Dan Rather, Contributor
DEMOCRACY IS messy, even when not accompanied by car bombs, mortars and small-arms fire. One need look no further than here in the United States of America to understand that.
In Iraq, of course, the hoped-for, nascent democracy there does have to contend with these perils and more. And a case could be made that, in Iraq, the messier the democracy, the better the chance of seeing the violence subside.
From the U.S. point of view, the results that came in last week from Iraq's National Assembly voting seem pretty good. That nation's long-oppressed Shiite majority, which has been relatively tolerant of the U.S. occupation and enthusiastic about free elections, has gained a majority voice in the new Assembly. Iraq's Kurds, the group friendliest to the United States, have made a better-than-expected showing. And the Sunnis, whose loss of power after the fall of Saddam Hussein has fuelled the Iraqi insurgency, also picked up seats in the legislative body, despite security conditions and election boycotts that prevented many in Sunni-dominated areas from voting.
EXPECTATIONS
There were broad expectations before the end-of-January elections and in the preliminary results that Shiite candidates would dominate the voting -- a situation that, some feared, would lead to further Sunni disenfranchisement and, in a worst-case scenario, full-blown civil war. As it was, Iraq's alliance of Shiite parties and candidates ended up with 140 seats in the 275-seat Assembly. A majority, to be sure, but a slim one, and far short of the two-thirds majority required for approval of the new Iraqi constitution that it will be the legislative body's job to draft.
The Shiites will need to reach out to Iraq's other groups -- especially the Kurds, who won some 25 per cent of ballots cast -- if they are to govern effectively. And in a coalition government angling for votes where it can get them, Sunni Assembly members will also have a chance to have their voices heard.
A government in which the concerns of all of Iraq's major groups must be heeded could be of potentially strong benefit to efforts to bring would-be militants into the political process. It could also be a boon to U.S. strategic interests in the region. One of the major U.S. worries that go along with a Shiite-controlled government in Iraq is the many ties between prominent Shiite leaders and Iran. If the power of Iran-leaning leaders might be mitigated by Iraq's other factions, it would seem to be a good thing.
Having cast its lot with the democratic process in Iraq, the United States must now watch as this unpredictable dynamic unfolds.
In casting their ballots for a diverse set of parties and interests, the Iraqi people might have gone a long way toward helping their own country out of its security woes, while also giving U.S. policy-makers a chance to avoid the problems that would come with a strong Iraq-Iran alliance. Democracy is messy, and sometimes that's good news indeed -especially when one considers the alternatives.
Dan Rather is a television broadcaster
