Iraq the vote!

Kaus is advocating early elections in Iraq, asking why it should take 6 months to have them after the handover. All I've heard is that an accurate census needs to be taken first. I suspect that there's more to it than that, like allowing time for party formation and campaigning. Political parties will become ersatz tribes, which have the potential to arouse violence. It may take some time to convince would be politicians like al-Sadr that raising your own militia is a dead end, and I mean dead.

He goes on to ask, "[W]ould a violent-but-short Shiite vs. Sunni civil war (in which the U.S. was not involved) be the worst thing that could happen?" My response: Our most imperative problem there is maintaining civil order. If we were to sit out a battle like that, we'd lose most of the good will, such as it is, that we've earned by overthrowing Saddam. What we're trying to demonstrate is that a democracy can work in an Arab country. I don't think a civil war would serve that end.

What I think is needed is to put in enough troops to smack down al-Sadr and his militia quickly and decisively. We need to make it clear that the Iraqis have to keep their debates non-violent. That's the first law. The second is to build a civil authority that won't run from a fight.

Kaus seems shocked to realize that terrorism doesn't come from identified groups, but that every Muslim, particularly every Arab, is a potential terrorist if the case of "Ahmed Ressam, convicted of plotting to blow up LAX" is an indicator. Apparently Ressam was a fan who got a little encouragement and assistance from Abu Zubaydah. I've always thought this was a possibility. Arabs are well-known to blame their cultural decline on the West and their sense of honor requires some kind of violence, i. e. murder, to purge them of shame. Yet we won't profile.