Gotta Love Them Sunnis

Stories on Foxnews.com and CNN say that leading Sunni clerics are calling the Iraqi elections illegitamate because not enough Sunnis voted.

The fact that these same clerics told their followers to stay away from the polls was not brought up by these clerics. Is this merely sour grapes coming from those who realized that their threat to stop Sunni participation did not halt the election and only now are they realizing that the democratic train has left the station without them, as my fellow blogger at G-Scobe has mentioned. Or is it part of their overall plan to undermine the election in the worlds eye.

These "leaders" did not want Sunni participation in the election because they feared it would lend legitamacy to an electoral process that would grant the Shiites and Kurds the majority of the power in Iraq for the first time ever. They ignored the fact that all Iraqi groups were promised a place of honor in the government and that the only way to assure the proper level of Sunni representation was to get out and put their vote into the ballot box.

On the bright side some Sunnis saw the light. According to a letter home from a US Marine stationed in Fallujah, people in that embattled city turned out once they realized it was safe.

One of the real problems in bringing democracy to Iraq is the people just don't understand the concept. Do they grasp the idea that someone has to lose without resorting to picking up their AK-47s and RPG launchers and attacking their political rivals. This is one among many very difficult growing pains that Iraqi's are going to have to endure. In defense of the Iraqis, who at least have an excuse for not understanding the system, Democratic Party in the US might need to take a refresher course in this aspect of democracy. (More on the in a later post.)