Posted by
Defend America on Monday, November 09, 2009 7:50:14 PM
A wall falls in Baghdad
Several of my colleagues have weighed in
today on the fall of the Berlin wall 20 years ago. I covered that event
for The Post, and I have a graffiti-stained chunk of the wall to prove
it. But to me the most interesting news today is not the anniversary
gala in Berlin, but a smaller, more complicated yet still thrilling breakthrough in Baghdad: the passage by the Iraqi parliament of a law allowing national elections to go forward in January.
Sure, Iraq has had democratic elections before -- three of them
since 2005. But the deal setting up this one, arrived at after months
of haggling and several blown deadlines, broke some new ground. It
mandates that the voting for the national parliament be done, as in
this year’s local elections, according to an “open list.” That means
voters will get to choose among individual candidates rather than
selecting one party. The result should be less influence for sectarian
coalitions that appeal to Iraqis to vote Shiite or Sunni or Kurd. An
all-Shiite coalition took advantage of a “closed list” system in 2006
to gain a majority in parliament. Repeating that outcome has been a
focus of Iranian diplomacy in Iraq this year.
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/postpartisan/2009/11/iraq_takes_a_big_step_toward_g.html