Posted on Fri, Apr. 08, 2005

And miles yet to go

Star-Telegram

Saddam Hussein, sitting in a jail cell, watched the televised coverage of Iraqi lawmakers electing a Kurd as their interim president.

The mental image is, in a word, delicious.

President Jalal Talabani's first promise was to fight the country's insurgency, believed to be made up primarily of Sunni Arabs. Talabani called on the Sunnis, who largely boycotted the National Assembly and ruling council elections in January, to "participate in the democratic march."

Shiite Arab Ibrahim al-Jaafari was named interim prime minister shortly after Talabani's election by the Iraqi legislators who were elected Jan. 30. He will name his Cabinet in the next two weeks and then set about the task of drafting a permanent constitution that will provide the framework for the December election of a permanent government.

The Sunnis have not been left out of leadership roles, although many prominent Sunni Arab groups refuse to acknowledge the process as legitimate.

Sunni Hajim al-Hassani was elected speaker of the National Assembly on April 3. Current interim President Ghazi al-Yawer, a Sunni Arab, was elected vice president, along with Shiite Adel Abdul-Mahdi.

Much is made of the religious/ethnic triad in Iraq, in part because Saddam exacerbated the differences during his regime. He gassed the minority Kurds in northern Iraq and subjugated the majority Shiites with his Sunni-dominated Baathist Party.

Yet despite continued insurgency and the tension that one would expect as factions vie for leadership positions, signs point to an increased sense of identification as Iraqis first and Shiites second.

Andrew Natsios, administrator for the U.S. Agency for International Development, told members of the National Conference of Editorial Writers who attended a briefing at the State Department this week that a sense of nationhood is developing nationwide.

According to a late February-early March survey conducted in Iraq by the International Republican Institute (a nonpartisan nonprofit funded by the National Endowment for Democracy), 62 percent of the respondents -- Shiite, Kurd and Sunni -- said they thought their country was moving in the right direction. In a similar poll conducted in September 2004, only 42 percent expressed that thought.

Tremendous hurdles remain in the slow but steady move toward democracy, with insurgency and security issues standing at the front of the line.

This week, The Washington Post quoted U.S. military commanders who say that, since January's parliamentary elections, Iraqi forces have made enormous strides in assuming responsibility for the country's counterinsurgency operations. But considering the distance that had to be covered, it will be months -- and possibly years -- before the United States can hand off the operation and begin significant troop withdrawal.

Still, the progress that has been made in the few short months since the nation's first free election is stunning -- especially for one Saddam Hussein.