Dr. Lynch is absolutely correct. First off, we won't know the election results for quite some time, and speculating about the winner will only get our hopes up (depending which side you are for). Early reporting of election results are often preliminary and unedited in all societies...remember that awful three month experience the United States faced in 2000? Truth be told, if the U.S. cannot accurately predict a close election, the Iraqi media will have a hard time predicting winners as well. I mean cmon, there were 6100 candidates vying for over 300 seats, so early reporting should be taken with a grain of salt.

Optimism is profound right now. Iraqis are showing off their purple-fingers and are boasting about their country's democratic successes. Insurgents only managed to kill 36 people across the country during election day, a tragic number, but still remarkably low when putting the attacks into context. Iraqis braved the violence for caste their votes, eager to make their voices heard from ballots instead of bullets.

But again, the real test will come after the election results are tallied. In the short term, who leads the government is a distant second to how the government is picked. Will months precede without an Iraqi Government, like in 2005 when it took almost 6 months for the parties to agree on a Prime Minister? Or will Sunnis, Shias, and Kurds do some effective backroom dealing, dividing the spoils in a way that will provide Sunnis and Kurds with representation?

We don't know yet. Too early to tell, but this is certainly a great first step.

-Dan DePetris
http://www.depetris.wordpress.com

One must say that the success of the elections in Iraq, is a testament to the courage and maturity of the Iraqi people. As for what happens afterwards, well, the permutations are endless. Nevertheless, if left to one, I would say that, I wish first of all, for Iraq to have an Arab president {no racism here, after all one is ethnically non-Arab} because Iraq is and has always been part of the Arab world. Secondly, I would want to see, both Mr. Barzani and Mr. Talibani toppled from their positions of running Kurdish political affairs. Thirdly, one would wish to see Dr. Allawi as the prime minister of Iraq, and finally, for the Iraqi people to pick the fruits of the promises made by the USA, when it invaded Iraq.
khairi janbek.paris/france

"I wish first of all, for Iraq to have an Arab president (no racism here, after all one is ethnically non-Arab} because Iraq is and has always been part of the Arab world"

So an Iraqi Kurd should not be entitled to be president of Iraq on the sole grounds that he/she is not an Arab?

No racism implied at all!

From the preamble to the Iraqi Constitution:

"and in the midst of international support
from our friends and those who love us, marched for the first time in our history towards the
ballot boxes by the millions, men and women, young and old, on the thirtieth of January 2005,
invoking the pains of sectarian oppression inflicted by the autocratic clique and inspired by the
tragedies of Iraq’s martyrs, Shiite and Sunni, Arabs and Kurds and Turkmen and from all other
components of the people, and recollecting the darkness of the ravage of the holy cities and the
South in the Sha’abaniyya uprising and burnt by the flames of grief of the mass graves, the
marshes, Al-Dujail and others and articulating the sufferings of racial oppression in the
massacres of Halabcha, Barzan, Anfal and the Fayli Kurds and inspired by the ordeals of the
Turkmen in Bashir and the sufferings of the people of the western region, as is the case in the
remaining areas of Iraq where the people suffered from the liquidation of their leaders, symbols,
and Sheiks and from the displacement of their skilled individuals and from drying out of its
cultural and intellectual wells, so we sought hand in hand and shoulder to shoulder to create our
new Iraq, the Iraq of the future, free from sectarianism, racism, complex of regional attachment,
discrimination, and exclusion.
Accusations of being infidels, and terrorism did not stop us from marching forward to build a
nation of law. Sectarianism and racism have not stopped us from marching together to
strengthen our national unity, following the path of peaceful transfer of power, adopting the
course of just distribution of resources, and providing equal opportunity for all.
We, the people of Iraq, who have just risen from our stumble, and who are looking with
confidence to the future through a republican, federal, democratic, pluralistic system, have
resolved with the determination of our men, women, elderly, and youth to respect the rule of law,
to establish justice and equality, to cast aside the politics of aggression, to pay attention to
women and their rights, the elderly and their concerns, and children and their affairs, to spread
the culture of diversity, and to defuse terrorism.
We, the people of Iraq, of all components and across the spectrum, have taken upon ourselves to
decide freely and by choice to unite our future, to take lessons from yesterday for tomorrow, and
to enact this permanent Constitution, through the values and ideals of the heavenly messages and
the findings of science and man’s civilization. The adherence to this Constitution preserves for
Iraq its free union of people, of land, and of sovereignty."

Suggest that as far as Arabism is concerned the Iraqi shia arabs who drafted this constitution had in mind the deafening silence of their Arab brothers over the decades the Iraq Arab tyranny was perpetrating the above atrocities. The Kurdish Iraqis shared the same experience. And then there was the traffic of Sunni arab jihadis across the borders of Iraq's arab brothers, who declared war on the shia after 2003.

