Arab News Editorial

The United Nations has agreed with Washington that elections cannot be held in Iraq before the US-led Coalition hands over administration to the Iraqi interim government on June 30. It is the assessment of Lakhdar Brahimi, the UN’s envoy to Iraq, that the security situation will not have improved to the extent that free and fair elections can be held and supervised by the UN. Former UN Secretary-General Boutros Boutros Ghali has said that it is better to wait until conditions are right — in both Iraq and Afghanistan. In the latter the UN registration of voters is already well behind schedule. In Iraq the UN presence has been minimal and the security situation is markedly worse. Early elections are not feasible. It is not simply that voter registration is not a prospect. The appointed Governing Council has not even agreed on a constitution. The Kurdish and Sunni minorities want a document that recognizes their position before any election takes place.

All depends on the view of the majority Shiites led by Grand Ayatollah Ali Al-Sistani. There have already been Shiite demonstrations demanding early elections. There is clearly popular impatience with the delays in clarifying the future political shape of Iraq. As the majority, some Shiites believe that the sooner they can express themselves at the ballot box, the better. It must be hoped that wiser counsels will prevail. The new Iraq must embrace all Iraqis in a way that Saddam’s Iraq did not. As Shiite leaders have warned, there should be no payback for the period in which the Sunni minority was dominant. An Iraq that ignores any part of its religious and ethnic makeup is going to be a divided state.

The questions now are threefold: Can a new constitution be ready for elections rescheduled to 2005? Meanwhile, can the interim administration continue to work successfully to build a pluralist society? And will the Iraqi and coalition forces be able to master the security situation to allow sufficient stability for elections to take place finally in 21 months’ time?

The insurgents will do all they can to sabotage every stage of the process. A key aim will be to provoke Shiite anger and impatience by kindling strife between Sunni and Shiites. Further political assassinations will be designed to undermine faith in the interim administration and humiliate the coalition security forces. As Iraq struggles to create a representative democracy, it poses an easy target for the men of violence.

One or two well-targeted outrages could provoke substantial fury. The insurgents could then sit back and let the resultant chaos do much of their work for them. The already rising tide of Shiite recrimination against the US could turn to armed opposition. The prospect of a premature coalition pullout and the resulting civil strife are too horrible to consider.