If you look to my blogroll at the left, one of my favorites is
Iraq the Model, a blog kept by two Iraqi citizens. The upcoming elections to ratify their constitution appear to be a source of apprehension, but not for the reasons that you may suspect, or that you
may have been spoonfed via the MSM. They are not afraid of terrorists; they are not afraid of democracy. Rather,
Amid these various conflicts and terror attacks the Iraqi citizen looks more confused; it's not like the time prior to the January elections when we were confident that the people were going to participate strongly and challenge terrorism and that was the biggest motive actually; that is to prove we want democracy and we're not afraid.
This time too we are not afraid of going out to cast our votes but the challenge is different; we are afraid that that we might make the wrong decision and frankly speaking, the past experience with this government has rooted this fear.
No one now can say for sure whether the constitution is going to be ratified or rejected because many people still can't decide if the draft is good or not. However I think the constitution cannot get much more than 50% of the votes, still there are no guarantees.
Some people say they'll be voting with "yes" because they want to defy terrorism that is trying to stop the democratic progress while others say they'll be definitely voting with "no" because the draft isn't even close to their aspirations. The street is actually divided over this issue and other than saying that we're most likely to see a wider turnout than the January elections, nothing is predictable.
Ronald Reagan's assertion of the universal human yearning for freedom and self-determination was not and is not now misplaced, especially with regard to Iraq. The challenge now before the Iraqis, understandably, will be to trust a free electoral process that until recently has been quite foreign to them. I personally have faith that their trust in such a system of self-determination will ultimately be justified, and that the sacrifices borne by both our soldiers and by the Iraqis themselves will prove fruitful.
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