Democracy seems almost possible

[Neil D]

[:"blue"] Ok, they voted....now, how will the ethnic lines run and will they eventually cause a civil war? [/]

But ethnic, religious divisions run deep

AILEEN McCABE

CanWest News Service

Monday, January 31, 2005

CREDIT: Associated Press

An Iraqi woman holds her child while voting at a polling station in the centre of Az Zubayr, southern Iraq, on Sunday.

CREDIT: AP

An Iraqi was shot in the face by an insurgent near a polling place in Mosul yesterday. He was taken to a hospital and is expected to survive.

It was historic, it was bloody and - amazingly - the Iraqi election yesterday was more successful than anyone dared hope.

Defiant Iraqis came out in unexpected numbers to vote for their first democratic assembly in half a century. And, in the process, they gave U.S. President George W. Bush the first foreign-policy victory of his second term.

More important, the turnout gave some credence to Bush's claim that if you draw a line from Afghanistan to the Palestinian territories, through Ukraine and into Iraq, a clear new picture emerges. "Freedom is on the march and the world is better for it," he said Friday as he watched his new secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, sworn in.

And when Rice hit the U.S. talk-show circuit yesterday morning, she picked up on Bush's theme.

"What we are seeing here is the emergence of an Iraqi voice of freedom," she said.

Voter numbers in themselves cannot be the only indicator of a successful Iraqi election, however. How those numbers break down along ethnic and religious lines is also crucial to t

[Dr. Shane]

Some folks can't accept a victory in Iraq.

Pelosi in New Bush Insult

</font><blockquote><font class="small">Quote:</font><hr />

"It would have been more successful if the political situation had been nurtured better, if Iraqi security could have been better organized and trained," she complained.

<hr /></blockquote><font class="post">