Redstate

I think it was a mistake to say it appears to have passed.

I could have guessed the response.

Still, it shouldn't matter much. The process was sound.

Strategically, I hope it passed.

If you're interested in dKos frontpager Armando's response, it's here.  The point is basically that despite high Sunni participation, voters in Salahuddin and Anbar provinces are likely to vote no with a 2/3 supermajority.  To prevent ratification, Sunnis need one more "no" province with a 2/3 supermajority.  Even if Sunnis don't get one more such province, which I'm guessing they won't, Armando thinks that Sunnis will come out of this frustrated and angry, realizing that the deck is stacked against them, and that the best way to keep themselves from being dominated by a Shiite-US-Kurdish alliance is more violence.  

I have to say that this 2/3 business strikes me as a strange way to do things.  If I understand it, the constitution could lose 60-40 in all but 2 provinces, be struck down unanimously in those two, and still be ratified.  That's not how one usually imagines democracy working.  

Really? Who cares?

Yes indeed -- apparently to MSMers who are rooting for Iraq to fail, low Sunni participation in January was a bad thing and so was high Sunni participation in the Oct 15 vote.

It is amusing how the anti-GWB crowd is so obsessed with the Sunnis who represent a mere 20 percent of the Iraqi population. If the total national vote for the constitution is somewhere around 75-25 the MSM will spend all their time harping on the complaints of the losers.

Unless my history fails me, the MSM wasn't all that concerned with the whining of another 20 percent minority who ruled brutally and lost their power in the move to democracy. I'm talking about the whites in South Africa in the late 1980s. Apparently the move to majority rule there was ok, but in Iraq it is not. Go figure.

I agree, the ratification process is heavy handed.

It looks like the administration didn't trust its own ideals.

Having said that, the key is to get it to work. If the Sunni decide to massively participate on the 15th, then it worked.

I might ask Armando, however, why he thinks those ratios are inappropriate, but its a good thing for a minority to change the meaning of our own constitution after the fact.

Well, if Sunnis don't see a decent future for themselves in the new Iraq, they're going to do more violence and we won't have political stability.  This will cause more Shiite violence in response -- you can read some scary stuff about how some Iraqi Army forces are basically anti-Sunni Shiite militiamen here.  You guys obviously care about a stable Iraq, so I'd expect you to care about that.  

care what Armando says. I most assuredly don't and I'm surprised anyone would quote it.

saying this is a bad thing should go and reread some US history.

There were several states where the constitution was barely ratified (and several others that were dragged kicking and screaming-along with some promise of compromise).

were covering the US constitutional convention and later ratification, if they would be writing stories on how the US was doomed to fail, blah blah blah.

Of course I imagine the Brits were probably sitting around doing just that.

I doubt seriously whether those upset that 15-20 percent of the Irai population are being "disenfranchised" by the new government would have wanted the unreconstructed South to have been given regional veto over slavery or the treatment of freedmen.

then you would be wrong

Article 61.

(A)       The National Assembly shall write the draft of the permanent constitution by no later than 15 August 2005.

(B)       The draft permanent constitution shall be presented to the Iraqi people for approval in a general referendum to be held no later than 15 October 2005.  In the period leading up to the referendum, the draft constitution shall be published and widely distributed to encourage a public debate about it among the people.

(C)       The general referendum will be successful and the draft constitution ratified if a majority of the voters in Iraq approve and if two-thirds of the voters in three or more governorates do not reject it.

You know they would.  Funny thing it wasn't really irrational to believe our new government would fail, and frankly, I think the odds our long for Iraq.  My criticism is that they seem to want it to fail just so Bush will be shown "wrong."

Forget the fact that it was Armando who said it.  Please just deal with the issue itself.  The process for ratification of the constitution, with these 2/3 supermajorities, is really weird, and it's not the kind of thing that inspires confidence in democracy or causes losers to consider an election justly lost.  This occurs against a background of massive ethnic strife -- this is from the Shiite soliders in article I cited previously:

Two days after the shooting, Sgt. Ahmed Sabri stood outside the Umm al Qura mosque, home to the militant Sunni Muslim Scholars Association. The mosque is just down the road from where Jabar was shot.

"Every man we've had killed and wounded is because of that mosque. Thousands and thousands of Shiites are being killed, which is why they're joining the army," Sabri said. "Just let us have our constitution and elections in December and then we will do what Saddam did - start with five people from each neighborhood and kill them in the streets and then go from there."

