Why can't it work in Iraq?

By Shannon Johnson

March 7, 2007 | Iraq is the beam in the eye of U.S. foreign policy, since the invasion in late 2003 to when Saddam was executed. Before the invasion Democratic Party leaders trumpeted that causalities would be overwhelming and that the Iraqi invasion would be sure to fail. In spite all their cowardice Iraq proved to be one of the quickest invasions since France last surrendered.

In December 2005, Iraq passed a constitution and the people were liberated. But now that we have the occupation, you have to think about the conflict in two parts: the occupation and the war.

We won the war, much to the chagrin of the new majority. Now we need to consider the occupation. With defeated territory you have only two choices: you withdraw or you annex, and I doubt we will be annexing Iraq though it would improve the Democrats' chances in 2008.

"Peaceable withdrawal" is the Democrats' ever-touted solution of our new majority "successful withdrawal". "A quick surrender," anything. One thing is for sure, the war is not an issue for the presidential campaign.

No, the real problem with Iraq is that it established a parliamentary government (similar to the British system).

In Iraq everyone votes and then whatever percentage of the general election is won is given to that party in the legislature. You vote for a party rather than a candidate (unlike America, where the Supreme Court then decides all things moral, political, and military).

In Parliament any party that forms a majority then appoints the president, prime minister, and All the judges in their Supreme Court (so just like the newsroom for CBS there is no room for discussion).

Now that would not be a problem except there are three major groups in Iraq: the Shiites, the Sunnis and the Kurds.

The Shiites occupy a distinct majority of the populatio,n and this means their party dominates the legislature.

Not an imagined domination, (in spite of Hillary Clinton's assertion that a single party has been running the White House "like a plantation if you know what I mean.") In Iraq the Shiite party will always dominate. So what is the solution?

If we leave Iraq the Shiites will take over faster than Brittany Spears is with her razor blade .

Democracies main goal is simple to represent the views of the majority, but without some representation for minority political parties is it really possibly to have a free democratic government?

But the question is how can we prevent the pending disaster of the terrible blond wig the crazy pop star has donned to try and fool us. Well we were dumb enough to give her stardom, but in more pressing news, the occupation Japan, Germany and most of western Europe are all examples of U.S. occupations that were successful.

They also took more than three years for the confrontation and reconstruction it was a lengthy and intensive process. But they were successful; ever since World War II any reconstruction has been relatively shoddy and politicians are far more subject to the whims of the populace without a unified voters.

A prominent example of early withdrawal is the reconstruction after the Civil War the North remained and forced the Southerners to concede rights to their former slaves.

But, once the North withdrew the Jim Crow laws were introduced and repressed former slaves again. The North withdrew due to a lack of support in the congressmen's voting districts.

So one group again seized power, this is the fundamental problem of a democracy. How do you stop the total domination by the majority and represent all of these smaller interest or ethnicities?

You fracture the majority party by introducing free trade.

Rather than allowing for people to identify with their tribe or ethnicity instead by introducing free economic trade in time people can be more interested in being farmers, shop owners, and keeping the economy stable.

Effectively dividing the parties to allow for turnover in a democracy, but only if the economic environment can remain stable long enough to allow for people to re-align with seperate political parties.

But there is little hope for our long-term presences in Iraq for their unfortunate citizens are soon to be abandoned by voters who are just not interested in long-term development.

The optimist can hope that the Shiite majority will break up naturally, but maybe not or will break up take place quickly enough to prevent the insurrections that the minorities may form.

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