All of which probably explains why the constitution contents itself with a mere acknowledgement of Iraq's membership of the Arab League when referring to its Arab identity.

Kurdish is now acknowledged with Arabic as an official language of the new Iraq and any Kurd, like any other Iraqi, is entitled to be president .

Is an Arab entitled to be the president of Kurdistan/Iraq?. After all, the area is still part of Iraq.
khairi janbek.paris/france

The answer is yes, going by the Kurdistan constitution. Not only Arabs, but also Turkmen, Chaledeans, Assyrians and women are entitled to be president, if they are so elected.

Article 6

First: The people of Kurdistan-Iraq consist of Kurds and other nationalities, Turkmen, Chaldeans, Assyrians, Armenians, and Arabs, who are citizens of Kurdistan Region in accordance with the law.

Article 14

First: Kurdish and Arabic shall be two official languages in Kurdistan Region, and this Constitution guarantees the rights of citizens of Kurdistan Region to the education of their children in their mother-tongue languages such as Turkmen, Assyrian, and Armenian in Kurdistan governmental educational institutions according to educational regulations.

Article 18

Citizens shall be equal before law in their rights and duties without discrimination on account of sex, race, color, language, social origin, religion, creed, social or economic status, or political and ideological affiliation.

Article 23

First: Citizens of Kurdistan Region shall have the right to freely participate in the management of public affairs directly or through their elected representatives. They shall also have the right to participate in general elections, plebiscites, elections of local and municipal councils and private committees, and assume the public positions equally in accordance with the conditions set forth in the law and the principle of equal opportunity.

Article 100

The Kurdistan Region President shall be elected by a general, secret, and direct ballot by the citizens of the region.

As a practical matter JB, it might be unlikely that the non Kurd would be elected president by an overwhemingly Kurdish electorate, but non Kurds have the same constitutional rights as all other Kurds, unless you have other evidence to the contrary?

Kurds have the same constitutional rights as Arabs in Iraq. It is not just likely that an individual of Kurdish origin can be a president of the country, but actually is, unlike the likelihood of an Arab, Chaldian or Turkmen becoming the president of Kurdistan/Iraq.
khairi janbek.paris/france

The fact that it is a multi-ethnic state, one would prefer; for what's it worth a president for Iraq regardless of religion or origin. However, since in this multi-ethnicty ethnic origin or/and religious denomination is what matters, then I do advocate an Arab president for the Arabs; be that Shi'i or Sunni.
khairi janbek.paris/france

For what's it worth, one would be glad BB to see Iraq proceeding on the fastest trach towards democratisation. One doesn't share your good self's opinion about the current sectarian nature of Iraqi society, therefore, so long as there are sectarian claims, one is only staking one's own claim in this context.
khairi janbek.paris/france

I think you are, as opposed to racist or sectarian. Also you are not used to seeing democratic elections conducted on proportional representation in the arab world, or constitutions that guarantee equal rights for all citizens.

For me it is interesting to observe how the experience of shared suffering at the hands of the Baath produced this democratic cross-ethnic constitution in Iraq, which makes it so different from its Sunni-ruled Arab neighbours. I also wonder if it is the shia religious tradition of commemorating suffering that inclined it to democratic solutions once the shia were empowered in Iraq? Such a tradition shares much with Christianity.

No problem BB, many have attempted to patronise me before about what I am supposed to be used and not used to, despite the fact that one is a product of western education, and western prejudices, which are often transmitted to me through people whom think they know one area or another more than I do, and think they know how people should live in the world becuse they cracked it all. Still, this is what makes this world interesting, moreover amusing.
khairi janbek.paris/france

Well JB I have noticed that you seem to share a sunni arab-centric perspective of the middle east with many if not most of the western pundits, experts like Prof Lynch, sundry analysts, State, CIA and the Brit FO etc. I think they are thoroughly old fashioned too, so it wasn't mean't to be personal.

Myself tends to see things in class terms - ruling class/working/under class/ bourgoisie. Many would say that is old fashioned too!

I suppose birds of feather stick together, and this is probably one of the main reasons I enjoy exchanging views with your good self BB. At my age, I suppose I have gradually drifted towards; more of ecclecticism in my political outlook. I don't think it is either realism or pragmatism, rather a matter of coping with things as they are rather than as they ought to be. I can assure your good self that, religion or religious denomination/s are very much secondary if not tertiory on mind. Perhaps after all, I do share something with your good self; not only being just old fashioned, but rather the distaste for injustice. I think, be that through Marxian class analysis, or through the sense of fair play the objective remains the same though the means may diverge.
khairi janbek.paris/france

and a background in journalism too.

too true.

OK Mr./Ms/ DMM, I suppose I'll take what your good self is writing as a compliment. Thank you.
khairi janbek.paris/france