Asked if he worried about possible fighting between his men and the Sunnis at Umm al Qura, the brigade's command sergeant major, Hassan Kadhum, smiled.

"Your country had to have a civil war," he said. "It will be the same here. Everything in this world has its price. In Iraq the price for peace will be blood."

There is, I hope you'll agree, a real issue here.  

that you guys are the ones who were perfectly happy with the idea of keeping Saddam's old army under arms (to 'keep them employed' I believe was the reason). So why was having an anti-Shi'a, anti-Kurd force with a long track record of human rights abuse on a grand scale okay but having the army now composed of a nationally representative population bad? That was a rhetorical question. I know the answer. Just like I know what the answer would have been if the administration had kept Saddam's old army 'employed.'

"(C)       The general referendum will be successful and the draft constitution ratified if a majority of the voters in Iraq approve and if two-thirds of the voters in three or more governorates do not reject it."

I thought I might have it wrong.

It requires majority approval, and super majority of the minority to reject.

Thank you again. There was something a while back that I had a problem with. It may have been the transitional authority.

The numbers you site are fine.

is neither data nor issue. There is no issue here.

And the 2/3s comment, we both agree, was never an issue as the transional national law required the constitution to receive majority approval.

so please correct me if I'm wrong, but weren't the rules for ratificaiton of our own Constitution basically that it required ratification by 9 of the 13 states (i.e., rejection by 4 or less states) for adoption nation-wide?

the DNC and the American media, they seem to have formed a Democratid Republic in Iraq.

Congratualtions to the Iraqi people and to the American leaders and people who did not fall for the AlJazeera/Al Qaeda/ MSM/ DNC lies.

 Seems to me that the Shia have a right to their revenge. As Moslems, assuming this sort of internecine feuding can be extrapolated from an individual basis to what amounts to a tribal basis, they have the right under Islamic law to blood vengeance, financial compensation or to forgive and forget, which, as the Koran suggests, is better for everyone. It is not now, nor will it ever be, part of our business.

  My own opinion is that from the day Saddam was ousted, the majority of Sunni leaders expected the Shia and Kurds to exact their revenge for his, and by extension their, tyranny and oppression, as the Sunnis would surely have done if the situation was the reverse. This is a real test for the cultural relativists perhaps, whose stomachs will be tested in the weeks and months ahead.

  I don't know your own feelings about the rightness of this war, but for people now to act concerned about the welfare of Sunnis when for years they cared little and did less for the collective well-being of the Shia and Kurdish Sunni is simply hypocritical.

Nobody wanted to keep the Iraqi army in its exact form.  The idea would have been to purge leaders who ordered humans rights abuses, but keep the large masses of impoverished soldiers who only signed up because they couldn't find any other jobs.  Raise the soldiers' rations and pay (we're talking about the third world here -- this wouldn't cost much), and you've made yourself a whole bunch of friends.  Play it right and you might be able to integrate newly well-paid Sunnis with new Shiites.  Fire them, however, and you've made yourself a whole bunch of insurgents.  They go off and get themselves mixed up in terrorism, and soon the Shiites are talking about how they want to kill lots of Sunnis.    

If there's such a thing as a "right to revenge", the Shia have it.  But the avoidance of civil war depends on people refusing to claim their right to revenge.  

While a civil war will be terrible for Sunnis, it'll be pretty bad for Shiites too.  Civil wars are really nasty stuff.  

but there was a lot of debate over the issue (even the issue of super majority being one of them-given that the Articles of Confederation required unanimous decisions).  The first few states ratified easily, but several states had some pretty bitter fights over the issue (remember the whole Federalist argument?).  The Articles of Confederation created an overly weak federal government.  The constitution created a stronger federal government-for those things a strong federal government is needed for (defense, treasury, trade etc), but sought to limit its jurisdiction and power over the running of the states.

In the end they compromised and promised several of the states that they would add the Bill of Rights, if the ratified the constitution.

NH ratified as the 9th state, and then it became sort of moot for the hold outs, who in the end came along within a few months.

I think we sometimes forget that the writing of the constitution and ratification proccess in the US was a pretty bitter fight, and it took years to come to completion.  In hindsight we over glamourize the proccess, and forget just how difficult a proccess it was.

