"Iraqis! Come Out With Your Votes In The Air!"

Steve Bell lampoons Bush's efforts to encourage anything like a respectable turnout in Sunday's vote.

The Jan 30 vote was supposed to be the exit strategy, remember? Now we are told that US forces (120,000 or more) will stay in Iraq for at least 2 more years. How can US officials say that when the new Iraqi government has not even been elected? Don't ask.

Given the extreme likelihood that the vote will be severely criticized next week (hard to criticize now coz nobody knows what's going on) and that Iraqis will be left with an unrepresentative, unbalanced government that cannot solve their problems, I'd like to re-print something I wrote here a yeah and a half ago:

How about ongoing military and administrative support? Well, that won't be necessary once the Iraqis regain control of their country and set up a stable, model democracy, right?

Hands up anyone who thinks the instability in Iraq will be resolved anytime soon.

If the Iraqis could get the government they wanted, the first thing it would do is ask the US to pull out. Perhaps immediately, perhaps over a set period of time, but a complete US withdrawal is the one thing that polls consistently show the vast majority of Iraqi people want. It's also the surest way to quell the violence ravaging the country.

It wont happen, of course. Not while Bush & Co are in power in Washington.

So what is all the talk about bringing "Democracy" to Iraq? Smoke and mirrors, folks... Smoke and mirrors.