Two weeks to go for the elections in
Iraq. Some predictions:
- Violence will continue unabated.
- Voter turnout will be abysmal, but this will not prevent the authorities from declaring the election a success.
- Allawi will continue as the prime minister (I think a form of Murphy's law is at work here: the caretaker prime minister (or president) will always retain his post after 'elections').
- US troops will continue to remain in Iraq.
- No change in the status quo as far as the ordinary Iraqis are concerned.
Robert Fisk on the current climate of
fear in Baghdad:
So, "full ahead both" for the dreaded 30 January elections and democracy. The American generals - with a unique mixture of mendacity and hope amid the insurgency - are now saying that only four of Iraq's 18 provinces may not be able to "fully" participate in the elections.
Good news. Until you sit down with the population statistics and realize - as the generals all know - that those four provinces contain more than half of the population of Iraq.
