As news reports of resilient Iraqi voters began to come in over the airwaves yesterday, I found myself for the first time in seven years thinking of Iraq as a country other then "U.S.- occupied" Iraq.
According to Al Jazeera, the voter turnout for this weekend's parliamentary elections was about 62.5%, despite the constant threat of bombing campaigns that left 38 people dead and 89 wounded. Now I should point out that this is down from the +70% turnout in the 2005 elections, however this election saw significantly larger participation among the minority Sunni population who had largely felt left out of the political process in earlier elections.The results may still be weeks if not months away as 86 political groups vie for majority rule of the 325 parliamentary seats, but the elections were by and large a success.
(In contrast, the United States hasn't had a voter turnout this high since Kennedy's election in 1960- we just scrapped past with 63.1%.)
Of course, this celebration of voter turnout does not makeup for the roughly 100,000 Iraqi civilians that have been killed since the U.S. invasion, or the 4700 soldiers that have lost their lives, or the $700 Billion dollars- yes, that's $700 billion dollars- that has been spent on the occupation of Iraq. The reasonably successful elections in Iraq also do not make up for the sacrifice of America's reputation in the eyes of the world, and especially the escalation of tensions in the middle east. And worst of all, Iraq's elections do not satisfy my frustration over having been lead into a war on the false pretense of Weapons of Mass Destruction, or that Iraq was somehow a threat to the United States and was working with Al Qaeada.
But the joke is on us.
What we have now is a philosophical conundrum. Iraqis are no longer bombing U.S. encampments- they're bombing themselves. Shi'ites are intent to keep the former Sunni Bathist party from coming anywhere near their new parliamentary government (they barred over 500 Sunni candidates from the elections), and thus a cultural partisan divide has now become politically entrenched. 86 parties will vie for political power, 86 different interests, all with friends and enemies alike, only unlike in the United State, violence is a very real political persuader.
Yet, despite it all, I can't help but feel that Iraq is better off fighting amongst themselves and free then to have been dictated over under the guise of a peaceful existence. As Iraq spars for political legitimacy, I've been asking myself if I had a magic wand and could take away this democracy (dysfunctional as all democracies are) and return them to the rule of Saddam Hussein, would I? I would want to, but only because of the consequences suffered by the hands of an abusive administration have been great on the United States. I would undo the Iraq war for my own reasons- for the betterment of America- not for the betterment of Iraq.
I do not feel what we did was right. I can not justify it. But I do feel Iraq is better off. Perhaps this is equivalent to throwing a child through demoralizing foster care to protect them from violent alcoholic parents- maybe the child ends up dysfunctional in the end anyway. But somewhere, there is a moral stand being taken, isn't there? Perhaps it was not done for the reasons we romanticize, but it's up to everyone to give value and purpose to our mistakes. As I look at the failings of my own life, and the difficulties and consequences therein, I've had no choice but to give meaning to every misstep, no matter how painful they were to admit. You can't move forward without coming to terms with the wrongs you've committed. Perhaps the purpose of this War has yet to be realized, but I, for one, am willing to find the value in tragedy.
