The high turnout in the Iraqi election has strengthened United States President Bush’s hand at home and abroad, administration officials and the president’s supporters said on Monday.
The courage of Iraqi voters was the perfect illustration of the Bush’s ”freedom speech” at last month’s inauguration, Bush supporters said.
They also said it would have an impact on transatlantic ties, making it harder, for example, for European critics to reject his calls for greater involvement in Iraq’s stabilisation.
On Monday, Bush phoned the two European leaders who most vocally opposed the war in Iraq, the French President, Jacques Chirac, and German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder.
Chirac told Bush the vote was ”an important step in the political reconstruction of Iraq” and declared the turnout and organisation a success.
But other critics of US policy in Iraq said the turnout in Sunday’s election reflected the strength of Shia and Kurdish organisation more than American nation-building efforts. They believe the election has done nothing to ease deep sectarian divisions in Iraqi society.
In the short term, however, Monday was undoubtedly a good day politically for the Bush White House, as the election received overwhelmingly positive coverage from the American and world press, distracting attention from the failure to find weapons of mass destruction. The vote has also provided useful material for Bush’s next moment in the spotlight, tomorrow’s State of the Union address.
”In Afghanistan and the Palestinian territories and now in Iraq, we’ve seen these communities embrace democracy,” a senior administration official said. ”The president sees this to be a universal trait of all people, this longing to control their destiny. People, when presented with that opportunity, reach out and grab it. Let others say whether it validates the principles of democratisation and universality laid out by the president. But the evidence is clear.”
Radek Sikorski, a specialist on transatlantic relations at the American Enterprise Institute, the neoconservatives’ intellectual stronghold in Washington, said: ”The ambitious and revolutionary idea that the president has proclaimed and that Europeans are so suspicious of has been seen to have some traction in an Arab country.”
He argued the impact would be felt during Bush’s visit to Brussels, Mainz and Bratislava, which begins on February 22.
”Until last week, it was possible to pretend Iraq was an unmitigated disaster, but now America will be able to talk about a path that could lead to success,” Sikorski said.
”It’s now seen as a democracy stabilisation project, and once it’s about soft power rather than hard power, [the Europeans will say] ‘We’re supposed to be about soft power so we should get more involved’.”
Bush’s first trip overseas since his re-election will include talks on the Middle East peace process, European talks with Iran over its nuclear project, an EU decision to replace its arms embargo on China with an export code, and the question of European contributions to Iraqi troop training.
France and Germany have said they will not contribute troops to Nato exercise in Iraq, but have offered to help with training outside the country. The US has rejected that offer.
”The turnout will do much to focus people on what can be achieved now, setting aside what divided us,” a European diplomat said in Washington. ”I would very much doubt if the question of commitment of troops is going to change. But there are other aspects, like the relief of debt, that could be talked about.”
But Ivo Daalder, a former member of Bill Clinton’s national security council, said Sunday’s vote would make no difference to fundamental disputes. ”In three weeks, we will still be seeing a continuing high level of violence,” said Daalder, now at the Brookings Institution thinktank. ”Most of Europe will say: ‘It was nice to have elections but the occupation is the fundamental problem and you’ve got to leave. We’re not going to be participating in an effort that is bound to fail.”’
He said Bush would be more isolated on this trip to Europe than in his first term, because on Iran, the Middle East, China, and increasingly on Iraq, Britain sides with its European neighbours.
Daalder predicted the vote might turn out to be a ”double-edged sword” in the US. ”People saw maybe 70% go and vote in Iraq and they are asking: ‘Why are we there?”’
Even in the Middle East, the vote may not be such a big victory for democracy, said Rachel Bronson, an expert on the region at the Council on Foreign Relations: ”The price for the election was very high, and so if you’re sitting in Saudi Arabia … you look to Iraq and you ask: Is it worth the cost?” – Guardian Unlimited Â