Fisk on the Iraq Election

[reprehensor]

http://207.44.245.159/article7908.htm">This election will change the world. But not in the way the Americans imagined

Robert Fisk in Baghdad

01/29/05 "The Independent" -- Shias are about to inherit Iraq, but the election tomorrow that will bring them to power is creating deep fears among the Arab kings and dictators of the Middle East that their Sunni leadership is under threat.

America has insisted on these elections - which will produce a largely Shia parliament representing Iraq's largest religious community - because they are supposed to provide an exit strategy for embattled US forces, but they seem set to change the geopolitical map of the Arab world in ways the Americans could never have imagined. For George Bush and Tony Blair this is the law of unintended consequences writ large.

Amid curfews, frontier closures and country-wide travel restrictions, voting in Iraq will begin tomorrow under the threat of Osama bin Laden's ruling that the poll represents an "apostasy". Voting started among expatriate Iraqis yesterday in Britain, the US, Sweden, Syria and other countries, but the turnout was much smaller than expected.

The Americans have talked up the possibility of massive bloodshed tomorrow and US intelligence authorities have warned embassy staff in Baghdad that insurgents may have been "saving up" suicide bombers for mass attacks on polling stations.

more@link

[Cha]

1. Very interesting as usual from Robert

Fisk..but the link isn't working..sorry.

[flpoljunkie]

2. Try this.

http://207.44.245.159/article7908.htm

[Cha]

3. Thanks!

Robert Fisk writes in a way that is easier for me to comprehend what the heck is going on over there.

[KoKo]

4. Is this what the PNAC'ers intended all along? A Shia ME? Seems like

it....