Iraqi Democracy

The NY Times reports today that religious parties are the main winners in the elections held last week. While the reports are only preliminary (however, 90 percent of the ballots have been counted, pending challenges about election fraud), they show how strong the resistance to the neo-conservative really is. The main winner in the elections will be the Shiite religious coalition. Shiites represent about 60 percent of the Iraqi population. The main challenger to the United Iraqi Alliance, the Iraqi List, headed by Ayad Allawi, had a significanly lower count than even was expected by the American government. Mr. Allawi's coalition campained as a secular alternative to the UIA. In the Sunni areas, the party with the most votes has been the Iraqi Consensus Front. The NY Times describes:

The front-runner among Sunni Arab voters was a religious coalition whose leaders have advocated resistance to the American military and have demanded that President Bush set a timetable for withdrawing the American military from Iraq.

Neither party is what Bush has promised implicitly for the future of Iraq. The UIA is a religious party which will most likely align itself with Iran, while the ICF seems to represent the Sunni religious nationalists keen on seeing a quick U.S. exit from Iraq. Either way, there is little popular support for a continued U.S. occupation of Iraq, as registered by their votes and by polls before the election. The most sensible option is Rep. Murtha's: withdraw from Iraq to bases near Iraq (in Jordan, Qatar and Kuwait), appeal for U.N. support to stem the tide towards civil war and remain within striking distance if terrorist training camps appear in the now destabilized Iraq.