This last week for the first time in history, Iraqis went to the polls in a historic vote that marked the beginning of a new, free Iraq. Or did they? For the United States, aside from failing to locate weapons of mass destruction, the mission appears to be going in the right directions; we are successfully building a free nation in a traditionally tyrannical region of the world. Yet this new freedom, as it is called, is coming with a price to both Iraq and to the United States. The legitimacy of the new government, which has been elected to draft the nations new constitution, and its ability to be self-sufficient are both relative issues that have given the critics of the Iraqi Elections and Americas policy in the country very real and important platforms for objection.

The best part about democracy is that it is started by the people. The United States was formed by elected officials who decided to break from Britain and establish their own government by their own free will. The same can be said of other democracies: India, the worlds largest democracy was once under the colonial rule of Great Britain, much as the United States was, and sought its independence as a government created through popular movements in its society. This cannot be said about Iraq, where our foreign policy as been one of nation building, not assistance. We set up the Coalition Provisional Authority headed by Paul Bremer, we established the ground rules for the interim government, and we laid out the manner in which these last elections were to be conducted and we also outlined the new governments duty: drafting a formal constitution.

True, Iraq has no history with democracy and we have over two hundred years worth, but the Founders of the United States managed to create a government on paper that has lasted for two centuries without foreign assistance. We cannot ignore the idea that the government in Iraq is not Iraqi Democracy, but rather American Democracy modified and packaged to work in Iraq. It is this quality of the government that the Iraqi journalist Ziyad al-Samarrai claims as the reason for the low turnout of voters in some of Baghdads highest population centers. Instead of fears rooted in security problems, al-Samarrai states that it was the concept that the elections were nothing but a self-serving American concept that kept Iraqis from the polls.

And I have to concede to the Iraqis, they have reason to suspect the United States. Just recently, four detainees were killed when two American troops fired upon a riot inside a military camp that had lasted for forty-five minutes. None of the U.S. Guards were seriously injured in the riot, so it has been unclear for both American and Iraqi authorities why lethal force was used. In addition, it was recently stated by the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction that the Coalition Provisional Authority mishandled approximately $8.8 billion in Iraqi reconstruction aid funds. Much of this money was authorized to be spent on specific items, but the expenditures for those items are far below the amount allotted to them. This has only added to the suspicion that American firms and individuals are profiteering in Iraq. Combined with what would appear to some Iraqis as the complete disregard for Iraqi lives demonstrated by American forces and it becomes clear, at least to me, why many of them mistrust our intentions.

But for those who voted, the new government surely means something in both legitimacy and sovereignty. Those who opted not to vote obviously do not believe the government is theirs, but what about those that tried to vote but were denied the ability to do so? Much like our own elections in the United States, there seem to have been complications in the balloting process. In the case of Iraqs recent elections, many of the polling stations in the Sunni dominated areas simply ran out of ballots. The estimated number of civilians denied the vote is in the tens of thousands. Problems arose in many cities, particularly Mosul and Kirkuk, both which have heavy Sunni populations.

For those who dont know, the Sunni Arabs are a minority of the population of Iraq and the ethnic group that formerly controlled the country under Saddam Hussein. The Sunnis have been primarily blamed for the acts of insurgency in Iraq. Coincidentally, Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda organization are a part of the Sunni terrorist movement. So for the Iraqi Sunnis who tried to vote in the election but were turned away because there were not enough ballots, it has to signal that somewhere in Baghdad a decision was made to keep them from voting. The majority of Shiites certainly would have no objection to not having to work with the Sunnis in the new government and, if uncheck by a minority faction of the government, would try to derive some form of payback on the Sunnis for the decades of oppression they placed upon the Shiites.

For most Iraqis however, it must appear that the United States ultimately calls the shots in Baghdad. So what does it say to them that not enough ballots were provided in the minority areas? And dont even pretend that al Qaeda will not use this as added justification for its jihad against America. The point is that while we may not have intentionally deprived the Sunni Muslims the ability to vote, it happened, and ultimately the United States is in charge in Iraq and will more than likely be the target of more suspicion because of it.

Even if you discount what I have just presented, which I am sure many Iraqis have, the question still remains: can the new Iraqi government exist without significant U.S. support or will with crumble as the South Vietnamese government did when the support was removed? Based on the intensity of attacks against both American and Iraqi security forces, the quantity in which they are performed and the current scale of the American troop deployment in Iraq, I say it will fall apart without significant U.S. military aid. Even if we manage to train the desired amount of personnel for the Iraqi Security Forces, what will likely happen is that members of the force will slowly defect to the rebels cause, as was the case in Afghanistan in the 1990s when the Taliban took root. What we are left with then is a country with a government that is protected by a foreign occupation force, and that is no way for a democracy to exist.

After presenting what appears to be a total disdain for the Iraqi elections I am sure that I have upset some people. But what do I really think? I think it was a landmark opportunity for both the United States and for the Iraqis. I think that many Iraqis capitalized on this opportunity and really did brave the environment and risk their lives in hopes of a better tomorrow, but I think the United States completely dropped the ball. We failed to provide enough ballots for all the Iraqis who wanted to vote. We failed to instill in the population the trust needed in our government if we were going to attempt to set up a new gubernatorial foundation. And on top of that, both our refusal to even discuss a formal withdrawal plan and the slow speed at which the Iraqi Security Force is being trained no doubt leave many Iraqis with the idea that the United States is there to stay for some time. This was a pivotal point in our foreign policy in Iraq, and while many good things occurred, we let too many things go wrong. In a world that already mistrusts us, I guarantee that the good will not resonate as much as the bad. The eyes of the world are upon us, and we cannot afford to make these types of gross miscalculations anymore.

Aaron Dyer is a mechanical engineering sophomore who loves to dream. He enjoys reading about current foreign events and intelligence collection.
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