  Nearly everybody wants peace, but peace is more than just the absence of war, it also includes at least some glimmer of a decent, just society, something that hasn't existed in Iraq for at least the last 30 years, if it ever did. Don't make the mistake of falling into the Edward Said trap of portraying Arabs, or Moslems, as passive victims incapable of avoiding the pitfalls and problems they face. This perennial future civil war may in fact occur, but if it does it will be because the parties involved refused to make the compromises necessary for avoiding it.

   You just did the most you could do by, in effect, praying for a peaceful resolution. That's the kind of positive energy the people in Iraq need right now, not the wishful thinking for disaster and civil war that has polluted some other blogs from the beginning and which continues to portray itself as 'realistic' thinking.    

bit of stupidity that we avoided.

Who do you think oppressed the Shi'a and Kurds? The leaders of the Army? Hardly. The face of oppression was the Iraqi Army.

And what would we want with these "friends?" Do you think the guys who are fighting us now would have been lapdogs otherwise? Hardly. They would be burrowing into the fabric of the new army making it as corrupt, inefficient, incompetent, and politically dangerous as the old.

The fact that this army was overwhelmingly Sunni would be guaranteed to alienate the Shi'a and Kurds who make up 80% of the population and still harbored some ill feelings over the aftermath of Desert Storm.

No thank you. Leaving the Iraqi Army intact, purge or no purge, would have sent the same message that leaving the Waffen SS under arms in 1946 would have.

The new army is pretty good by anyone's standards, really excellent by the standards of the part of the world where it lives, and it is recruited and the units formed with an eye to ensure religious and ethnic mixes. It is all together superior to the armed thuggery we defeated in 2003.

what better way for the Sunnis to be convinced to go with politics over war, than if they force more compromises thru votes!

This is one of America's finest hours.

the real surprise in Iraq was the level of loyalty by so many to Saddam. While not a great % of the country, (maybe 5-10%) they were dead-enders, in the sense of minority oppressors of the vast majority.

what people can do when they ignore the experts :-)

It is a long road ahead but they have covered some very bad patches. And when you consider where they were two years ago they have learned some difficult lessons amazingly quickly.

than shooting each other.

And if it is rejected, there is nothing that says you don't go back to the table (this time hopefully with more input by Sunni's who want a say) and figure out where the compromise is needed.

apparantly some Sunni's are fine with the constitution as written.

It would be interesting to see some exit polls comparing the "no" provinces to the "yes" ones.

I'm glad that we agree on goals, but let me express some disagreement on methods.  Praying for a peaceful resolution is not the most we can do.  What we ought to do is learn enough about the issue to figure out what policy proposals will increase the chance for peace, and push our elected officials to adopt those proposals.  

I'm sure we'll disagree on this, but I think that the following strategy is best:

1. Tell the Shi'ites we're going to start withdrawing our troops within 2 years, no matter what. This way they see that they can't count on us to help them beat on the Sunnis, and they had better start making political concessions.  
   
2.  Tell the Sunnis that we'll get out before that time, if they act constructively with the constitutional process.  This way some of them will see that the best way to get rid of the Americans isn't to blow up the Americans, it's to engage responsibly in politics.  
   
3.  Make these announcements right about now, during a reasonably uplifting moment (ratification of a new Constitution).  This way it doesn't look like insurgents drove us out -- it looks more like we did our job as well as we could and then left.  

I'm not convinced that we have an enormous amount of control over the situation there, and this is reflected in the above plan.  The nature of our withdrawal is actually one of the more powerful cards in our hand.  Now, my plan doesn't promise to avert civil war, but I think it gives us our best shot at doing so.  

If the Iraqi constitution is ratified, it means Sunni outrage and civil war. If it is rejected, it means a failure for reconstruction. Heads: Armando wins. Tails: "Wingnuts" lose. How fascinating. And how very convenient.

Also, dKos's resident genius doesn't seem to understand that I am using "Cassandras" as an ironic term. All of the predictions Armando et. al. made in advance of the January 30th elections and the constitutional referendum failed to come about. So I'm afraid they don't quite pass as latter-day prophets. But it's fun to see their collective bitterness.

Remember, these were the guys who were throwing down their guns and deserting into our POW camps during the first Gulf War.  Did they suddenly get a lot more loyal by 2003?  

and what does this get us that staying until the insurgency is eradicated or the elected government asks us to leave? And why wouldn't we want an arrangement with Iraq like that we have enjoyed with Germany for 50 years considering the volatility of the region? And why should we leave with our tail between our legs while grasping for a fig leaf (your number 3) and impress upon all concerned, clearly and convincingly, that we were not driven out rather than creating another victory for the jihadis?

