Iraq Election Results Will Pose New Challenges for U.S. Policy
WASHINGTON — The apparent failure of secular, Western-oriented political groups to win many seats in Iraq's four-year legislature puts new pressure on the Bush administration in its efforts to stabilize the country.
In Iraq, U.S. officials will have to intensify their efforts to contain ethnic and sectarian divisions that have deepened over the last year and, if allowed to fester, could push the country toward civil war. And as initial results indicate that the Iraqi government will be led by Shiite Muslims with ties to Iran, U.S. officials also may face pressure to establish their own direct working relationship with Tehran. Both tasks could prove crucial if the administration is to achieve its oft-stated goal of creating a stable, unified, democratic and peaceful country.
On Tuesday, as election officials in Baghdad released data suggesting that Shiite-led parties had won big, there were signs the Bush administration was already working to damp enmity over the results.
U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad told reporters at a news conference in the capital that he had conducted "preliminary discussions" with Iraqi leaders, urging them to reach across the sectarian and ethnic lines dividing Shiites, Sunni Arabs and Kurds.
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Allawi Bloc Fares Poorly
The Bush administration had vocally supported electoral alliances that crossed such lines, including the one led by former interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi, a secular Shiite. But all such groups did poorly.
Allawi's Iraqi National List appears to have won only 21 seats, claiming 8% of the popular vote tallied so far, whereas the religious Shiite-based United Iraqi Alliance has apparently garnered 110 seats with an estimated 44% of the vote. Allawi and other groups are expected to pick up more seats in the 275-member parliament once expatriate votes are tallied.
A secular alliance headed by controversial Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Chalabi, a onetime Pentagon favorite to lead Iraq, scored less than 0.5% of the vote -- not enough to win a seat.
"It looks as if people have preferred to vote for their ethnic and sectarian identities," Khalilzad said. "But for Iraq to succeed there has to be cross-sectarian and cross-ethnic cooperation."
The strong draw of Iraq's religious and ethnic-based parties, coupled with the poor showing of broader alliances, underscores a potential danger in the Bush administration's stated plan to expand democracy across the Middle East: Elections can act to sharpen social divisions rather than heal them and to increase political instability rather than temper it.
