Iraq is holding its first nationwide elections “without American training wheels” on Saturday, said Ralph Peters in the New York Post. The balloting “could lead to a reborn Iraq or to renewed violence.” There will be complaints, but Iraq should muddle through. “That’s democracy.”
Maybe, but the Iraqi version is “not a pretty picture,” said Robert Dreyfuss in The Nation. “The elections promise to be marred by violence, fraud, intimidation, vote-buying and bribery, bloc voting by tribes and ethnic constituencies, and undue influence by Shiite clerics.”
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