So you're right. We are never going to agree on methods because I think your proposition is an invitation to do this again somewhere else in a few years.

Neither Armando nor you cite specific January predictions that went right or wrong, so I don't know what to say.  

I don't know how much of a proxy US causualties are for anything, but it's hard for me to see any dramatic trends beginning in January either way.  

You've gotten Armando to notice you.  You're the top link in the top story on DKos, and I personally consider that to be almost as large an achievement as the successful vote in Iraq.

BTW:  One thing that I don't think anyone has ever answered is a question that's been gnawing away at all of us since the first time we associated his nick with the bellhop in a no-tell motel:  Who is Armando?

they surrendered to the US, not the oppressed 80%. Iraq in a lot of ways is like what Nazi Germany was like and would have become, on a smaller scale. The brainwashed Fedeyaeen taken from parents as children.

In gulf one, the choice was surrender or die. During the 18 month colin powell waste of time, they developed another option.

So when we go to Iran, we won't be telegraphing so long i hope.

Pull over, buddy. Spelling police. Heh heh.

I don't know how much of a proxy US causualties are for anything, but it's hard for me to see any dramatic trends beginning in January either way.  

It tells you little to nothing. You could reduce casualties to 0 by not undertaking operations, that wouldn't signify success.

If you compare the casualties in the past 3 weeks with the tempo set by Operation HUNTER and its subsidiary operations it speaks volumes, however, for the increasing inefficiency of the al-Qaeda In Iraq (motto: we call ourselves that even though everyone knows there is no al-Qaeda in Iraq).

down their guns were Shi'a conscripts. The Republican Guard managed to use them as speed bumps - just like it did during the Iran-Iraq War - to slow down VII Corps and XVIII Airborne Corps long enough to save most of their people and equipment.

If you want us to stay until the insurgency is eradicated, that could be a really long time.  Does this mean that Zarqawi or his successors can tie down the entire American military with a few car bombs a month?  Osama then can raise whatever hell he wants elsewhere in the world for the next decade while we're sweating it out in the desert.  

If you want us to stay until the elected government asks us to leave, what are you going to do if the elected Shiite government says, "Stay!  But remember that your job is to prevent Sunnis from causing trouble, while we refuse them any piece of the oil wealth."  

In the absence of a political solution between Sunnis and Shiites, we're stuck helping Shiites bash Sunnis.  This isn't even a productive expenditure of American blood and treasure.  

let it be noted that I never endorsed keeping the Fedayeen around.  When I talk about purging the bad elements, those are the dudes.  

on this.

One of the things that has prevented a Shi'a v Sunni civil war is that we are doing the heavy lifting and the current war is not creating a lot of new enmities between the two groups.

As to the second part, staying or not staying is our business, how the Sunni are treated and how the oil is distributed is not ours. We didn't tell the Germans in 1990 how to go about providing resources to the states of former East Germany.

like the Iraqi rules for ratification are pretty similar to our own.  This would suggest that those who view the on-going effort in Iraq as something less than a democratic process should review their history lessons...

His response to Kevin Drum is interesting. He says that, from the Sunni point of view, the fact that Sunni opposition will not have been enough to defeat the Constitution amounts to an invalidation of the process. Well, no, it just means that a lot of Sunnis don't agree with the rest of the country.

Kind of reminds you of how the Angry Left feels about American electoral politics, huh? We'd better be careful if we manage to win the 2008 election, we might be facing an armed insurgency in New York, Ann Arbor, and Berkeley. ;-)

I just think that Saddam did a "good" job of lavishing power and benefits on a select population, see SS, and this inclu the feds and the army, etc.

To me, that's why a coup couldn't work and why the army had to be disbanded. This insurgency is not large really, but the 18 mths gave them time to store weapons. imho

  The strategy and tactics we have followed have been effective, IMO, especially the disbanding of the army. Since this has been dealt with quite effectively already, I'd like to pose a question. Has it occurred to you that this so-called insurgency seems at every moment to work against its own presumed objectives? I mean to say that had there not been any insurgency, which is farcical to begin with, we would almost certainly have reduced our presence substantially by now, if not completely. By attacking us, they compel us to stay, as President Bush has pointed out in as many words on many occasions. They pursue this 'strategy' at the same time they ensure a massive retaliation by the Shia the moment we do leave. But you suggest (#2) that we essentially tell them their 'strategy' worked - and now they can get all killed by the Shia, who we have trained and armed to the teeth. My friend, they don't want us to leave. No offense, but it seems you have not spent much time around Arabs.

