commentary by Michael L. Bromley
copyright 2005

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... of Politics

Jan 31/05: Fallujah, je ne pleure pas pour vous.

Democracy in Iraq? The gripe is, "they voted, so what?...just another Bush-Wolfowitz-Cheney manipulation, and we're invading Iran next, anyway... it's a scam, it's a fraud..." and whatever.

Just shut up.

And just look here to know what a beautiful moment it was this Sunday, Jan 30.

No tears for Fallujah, no tears for Michael Moore. No tears for those who would gain from a failure of the vote in Iraq: no tears for Iran, for Saudi Arabia, for Jacques Chirac. No tears for Kofi Anan, for Jimmy Carter and for the absent UN election monitors. No tears for John Kerry, or any one else who can gain in politics, in money, or in everything but that which does not motivate them, the search for truth.

Yesterday in Iraq, the people took part in their government, one purpled finger at a time. Talk about democracy? No, it's not democracy -- it's self-government for those who chose to participate. No, there is no "democracy," just as Samuel Issacharoff moaned about in the Washington Post the week before the election:

Democracy Isn't Built on One Election Alone
Despite the deteriorating security situation that has left dozens dead in Iraq during the past few days alone, many Iraqis will feel justifiably proud to take the first step toward democracy when they cast their votes for a transitional national assembly a week from now. By itself, the election is a milestone. But it is not the key to their country's democratic legitimacy. The lasting success of democracies lies not in seeing that the will of the majority is expressed through the ballot box, but by two more long-standing factors: first, a commitment by a nation's elites that a victorious electoral coalition will not use its hold on power to exact revenge on the losers; and second, proof that the people can vote their leaders out as well as vote them in.

Well, you see where he's going.

It's so tempting to scream hypocrites! to the sound-bite hounds of who so want the votes in Iraq not to count for anything much. (John Kerry's foolishness here from the NY Post: UNCONVINCED KERRY STILL A NAYSAYER -- he will be reminded of this quotation in '08.) Let's look past the hysteria, and get something straight here on the election: democracy is not an end. That Iraqis voted, that they exercised this core element of self-government does not make it either a democracy or an ideal of any sort. Of course not. We're talking steps forward here, but HUGE steps, GIANT steps (see this photo again for a reminder), WORLD SHAKING steps.

You won't often hear the Left complain about democracy. So let's let them say it, let them remind us how Hitler rose through the vote (sort of...), how -- here, I'll add this one I haven't yet heard -- how the French Revolution was democracy itself... Let them remind us of the limits of popular, majority rule -- and then let's talk Bill of Rights, Electoral College, the difficulty of amendment, aka protections of minorities, and all the other so-hated limits on popular will that we hear about endlessly from the demagogues and the New York Times (for that one, try this idiocy: MAKING VOTES COUNT; Abolish the Electoral College)..

No, democracy is not our goal for Iraq, it is the way to it. Self-government moderated by individual protections, liberty, freedom of expression... these are the goals.  Meanwhile, what a beautiful thing those Iraqi votes, beautiful.
 

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