Pachachi speaks

Adnan Pachachi, former Washington favorite, in the Washington Post:

Some argue that delaying elections would give a victory to the terrorists, and I admit there is merit in this argument. But there is more than one way for the terrorists to win in Iraq in January. Another would be for them to cause large numbers of Iraqis to stay away from the polls, not in protest but out of fear for their lives. That would result in elections whose legitimacy would be questioned. Whoever was perceived as having won such a flawed election would claim a mandate, while others would claim they had been disenfranchised. Very few scenarios take us deeper into chaos and civil unrest than this very likely outcome. I would argue that the prospect of these disastrous events unfolding is far worse than any short-lived claim of victory the terrorists might make.

There are other reasons for delaying elections, unrelated to security. Thanks to the barbarity of the previous regime, Iraq has suffered several exoduses, with the result that a significant part of the electorate is living abroad. Planning for expatriate participation takes time. Additionally, the Iraqi Independent Electoral Commission has not adequately engaged Iraq's polity regarding upcoming elections, and too many Iraqis wrongly believe that we are about to directly elect the next president of Iraq.

This fact underscores another failure of which we, as a political class, are guilty: We have not engendered any discussion about the future of Iraq, the nature of a constitutional order, the rule of law or federalism, despite the fact that these are the very issues at stake in the elections. A delay in the election date would allow us to sort out the problems and practical difficulties in organizing elections outside Iraq, and to engage the electorate on a host of issues.