  The Sunni terrorists have no strategy. Their only hope was to persist like a low-grade fever, waiting around until some other event happened that would strengthen their numbers enough to fight a real war. Either that or we pulled out before the Shia and Kurds got too strong. They failed on both counts.

  There's an Arab expression that says "Camels are expensive at one dollar if you don't need a camel". Neither we nor the new Iraq need the Sunni insurgents.    

We need a little more analytic clarity here on who the insurgents are.  

Some are Sunnis playing for power within Iraq.  They basically want to avert the formation of a Shiite-Kurdish government that they fear will oppress them.  These guys want us out, because they know we support the Shiite-Kurdish side.  But they decided that violently blocking the existence of a unified government was a better plan than playing nice to get us to leave.  Strategically, it's a pretty dismal choice, but I can see why they made it.  

A small but very dangerous group are foreign fighters, usually from North Africa and Saudi Arabia.  These are the guys I'm most worried about, as far as causing terrorism here in America is concerned.  They go to Iraq to do Allah's bidding in the global jihad movement, and they're training to become the international terrorists of the future.  Given that we're in Iraq, I think their preference ordering goes like this:

Worst: America comes to Iraq, accomplishes all its goals, sets up a pro-American (pro-Zionist!  hissss!) government, basks in triumph, and stays for a long time, running the country behind the scenes.  

Sort of bad:  America comes to Iraq, efficiently and inoffensively sets up a non-puppet Shiite-majority government, and goes home quickly.  

Sort of good: America comes to Iraq, fails to set up a good Iraqi government, realizes the situation is hopeless, cuts its losses, and goes home quickly.  You still get a Shiite-majority government.

Best:  America comes to Iraq, tries to set up the pro-American government, and fights a fifteen-year battle against insurgents.  There's tons and tons of death.  Sure, Iraq is sullied by American boots in mosques, but it's purified when the occupants of the boots are blown up by IEDs.  When the US leaves, Iraq is by sane standards a horribly messed-up country.  But by jihadi standards it's the battlefield of the holy war, which is beautiful.  Somehow Allah grants a Sunni regime at the end, though it's not clear how this happens.  Jihad makes anything possible.  

These people don't merely want us to leave.  They want to drive us out in a long bloody holy war.  Radicals everywhere tend to be like that.  They crave confrontation and blood, not boring compromises.  Usually in US politics the blood is metaphorical, but with Osama it's literal.  

Given that those guys want long bloody horrific holy war, why would they adopt a strategy that gets us out quickly?  

the rejection of Iraq's Constitution in all four provinces with Sunni majorities.  It seems his accuracy rating is consistent.

If the WaPo report streiff referenced is accurate, 89% of Iraq's provinces approved the new Iraq Constitution.

I keep waiting for someone to call these people on their constant cheerleading for disaster. They keep trying to tell us that they're the real patriots and we're the bad guys. But their bloodthirstiness gets really hard to take after a while.

 First, The strategic option of us leaving quickly was the best option for the Sunni population at large. Had we left soon after we determined there were no WMD neither the Shia nor Kurds would have been strong enough to resist a well-trained and better armed Sunni minority. Since that option was never theirs to begin with, obviously,the Sunni as a group are dependent on us for their protection, as you pointed out in one of your earlier posts.

 Second, now you say that they don't simply want us to leave, but want to drive us out in a long, bloody struggle. But if you believe that, why would would you even bother to make your offer #2?

 Third, your best-case scenario for them, a long bloody jihad on Iraqi soil, sounds awfully like the flypaper strategy that some people on our side, me included, think is a good, tactical option for us, short of a stabilized and functional Iraq

 I sympathize with you; I also would hate to see another American get killed or wounded over there, but the fact is that we have achieved every single one of our tactical objectives since the war began, including the vote yesterday, while all the insurgents have achieved is to infuriate a great deal of people who really are anxious for us to leave, if for no other reason than to exact a well-earned revenge. Yet fear of this prompted your original post in this wearying thread. I'm going to bed.

