Iraq faces a test of sovereignty

The turnout for Sunday's parliamentary elections was reported to be lower than in previous post-Saddam Iraqi polls. Still, the spectacle of Iraqis braving violence and threats of violence to cast ballots was meaningful. Flawed though they may have been these are still among the freest elections in the Middle East and that alone means something.

As we await the results, however, a larger question looms over Iraq's political process: whether the politicians can show as much determination as the voters who elected them.

Put simply: The real test of Iraq's nascent democracy is still to come. Once the votes are in, will the politicians be able to put together a functioning government with reasonable dispatch? Recent history is not promising; and if Iraq is to emerge as a stable, genuinely independent country, that will have to change.

Every informed observer agrees that some delay is to be expected as the winners of Sunday's election jockey for position and begin the process of putting together a new government. What remains to be seen is how long this process is going to take.

Political paralysis set in in the months following Iraq's last parliamentary election in December 2005. That, in turn, caused an already violent country to quickly spiral downwards. The February 2006 bombing of the Al Askari Mosque in Samarra marked a tipping-point; one of a handful of moments during this conflict at which Iraq's violence level reached new highs while also seeming to establish a new, more gruesome base, from which it would work in the future.

Mercifully, things have improved since then. The question looming over the weeks and months ahead is whether the country's political class is up to the task of building on the security gains of the last three years.

Sunday's vote was also a reminder of the nether world of pseudo-sovereignty in which Iraq presently exists. Media reports emphasised the omnipresence of Iraqi troops deployed in the country's streets to ensure that the elections passed off peacefully, and the degree to which Americans and other foreign troops stayed in the background throughout the process.

Gameplan

Even as they praised this accomplishment, however, Washington's politicians and pundits discussed Iraq's future in a way that left little doubt who they believe the country's real decision-makers still are.

Throughout last week there were hints that General Ray Odierno, the commander of the American and coalition forces in Iraq, believes some revisions to the timetable for US withdrawal agreed upon in the waning days of George W. Bush's presidency may be required.

The idea that the new Iraqi government, once formed, might have something to say about this was never, as far as I am aware, raised during the extensive television and newspaper commentary on Iraq that marked the American weekend. Yet this is an issue that needs to be addressed. If Iraq is emerging, however slowly and tentatively, as a real democracy, then the status of foreign forces is certain to become a central issue in the country's politics sooner rather than later.

The legal and political status of American troops and foreign contractors has already been much debated in Iraq. It would be naïve to believe that this issue will recede over time. Less remarked upon are the foreign policy implications of the continued American presence in Mesopotamia.

Simply put: Iraqi leaders are likely to find it difficult, if not impossible, to achieve acceptance in the broader Arab world that they so clearly crave so long as their country is generally regarded as existing under American occupation. This is a truism that hardly anyone in the US seems to have a handle on.

Iraq is a better place now than it was one, or two, or five years ago. For that improvement to continue, however, the Americans need to make a serious effort to negotiate the terms of their continued presence with an Iraqi government that is sovereign in more than just name. Of course, for that to happen, the Iraqis, in turn, need to start acting like serious political leaders.

How likely either of those things is, we will learn in the weeks to come.

Gordon Robison, a writer and commentator who has lived in and reported on the Middle East for two decades, teaches political science at the University of Vermont.