From all that I've been able to read so far, it appears that (a) the turnout in the Iraqi election was very high, (b) the Constitutional referendum is going to pass--easily, and (c) the terrorist attacks were much less numerous, and much less effective, than threatened by the Al-Qaeda leadership.
Bravo, Iraq! May the "Spirit of the Purple Finger" live on eternally!
What good news for this Sunday...
In the old blog, Larry said:
ReplyDeleteI’m slightly less enthusiastic about this since it required 2/3 vote to reject it rather than 2/3 to approve, it was a virtual certainty that it would pass. Despite a reported 95% Sunni’s voting against it. I think Iraq is still a deeply divided country and if we pulled out anytime soon it would be chaos.
In the old blog, Anonymous said:
ReplyDeleteWell, not quite so fast. It turns out that (assuming the current counts hold) a majority of Sunnis voted for the Constitution. Two of the mainly Sunni provinces where many expected rejection voted 70%+ for the Constitution. From the Pittsburg Tribune-Review:And if that’s not remarkable enough, consider that an eye-popping number of Sunni Arabs — who boycotted January’s balloting — not only turned out in high numbers but a higher-than-expected number appear to have voted for the constitution.
That latter fact is no small development. It means that democratic republicanism has become the baseline for Iraq society. Even those who may not agree with everything in the constitution now fully understand that the best route to meaningful and lasting change — and security — comes by ballot, not bullet.