This all seems to validate the theory that groups who have prevailed by armed force in the past must reach a points of "exhaustion" before transitioning to non-violent means.  In other words domination by armed forces (while not technically winning reconstructions) will force the abandonment of armed insurgency after the price of such resistence has become unsufferable.  I hope were there.

"...there has never been a political party more tied to failure than the modern Democrats." - Leon H

http://www.redstate.org/story/2005/9/12/10019/3879

It's hard for me to conceive a more untenable position on which to stake the prospects for one's political success.

As of late, this strategy has been a recipie for electoral disaster.  I just hope the dems keep this up through 2008.

...oozing from the headline of this AP account of the Iraq Constitutional referendum as of about 9PM EDT Sunday evening:

Sunnis Appear to Fall Short in Iraq Vote

Opponents failed to secure the necessary two-thirds "no" vote in any three of Iraqi's 18 provinces, according to counts that local officials provided to The Associated Press. In the crucial central provinces with mixed ethnic and religious populations, enough Shiites and Kurds voted to stymie the Sunni bid to reject the constitution.

Yep, and if those Bible-thumpers in central Ohio would have just stayed away from the polls last November, then John Kerry would be Leader of the Free World right now.

Pity (for the AP and the Democrat Party) that democracy doesn't always work-out that way.

Really though, ready the whole story as it's both hilarious and pathetic to see the AP carry Armando's water here - that the Constitution passing is BAD news, that it will only make the Sunnis MORE bitter, that it actually INCREASES the likelihood of Civil War - and, of course, it's all George Bush's fault.

While the lure of the tallest soapbox will continue to attract radicals du jour and the occasional carpetbagger, I fear the good ol' days of armed bands have faded to mere nostalgia for a populace seduced by a decade of plummeting crime under (*semi-)Republican mayors.

The City Council, however, to save face, might capitalize by installing **VPP's, where the disenchanted could pay for the privilege of shooting bio-degradable spitballs at holographic images of the conservative leadership.

* thanks, Ray

** Virtual Pillory Parlors

is similarly echoed in WaPo and NYT.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/16/AR200510160
0858_pf.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/17/politics/17prexy.html?ei=5094&en=b68b
a31afe306f2e&hp=&ex=1129608000&partner=homepage&pagewanted=
print

Just more proof of an untenable position: Good news for America, President Bush or Iraq is bad news for MSM and the dems.

they can turn a silk purse into a sow's ear in the blink of an eye.  And they seem to be totally discounting the fact that in 2 of the 4 Sunni-majority provinces, "the 'yes' vote won the day -- 70 percent to 20 percent in Diyala and 78 to 21 percent in Ninevah, according to initial reports from local election officials." (from the AP report, though you had to read most of the article to find this little nugget near the end).  Sounds like the emergence of a moderate, politically-minded Sunni faction to me, but apparently not to the MSM nay-sayers.  Unbelieveable!  

The ever-so virtuous, patriotic and dutiful citizens of the MSM happened to mysteriously miss the good feeling about the Iraqi vote. I think it had something to do with the full moon, and possible solar flaring, the combination of the two largely unknown.

79% yes in Nineveh governorate seems odd in a majority-Sunni area, unless they are supporters of the Iraqi Islamic Party.  Najma from Mosul reports that the Kurdish Peshmerga interfered in the voting there by closing down polling stations in Sunni areas.  Mosul is Iraq's second largest city and capital of Nineveh province.  Najma's parents were able to vote anyway, though.  I hope it isn't true (there are a lot of silly rumors floating around Iraq).

Regarding Diyala province, it's actually 40% Sunni, 35% Shia, 30% Kurd, and 5% Turkmen.  Turkmen and Sunni Arabs both opposed the Constitution, so that's where you get your 45% "no" vote there.

Every plywood wall on the Upper West Side qualifies. About three months after 9/11, I saw a graffiti that said "Bush butcher, stop killing babies in Afghanistan"

Still, the drop in crime has been awfully nice, hasn't it? :-)

I can see it now: the provinces of Salah al-Din and al-Anbar in five years' time: shiny new buildings, gleaming crime-free streets and neighborhoods, hundreds of new small businesses, beautiful and neatly-dressed children playing happily everywhere, and not an insurgent in sight. Iraq will be the land of opportunity in the Arab world. And all the new Mercedes sedans with have bumper stickers saying "Don't blame me, I voted against the Constitution."

Ingratitude is human nature, I guess.

not so much that there wasn't a 2/3'ds majority saying "no" in any of the Sunni provinces, but that the constitution "yes" votes actually carried the day in two of them.

