The Times On The Iraqi Elections: A Glorious Success
No need to rub your eyes, you’re not dreaming; that is what the editorial page of the New York Times said today:
Compared with any previous Iraqi election, with any reasonable expectation and with any other recent election in the Arab Middle East, Thursday’s vote for a new Iraqi Parliament was an overwhelming and heartening triumph.
Voter turnout was high in Sunni Arab areas as well as in Shiite and Kurdish districts. Violence was down – not just lower than it was for this year’s two previous elections, but lower than on an average day in post-invasion Iraq. While some irregularities were reported (who would have believed a claim of 100 percent perfection?), at this point the problems look too few to cast doubt on the overall results.
This page has consistently stressed the importance of the widest possible Sunni Arab participation in the politics of a new Iraq. Now Sunni voters, keenly feeling the cost of their past election boycotts and less intimidated by insurgent violence, have joined the political process and strengthened their representation in the new Parliament.
Contrast this with the fickle Professor Cole, who posits Sunni participation as good or bad depending on how it reflects on America.
I must confess to being a little confused here by the Times, as well, though; I’m pretty sure that they are opposed to the war. Consider this, however:
The questions of security and policing are as important as the political and constitutional issues. The first responsibility of any government is to ensure the safety of its citizens without violating their legal and human rights in the process. This has been the biggest failure of all modern Iraqi governments, before and after the American invasion.
Despite the optimistic tone of the Bush administration’s speeches, it is painfully clear that Iraqi security forces, as they now stand, lack the political credibility and military skills to defeat the raging insurgency.
That sounds, to this product of rural Texas, like the Times is saying we need to bolster Iraqi security forces before we withdraw.
Now, I’m no sophisticated New York city slicker, but isn’t that what George W. Bush has been saying for two years now? Why doesn’t the Times have the courage to come out and say the President is right? In its own way, this is just as dishonest as the behavior of Professor Cole; it is the celebration of an outcome of the invasion without the admission that said outcome is a direct result of actions undertaken by the President, actions that have been consistently opposed by the party currently celebrating.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad to see the Times at least acknowledging the plain fact that our policies are working; I just wish they had the intellectual courage to admit those policies are those of the Bush Administration…
There’s the problem. “Intellectual courage” and “New York Times” do not belong in the same sentence. This is the paper that still has not returned the Pulitzer that Walter Duranty won for writing Soviet propaganda and covering up a genocide in Ukraine. They will never learn. They don’t need to learn. They act as a force in conflict to the values the majority of this country holds dear. Destroying this president is more important to them than reporting the truth of what’s actually happening. The Washington Post made a decision that it can be both liberal editorially and honest in its journalism. The Times made the opposite position. As long as the Times is printing, this country will continue to be hurt from the propaganda being splashed across its front page in the guise of news.
Mark: …it is the celebration of an outcome of the invasion without the admission that said outcome is a direct result of actions undertaken by the President, actions that have been consistently opposed by the party currently celebrating.
and
Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad to see the Times at least acknowledging the plain fact that our policies are working…
Mark, The NY Times is only saying the elections were a good thing. One step in a long process. This is a far cry from endorsing Bush’s invasion, or claiming his “policies are working.” Sure, given the awful situation in Iraq, and the potential for disaster (bloody civil war, creation of a Shia dominated Islamic Republic, a strategic partnership with Iran, etc.), the elections were a glimmer of hope. But that’s it.
There is a looooooooong way to go here. And so much that can go wrong along the way. Bush has taken a huge gamble with Iraq. I would avoid claiming victory too soon. We have already seen that with Bush’s “Mission Accomplished” speech.
The first two sentences of the editorial put it in context: “Iraq’s election day was a glorious success. Now on to the hard part.”
Every (rational) observer has to be thrilled at how the election turned out. However, that does not, in itself, vindicate the war (at least in the Times’s view). Nothing intellectually dishonest about that: the Times is right to applaud the election, but whether the war was wise and ultimately did great things is something that we do not yet know –
Joe, I hear ya, but here’s an equation that I’m wondering how the Times can get around – no invasion, no election.
It’s the equivocating that I’m against…and the incessant harping that we’re losing, we have to pull out, etc. – oh, look, elections, great! – impeach Bush…
Don’t you find this a tad dishonest, and politically motivated?
The elections are more than a glimmer of hope; they are a giant glowing globe of hope to millions of Iraqis who faced no better fate in life than languishing under the thumb of a brutal tyrant until we finally did what no one else had ever quite found the courage to do…
I’m unequivocably in favor of the invasion; we have Saddam in chains, and Iraqis voting in successful, clean elections…a glimmer? No, no, no…we can argue about whether victory has been achieved, but surely it is in sight…
peter, I just read the Times editorial again, and my reaction is the same…nowhere does the Times even mention the Bush administration, aside of the one dig at its optimistic tone (do we prefer a pessimistic one?).
These elections didn’t happen in a vacuum…they are a direct consequence, not an incidental one, of Bush’s policies in Iraq. If they are a triumph, whose triumph was it (aside from, of course, the now free people of Iraq)?…
If you want to see what the Time’s own employees think of their paragon of journalism, check out Ken Auletta’s scathing profile of Pinch’s stewardship in the latest New Yorker (!). Coupled with the takedown published last week in The Washington Post, as well as Pinch’s pathetic interview with Charlie Rose a few weeks ago (as much mocked as Raine’s idiotic performance about a year ago), and it’s clear that anyone who takes the “Paper of Record” to be anything but a den of hopelessly biased, judgemental and often inept reporters must be the true definition of naivete’.
Nobody — including the Times — disputes that the elections are a great thing. If anything, it would have been intellectually dishonest for the Times to do anything but what they did today: acknowledge that the elections are a “glorious success.”
To be sure, if we had not invaded, there would not be elections. However, that is not tantamount to saying that the elections justify the invasion or its aftermath. It’s like one great inning in a ball game.
The facts remain that Iraq is still a bloody mess, the insurgency continues unabated, oil shipments are below pre-invasion levels, etc. None of this takes away from the fact that, hey, they had more voter participation than we have — but the elections alone are not dispositive that they justify everything else which came with it.
I hope that Iraq blossoms into a fully functioning democracy and swords are beaten back into plowshares — and the election is certainly a huge step in that direction — but it is far too early to know how this will play out.
I agree with everything you say here, peter, I just think it wouldn’t have hurt to acknowledge that this a victory for the Bush administration – the Times is not shy about crowing about his defeats…