OxBlog

# Posted 3:31 PM by Patrick Belton

RATING THE PROSPECTS FOR IRAQI DEMOCRACY: Writing in the pages of the Journal of Democracy, Iraqi-born academic Adeed Dawisha favorably assesses the prospects for democracy in Iraq. (Incidentally, here's a recent piece on Adeed from the Cincinnati Enquirer.)

Of the encouraging signs Adeed records, here are two of the more notable:

Without a doubt, the mushrooming of local self-government councils has been one of the major success stories of the occupation. Even those councils that have not been elected have been selected through peaceful and relatively (or even impressively) consensual means, in more than a few cases with initial advice and assistance from coalition military officers, and are providing scope for unprecedented amounts of open debate.

and, a bit below,

the most encouraging sign for the long haul is the sheer frequency with which Iraqis are using such key democratic terms as elections, parliament, human rights, press freedom, minority rights, and the like as debates over the country's future proceed.

He also objects to the phrase "the Iraqi resistance" (which seems most common in outlets with a clear ideological slant) to refer to the perpetrators of attacks against the US and the Iraqi people. Such a categorization, he writes, "whether purposely or inadvertently, creates an impression of a universal phenomenon supported by most Iraqis. Nothing could be further from the truth." In particular, 75 percent of attacks have taken place in Sunni triangle towns containing about 6 percent of Iraq's population.

The piece is well worth a read.

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