Walls throughout Iraq are plastered with pictures of all those involved in next Sunday’s election, including images of Al-Qaeda leader Abu Mussab Al-Zarqawi and his henchmen. Even though the angry and frowning faces of the terrorists are there because they are wanted dead or alive for crimes against the Iraqi people, it is entirely appropriate that they share wall space with election candidates.
Zarqawi’s role on Sunday is going to be a crucial one. He said on a website Saturday that his aim was the wreck the vote. He “declared a bitter war against democracy and all who seek to implement it”. He has made his own political platform perfectly clear. Iraqis should have no say whatsoever in their future.
The insurgents say they reject the election because it is a tool of Washington, designed to prolong the occupation. The truth is that if enough voters brave threats such as the terrorist graffiti reading “Vote and Die” and a representative government does emerge from Sunday’s process, the men of violence will have received a worse defeat than any that Iraqi security forces and coalition troops could inflict upon them on the battlefield.
There are indeed two occupations in Iraq. The one led by Washington has been a disaster, though the coalition does with some justice complain that positives about the rebuilding of Iraq are generally overlooked in the welter of bad news about the insurgency. The second occupation has been that of terror. Ruthless men of violence have chosen Iraq as a battleground against US President Bush and his armies. Yet, the ones killed have been mostly civilians and poorly trained security forces. Those who oppose the occupation of Iraq have written their protest in the blood of Iraqis themselves.
Insurgents like Zarqawi do not give a fig for Iraq’s people. They are simply easy targets in the shooting gallery into which this country has been turned. Zarqawi is as much of an Iraqi as Donald Rumsfeld is, and is as much concerned about what happens to the country or its people. The idea of letting Iraqis decide their future for themselves is anathema to the insurgents. Implicit in their words and deeds is the idea that Iraqis are mere chattels who have been torn from the hands of one violent dictator and must now be coerced bloodily into the hands of another.
This second occupation is, therefore, far more threatening than the first. Bush, after facing a scenario far different from what Pentagon dreamers had written for postinvasion Iraq, just wants to get his people back home, with enough of a “victory” to save him blushes. US big business may cut a few big deals but the hoped-for commercial cleanup in Iraq is not going to happen. The coalition will go as soon as it decently can. There are no such deadlines for the terror groups. Their occupation will go on until they get their bloody way.
That is why Sunday is so important because it will be the first chance that ordinary people will be able to make their voice heard among the gunfire and bomb blasts. They should seize it.
