UK Independent: "Bush has succeeded in creating two new Talibans in Iraq"

Iraq's election result: a divided nation
By Patrick Cockburn
Published: 21 December 2005

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article334476.ece

Iraq is disintegrating. The first results from the parliamentary election last week show the country is dividing between Shia, Sunni and Kurdish regions. Religious fundamentalists now have the upper hand. The secular and nationalist candidate backed by the US and Britain was humiliatingly defeated.

The Shia religious coalition has won a total victory in Baghdad and the south of Iraq. The Sunni Arab parties who openly or covertly support armed resistance to the US are likely to win large majorities in Sunni provinces. The Kurds have already achieved quasi-independence and their voting reflected that.

The election marks the final shipwreck of American and British hopes of establishing a pro-Western secular democracy in a united Iraq.

Islamic fundamentalist movements are ever more powerful in both the Sunni and Shia communities. Ghassan Attiyah, an Iraqi commentator, said: "In two and a half years Bush has succeeded in creating two new Talibans in Iraq."

This whole Iraq thing has become such a joke. Unfortunately, the joke is on us.

his own daddy, who together only created 1 Taliban.

Right?

right here on DU. Probably too long ago to pull it back up, unless the smarty who said it saved it:)

Just because the ragheads have the temerity to ignore Allawi and elect someone they trust (in that case it is another Taleban) doesn't mean it's a failure for democracy. It means it's a failure of allied foreign policy. Having said that, what is so terrible about a Shia government in Iraq? If the governments in Washington and London use this as an opportunity to shoot themselves in the foot yet again it will be their responsibility and no-one else. The Bush administration had no problem dealing with the Taleban when negotiating construction of an oil and gas pipeline in Afganistan in the summer of 2000, what has changed to make things so different? Imagine the Iraqis being so ungrateful that they didn't even vote for 'Saddam Lite', really some people!

Like it or not the Shia are the majority in Iraq. Whether or not they are fundamentalist is beside the point. Al Sistani is a cleric who is directly responsible for reining in the wilder elements of radical Iraqis in large swathes of the country making the job of the armed forces even remotely tenable. Perhaps you should stop thinking in terms of 'Taleban' and start thinking 'legitimate government'.

on this board - most of us have agreed to not use language that denigrates whole groups/classes of people. JMHO.
:popcorn:

our forefathers knew that. A pure democracy with no protections can be as bad as a ruthless dictatorship. If the majority ruthlessly forces their will on the minority, it is not good and heinous acts can be committed on the minority. That is why there must be some form of Constitution as a safeguard against allowing the majority to overwhelm those with less power. In Iraq, women will be the one's that will wind up with less power and freedom. They had more freedom under Saddam, but I'm not too sure that it will continue under Shiite rule. If the Shiites force their beliefs on those unwilling to accept, your looking at civil war. It won't matter about elections or bringing democracy to the middle east--what matters is respecting others beliefs and having safeguards in place, so that minorities will not suffer under majority rule.

and to think things like Fahrenheit 911 suggest the guy has never been succesful... I bet he's been successful in creating hundreds of new terrorist cells with this occupation of Iraq.

was to create the conditions that would keep our country in a permanent state of war. That they actually went in with the intention of deliberately destabilizing the region, and replacing a stable, non-threatening, secular regime with an unstable, radicalized country in a perpetual state of "terrorism", just so they could have a "terrorist" threat always there to justify all of their erosions of our liberties here at home, and keep themselves in power by fear.

Maybe this one was a MIHOP too. If that's the case, then it really is "Mission Accomplished".