Iraq: Purple or Still Black and Blue?: Newsroom: The Independent Institute

Ivan Eland writes:

"When armed guerrillas roam the countryside, even a free and fair democratic vote may be irrelevant to the outcome. According to a New York Times article from 1967, the Johnson administration was pleased as punch then about an 83 percent voter turnout in South Vietnamese elections. We all know how that conflict turned out: the majority went to the polls and the armed minority eventually went to the halls of power.

"In Iraq, as in Vietnam, the key to peace and prosperity is to get the armed minority to cease committing acts of violence. To do that, the U.S. government must honestly examine why the Sunni insurgents are fighting. Instead, the president calls the rebels terrorists, criminals, and holdovers from Saddam’s regime. In fact, although some of them fall into those categories, experts agree that most are average Sunnis battling the perceived foreign occupier and fearing that any new Shiite government would exact reprisals for years of oppressive Sunni rule. The insurgency wouldn’t be nearly so effective without substantial support in the Sunni community.

"If the president and the Republican Congress really wanted to do the Iraqi people a favor—after authorizing an unneeded invasion, which caused widespread chaos and violence against Iraqis—they would abandon the illusion that merely allowing the Iraqis to vote will eventually make them free and prosperous."

Iraq: Purple or Still Black and Blue?: Newsroom: The Independent Institute