Iraqi election results may be seen as ironic
WASHINGTON – When the Bush administration decided to invade Iraq two years ago this month, it envisioned a quick handover to handpicked allies in a secular government that would be the antithesis of Iran’s theocracy – potentially even a foil to Tehran’s regional ambitions.
But, in one of the greatest ironies of the U.S. intervention, Iraqis instead went to the polls and elected a government with a strong religious base – and very close ties to the Islamic republic next door. It is the last thing the administration expected from its costly Iraq policy – $300 billion and counting, U.S. and regional analysts say.
On Sunday, the White House heralded the election and credited the U.S. role. In a statement, President Bush praised Iraqis “for defying terrorist threats and setting their country on the path of democracy and freedom. And I congratulate every candidate who stood for election and those who will take office once the results are certified.”
Yet the top two winning parties – which together won more than 70 percent of the vote and are expected to name Iraq’s new prime minister and president – are Iran’s closest allies in Iraq.
Thousands of members of the United Iraqi Alliance, a Shiite-dominated slate that won almost half of the 8.5 million votes and will name the prime minister, spent decades in exile in Iran. Most of the militia members in its largest faction were trained in Shiite-dominated Iran.
And the winning Kurdish alliance, whose co-leader Jalal Talabani is the top nominee for president, has roots in a province abutting Iran, which long served as its economic and political lifeline.
The results have long-term implications. For decades, Republican and Democratic administrations played Baghdad and Tehran off each other to ensure neither became a regional giant threatening or dominant over U.S. allies, notably Saudi Arabia and the oil-rich Gulf sheikdoms.
Conversely, the Iraqi secular democrats backed most strongly by the Bush administration lost big. During his State of the Union address last year, President Bush invited Adnan Pachachi, a longtime Sunni politician and then-president of the Iraqi Governing Council, to sit with first lady Laura Bush. Pachachi’s party won no seats in the national assembly.
Current Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, backed by the CIA during his years in exile and handpicked by U.S. and U.N. officials to lead the interim government, came in third. He addressed a joint session of Congress last September, a rare honor reserved for heads of state of the closest U.S. allies. But now, U.S. hopes that Allawi will tally enough votes to vie as a compromise candidate and continue his leadership are unrealistic, analysts say.