A Pilgrim’s Digression

Today, Iraqi exiles begin the process of selecting a new legislature that will draw up the Iraqi Constitution. On NPR this morning, their correspondent was at a polling station in Iran, and according to that report, the influx of voters was pretty steady. Of course the audio from the site included a woman making that ululating sound they make when they are happy. That must be a very difficult sound to make.

Last night on the News Hour with Jim Lehrer, their reporter delivered a story about anger among Iraqis in the United States who won’t vote because of the distance they have to travel to reach one of the five polling places. The American Iraqis are now true-blue citizens of this country: they have learned to blame their own laziness on the Government, just like the rest of us.

That “News Hour” report is what Conservatives would refer to as evidence of lib’ral bias in the media, by the way, because it isn’t positive enough.

It is a hopeful time for the Iraqis, and it is difficult to retain much pessimism when you see people, especially women, going to the polls and voting on the future of a country that has lived under totalitarianism for fifty years or more.

Turnout on Sunday may be small; terrorists may kill some people on election day; the insurgency may continue long after the election itself (in fact I think it probably will); but it seems to me pointless now to criticize or find fault. To criticize the elections or (secretly) hope that everything that can go wrong, does go wrong, only confirms the bad things that Conservatives have been saying about us Lib’rals.

I know it’s difficult, but try never to forget that the real enemy is not George Bush. The enemy are men like Zarqawi. Bush may bear some resemblance to him in terms of zealotry, but the difference could not be starker when you consider Zarqawi’s pre-election statement of principle, in which he said that he and his group had declared “all out war on this evil principle of democracy and those who follow this wrong ideology.” Since then, Zarqawi has warned people to stay away from the polls, calling them “dens of atheism and vice.” This is not a belief system bound to inspire many people. The Viet Cong and NVA at least had communism and a vision for the future of Vietnam. What has Zarqawi to offer, but death? Zarqawi does not even bother to make the much more appealing argument that he is fighting against the occupier. No, it is democracy itself, the right of people to choose their leaders, that Zarqawi is fighting against.

If there has ever been a good time for us to put what is past behind us, this may be it. There will be many battles ahead over the next four years, and chances are, not all of them will be figurative. We cannot continue to fight the battles we’ve already lost. We must look to the future and prepare for the battles that await.

No matter what our beliefs about how we went to war in Iraq, no matter our dislike of the President or our concerns for the future, the elections in Iraq are a good thing and we ought to pray it leads to even better things for the Iraqis. God knows they deserve it.