Bunker Mulligan "Let us endeavor so to live that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry." ~Mark Twain

I’ve been a bit busy recently so I haven’t participated in something I initiated–the Homespun Bloggers Symposium. Bad me. This week I definitely need to say something about the topic: What are your predictions for the elections in Iraq? Will there be violence? What will the government look like? Will it be legitimate, liberal, and capable of accomplishing anything? And what effect will the election have on the U.S.?

I’m certainly not prescient, but I felt a strong need to respond to a couple of the points which seemingly come up in every news story about the election.

The election in Iraq is absolutely a benchmark in Middle Eastern government. Not withstanding an election in Afghanistan last year where women, for the first time ever had the opportunity to vote, this one will be for all the marbles. The jihadists know it, and will do what they can to disrupt it. That didn’t happen in Afghanistan, but it most assuredly will in Iraq. It will happen not to keep Iraqis from the polls, but to give news outlets a basis for claiming the election lacks legitimacy. The jihadists know they don’t need to keep the election from happening, they only need to provide rationalization for continuing their fight.

Watch to see if the voting public comes out in greater percentages than ours did in November.

If the Sunni strongmen get their way, few Sunnis will vote. They, and the media, will again claim the vote was illegitimate. Sorry. If you choose not to participate, then you get what you deserve. If the Sunnis want to be part of the government, they better get their candidates out and their voters energized. That isn’t how the game is played in the Arab world, so they don’t grasp participation as a vehicle for governance.

This election is to create a new assembly which will begin the work of writing a constitution. Once it is ratified, there will be new elections based on the procedures laid out, and that election will be this time next year. One Year. Ours wasn’t comlete and ratified until more than a decade after the Declaration of Independence. Fortunately, the Iraqis have several examples to follow, including ours.

The election will mean nothing here in the US. Those of us cheering for the Iraqis will still be in conflict with those cheering against. A succesful election will only make them more shrill as they try to find a way to claim its irrelevance.

Who could have imagined even three years ago open elections in Iraq, or any other Arab country? Will the world applaud them, or criticize? I think we can at least predict that.