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Arabs in other nations are fascinated with today’s successful elections in Iraq:
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia – A young man smoking cigarettes and drinking coffee in a Saudi cafe worries that Iraq’s elections could lead to civil war. On the banks of the Nile, a student strolling with his girlfriend dismisses the polls as a sham meant to place a pro-American government in Iraq. Yemenis, chewing their mildly stimulating khat leaves, express hope the United States will pressure other tyrannical regimes to change.
The Arab world is anything but indifferent to Sunday’s polling in Iraq, which has dual implications for the restive region. It will almost certainly bring to power Iraq’s long-suppressed Shiite Muslims, boosting the sect’s influence in this Sunni Muslim-dominated area. It also will mean Washington has succeeded in bringing democracy to Iraq by force at least for the moment a precedent that could shake up the autocratic Arab world.
“Arab governments may not say it, but they don’t want Iraq’s democratic experiment to succeed,” said Turki al-Hamad, a prominent Saudi columnist and former political science professor. “Such a success would embarrass them and present them with the dilemma of either changing or being changed.”
...Interest was high among Saudi Arabia’s Shiite minority, who have long complained of discrimination.
“People are glued to their TV screens” in al-Qatif and Ihsaa, Shiite-dominated towns in the oil-rich Eastern Province, said Muhammad Mahfouz, a Shiite editor of a cultural magazine.
Clergymen used special services Saturday for Ghadeer Day, which marked the Prophet Muhammad’s nomination of his son-in-law Ali as his successor, to pray for smooth and safe elections, he said.
...Writing in Beirut’s Al-Anwar newspaper, political analyst Rafik Khoury said Arab governments who have criticized shortcomings of Iraq’s elections, demanding that they be “honest and transparent … themselves ban such elections for their own peoples.”
“If the future promised by the elections appears confusing, are the Iraqis supposed to bet on the future that the executioners promise them?” he said, refering to insurgents.