To me that seems to indicate there was far more support among Sunni's than anyone realized.

That is the interesting story in all this, and the MSM doesn't seem to care much.

and I do for the most part, then I find the conclusions you draw from that analysis to be terribly flawed.

If we had to choose today between fighting one enemy we would infinitely prefer the jihadis to the Saddam revanchists. Right now the average age of the foreign jihadi has slipped below twenty. In Operation HUNTER a couple of dozen jihadis in their early teens were captured. This is not the sign of a viable insurgency. Throughout the summer the WaPo and NYT reported on the situation in al-Anbar where the existing criminal gangs and the Saddamists were fighting the jihadis because they were bad for business.

The critical differences between Iraq and it jihadis and the Afghanistan and the mujahadeen, an analogy the left repeatedly tries to make are twofold.

• First, you have to survive your combat tour to export terrorism elsewhere. The mujahadeen had secure and comfortable camps in Pakistan from which the could plan and stage attacks and return to. So if you weren't killed on the mission you didn't have to worry. That is not the case in Iraq. The jihadis came close to establishing a sanctuary in Falluja, tried and failed in Mosul, and now is being rousted out of the small river towns near Haditha. In Iraq the jihadis are in danger each and every day.
• Second, in the words of Osama bin Laden "when the people are given a choice between a strong horse and a weak horse by nature they wish the strong horse." When the jihadis who survive return home don't do so to public acclaim. In most countries in the world they face criminal charges, unlike the veterans of fighting the Soviets. In addition to being forced underground they don't have a winning record to recruit from. They aren't the New York Yankess. If they were viewed as major league they would rate below KC in win-loss.

The foreign element, I'm willing to predict, will be a minor nuisance by this time next year.

and I have mine:

The Sunni "no" campaign appeared to have made the two-thirds threshold in Anbar province, the vast western Sunni heartland where Ramadi is the capital, and in Salahuddin, where Sunnis hold a large majority and as many as 90 percent of voters cast ballots. But in two other provinces where Sunni Arabs have only slim majorities _ Ninevah and Diyala _ the "yes" vote apparently won out.

You're relying on CNN and I'm relying on the WaPo so I guess neither of us are on firm ground.

The U.S. Constitution did only require 9 states to be ratified, but then only those states who ratified were part of the Union.  Two states (NC and RI) refused to ratify until the Bill of Rights was passed.

The parallels with the Iraqi Constitution are intriguing.  Some Sunnis, at least, refused to support the Constitution until the Shia promised to at least discuss amendments immediately after ratification.  Hopefully, the Shia will see that it is in their best interest to make additional compromises with the Sunni to avoid civil war and make possible a more stable long-term government.

...just banish the name "Republican Guard" to the ash heap.  Who came up with that translation anyway?  It reminds me of the Cold War when the hard line commies were called "Conservatives".

In other words:

It doesn't pass if it doesn't have a majority, period.

And, it doesn't pass if the 2/3 in 3 provinces rule is enacted by the vote.

2 ways for it not to pass.  The way that is overlooked by the opponents of the consttution is just shameful.

As I posted earlier (apologies for the unintended profanity) I don't share your optimism at all.  

In my mind, a constitution, any constitution, is not going to prevent the further disintegration of Iraq into tribal and sectarian volence.

I would use the example of Yugoslavia, a country with much more western traditions (at the risk of being tagged politically incorrect) than Iraq that still fell apart once Tito's iron hand was removed.

On a more peaceful note, consider the splinter of Czekoslovakia.

Consider also that, even today, the British can barely keep Northern Ireland together.

Iraq ever was an artificial creation of the British (like most of Africa's states are creations of the British or the French).

Reasonable people can certainly disagree about what course of events the United States should follow, in its own interest.

But to think that the constitution is going to be anything but an empty symbol is, in mind, hopelessly idealistic.

But time will tell, I suppose.  I'll be happy to eat crow if it turns out differently.

with your thesis.

First, I don't know what "Western traditions" has to do with the subject so I'll let the whiff of ethnocentrism-Arabs-can't-do-democracy pass.

The problem with the Yugoslavia analogy is that both Croatia and Serbia has histories as independent states with living memory. There was an immense amount of bad blood between the two groups with an incredible amount of slaughter during WW II. And they were evenly matched in population. So while I give you some similarities I think there are more than sufficient differences to say that Iraq-is-Yugoslavia fits in the same box as Iraq-is-Vietnam.

