Editorial: Good news in Iraq / Success of voting gives the U.S. reason to

[RamboLiberal]

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05352/623817.stm

The relatively peaceful elections in Iraq on Thursday and the high voter turnout provide reason for some hope for the future of the country, and for U.S. involvement there.

The successful holding of nationwide elections for a four-year parliament was an important step along the road to an end to U.S. occupation and a return to independence in Iraq, changing the conditions that have prevailed there since the American invasion in March 2003, two years and nine months ago, making the war longer than U.S. involvement in World War I.

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The results won't be known for a while and the political coalitions that will be formed among the winners from the different ethnic groups will be confusing, to say the least. Nonetheless, Thursday's poll should produce an Iraqi government that will be as authentic as it can be with a foreign occupying force still sitting on the country.

The next obvious step for the United States should be a drawdown of U.S. forces toward full withdrawal, returning Iraq to Iraqi rule. The Bush administration can take the success of the elections as clear grounds, without acknowledging failure, to conclude and to state that America has done as much as it can and should do in Iraq, and that it is time to leave.

Well done, Iraqis; well done, U.S. soldiers. Some could be home for Christmas.

[sduncang]

1. Yeah, right...

And as soon as the US occupation ends, and Iraq returns to Iraqi rule, political upheaval begins. The glorious "victory" of Democracy will dissolve into chaos, eventually resulting in the installation of another religious nut-case regime.