be permitted to do so."
The leading cleric in the country doesn't want a theocracy and neither do the Iraqis who have voted in town and village repeatedly against it..Next chimera please..
Some US lawmakers and Middle East experts are concerned that, given Shiites' sheer numbers, a free and fair election in Iraq, which is expected to be held in early 2005, was likely to produce a government dominated by their group.That would not be democracy, you super-geniuses. That would be a majoritarian dictatorship. In a democracy, properly so-called--e.g. Turkey, where religious parties have formed the government yet the state remains steadfastly secular--political minorities enjoy the full rights and benefits of citizenship and equality under the law.
Minority opinions, even if vocal, don't do too well in free elections.
Seeing the bright side! Good attitude!
If there are any oppressed peoples in the Middle East that deserves its own state, it is the Kurds and the Assyrian Christians. I see horrible suffering for them both (although the Kurds themselves are Muslims) in the Islamic Republic of Iraq in the future.
Options?
As if we have a choice.
I agree, because this statement comes from State.
The Iraqi congress needs to have the freedom to choose whatever is mutually agreed upon and nothing can be off the table at this stage of the game.
Everything possible will be done by us and the international community to guide them as they write the laws that will govern in the future.
To take anything but Saddam off at this stage would be like saying the U.S. is forcing them to choose.
We must keep this a fair and totally transparent process without any hint that we are controlling it.
This statement is statesmanship, and not a policy reversal. It is a re-statement of the policy of freedom to choose.
Sure they do. Many governments under a parliamentary system such as that proposed for Iraq are minority governments. Hitler took power with the National Socialists merely in the 30s percentile.
All they need is to come in first and find a coalition partner or two.
Oh, and since by definition the goal of a theocracy is to establish dictatorship, they need come in first only once and then stamp out the opposition.
How does a minority win a free and fair election?
1. Continue to fight the war in pre-Abu Ghreib mode and knock down Islamo-terror resistance.
2. Free Kurdistan.
3. Take away jurisdiction from the Islamofascist Brahimi and his UN pals and return it to the Iraqi National Congress.
4. Vigorously go after the Oil for Food Scandal and reveal the identities of those who were on Saddam's payroll, wherever they may be.
If Bush loses, it will be because he is going wobbly. If he stiffens up, he will win in a landslide. People want to win this war, and they want a leader to explain how he is going to do it, where he is going with it. If the mushy bulk of people in the middle get the sense, right or wrong, that the war is going nowhere, they will want out.
CNN has become almost comically biased against the Bush administration during the last few months. I really think that if there were anything to this story, CNN would have been trumpeting it.
If anybody gets different results, or can verify this, I'll be happy to eat my words. But I smell a rat.
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