Northern Ireland is a particularly bad example as the terror movement in Northern Ireland represents the actual majority of the population. Even in light of that, the Brits have had Northern Ireland for 70 years and there is no sign that they are losing. To the contrary, the IRA is the side that has capitulated... if we call disarming and entering into the political process as capitulation.

Were I drawing comparisons across the examples you give I'd say the three constant themes are 1) evenly matched populations, 2) a multi generational history of grievance and 3) a series of military conflicts that have resulted in no clear winner.

In Iraq I think the problem facing us today is directly linked to our decision to not inflict the maximum possible slaughter on the Iraqi Army in both 1991 and 2003 and they have created a myth that they were not beaten in 1991 and were betrayed by the Shi'a in 2003.

"The Washington Post reports that the constitution was rejected in the provinces of Salah al-Din and al-Anbar but approved in the predominately Sunni provinces of Ninevah (76.6% yes) and Diyala (55% yes)."

That the constitution passed at all in Ninevah should be a huge red flag to anyone paying attention.  That it appears to be passing by 75%+ is simply ludicrous.  There is just no way such a result is real.  It's like saying that Oregon went 80% to Bush in 2004.  No way.  Never happen.  And if that's what they end up saying is the final number you can absolutely guarantee the election was rigged.

Of the Sunni organizations pushing for Sunni's to participate only one (the IP) was actually saying vote "yes."  All the rest were urging sunni's to register specifically so they could vote the constitution down.

Again there's simply no way that Ninevah voted 75% in favor of the constitution.  

Reuters is now reporting Nineveh province as "Out of 778,000 votes cast, 'No' vote 424,000; 'Yes' 353,000."  So 54% against, a majority, but not the 2/3 needed to defeat the constitution.

It's a big swing from 75% for ... makes you wonder if it will swing a little more as the counting goes on and end up with the constitution being voted down after all.

Some who are considered experts aren't and some who aren't, are.

I also understand that Al Walton, Bay and Franklin counties (with majority Sunnicrats) voted for the Buchanan Butterfly Constitution.  The returns from the indian vote are interesting inside baseball but perhaps we might wait for the results before hinting at fraud.

I found this label last week and have been trying it out.  It doesn't roll of the tongue, but it is very appropriate.  The socialist mainstream liberal media have now become Fascist Apologists simply out of hatred of GW.  This is a perfect example.  They are almost tearful that the vote appears to have passed.  And joyous is the reporter announcing voting irregularity.  Its sick...  I bloviate on it here, Carlos rants, but the originator is here:

Dean is smart

Does anyone agree?  Or is it just to word twisty to catch.

"Even in light of that, the Brits have had Northern Ireland for 70 years and there is no sign that they are losing. To the contrary, the IRA is the side that has capitulated... if we call disarming and entering into the political process as capitulation."

The Brits capitulated too, they agreed to a joint government.  Take note: in a battle against terrorists right next door and of similar ethnic background and linguistics the Brits fought for 70 years and never won.  Only when they agreed to a compromise did they make headway.

First, I don't know what "Western traditions" has to do with the subject so I'll let the whiff of ethnocentrism-Arabs-can't-do-democracy pass.

Thank you. But at the risk of being politically incorrect, yes, I don't believe you can go from a 14th century theocracy repressed by a military dictatorship to even a 19th century "democracy lite" in one generation.

The West didn't do it quickly either, to be fair, and the Iraqis aren't going to succeed at it in one generational swoop.

Second, you aptly point out the differences between the various examples of artificial states reverting to tribal sectarianism and Iraq which I gave, but nevertheless that does not substantially negate the far greater similarities.

I would prefer if you wish to counter the point that you quote me an even roughly similar case where there was NO subsequent fracture of an artificial state.

If History teaches us anything, it is that once Saddam was gone, Iraq (unlike, say, Iran) was fated to revert quickly to a pre-British strife-torn zone.

Third, none of your remarks invalidate my point which is that the constitution itself is as meaningless as, say, the Soviet Constitution was under the Communists.  

It is a piece of paper that may be occasionally useful to the folks in power, but in terms of realpolitik, said power perforce shall remain the point of the gun.

Conservatives should be, if nothing else, realists (unlike liberals and their woolly dreams). To retain control of Iraq as a client state is not an unworthy goal. But to embrace delusions is the path to ruin.