All 700+ employees of the independent electoral commission in Mosul resigned today. Staff members said today their resignation followed threats they received in the past few days. The withdrawal of the Iraqi Islamic Party from the election also figured in their decision.
That makes the vote-on-the-vote "no" in a significant part of the north, "no" in a significant part of the center, and "yes" in the south.
Iyad Allawi has a week or so to get the IIP back into the camp of the collaborators, after that, if the current vote-on-the-vote is unchanged, he and Bush and Blair will be ... holding a vote without a third to two-thirds of the electorate participating, because to do otherwise would be giving in to the terrorists. Compare this to the late October rhetoric, no part of the electorate could not participate in a vote, because to do so would be giving in to the terrorists. Hence the reduction of Falluja.
It is hard to imagine what the Regime could do worse than what its currently doing. Invite in the Iranians? No, that would probably improve things. How about invite in the Russians? Same result. Invite in the French? Ditto. Invite the North Koreans? Maybe that would be worse, so its an Allawi/Bush/Blair victory that they haven't turned Iraq over to North Korea ... yet.
Posted by EBW at December 30, 2004 09:11 PM | TrackBack