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Iraqis Get Their First Look at Sausage Manufacture

Recently Mark Steyn wrote:

[I]n the run-up to the election and in the month since, we’ve seen various groupings come together, hammer out areas of agreement, reach out to other coalitions, identify compromise positions, etc. — in a word, politics.

The sight of eight million Iraqis going to the polls was profoundly moving to their neighbours in Syria, Lebanon, Egypt etc. But it was all the pluralist multi-party smoke-filled-room stuff that caught the fancy of the frustrated political class in those other countries.

It would have been possible to find a friendly authoritarian Musharraf type and install him on one of Saddam’s solid gold toilets, but it would have been utterly uninspiring to the world beyond Iraq’s borders. It would have missed the point of the exercise.

Read the whole thing here.

Steyn has an important point here. A great deal of support for democratic reform throughout the Middle East and elsewhere comes from aspiring politicial leaders locked out of the current regimes. The inevitable result of democratization will be the entry of these ambitious men into the political process and the attendant public jostling and deal-making that is so much a part of the democratic process. Some people in Iraq, observing this, have become disillusioned

Reuters reports:

By Omar Anwar

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Many Iraqis who defied suicide bombers to vote in landmark elections now say they regret risking their lives for politicians they say care more about winning top government posts than rescuing the country.

Five weeks after the national assembly polls, Iraqi parties are locked in wrangling over who will get what posts, leaving Iraqis frustrated as violence rages.
....

Politicians from different party lists have worked to divide up key posts including that of prime minister.

But ordinary Iraqis say stability, promised by Iraqi officials as a fruit of democracy, is their number one concern ahead of the demands of rival sects or the question of who will get control of oil-rich cities.

There is real danger here. If the new government is unable to provide security it will lose legitimacy in the minds of many citizens and that will open the way for a strong man to take charge or for other powers in the region to interfere in Iraqi internal affairs.

We can take some hope, though from the fact that not all Iraqis are so pessimistic as those quoted at the head of Reuter's article [read it here].

"Some Iraqis," the article notes, "said the protracted negotiations are a healthy part of democracy, as long as they deliver."

They are trying to reach a consensus. It's for the benefit of Iraq," said Yihya Ibrahim, 45, a taxi driver."

It's part of democracy and the political game. I have no concerns on them being late as long as they reach a result that serves Iraq."

Well said! Welcome to the sausage factory.