By Frank Devine
AMONG many positive aspects of Iraq's constitutional referendum is the fact the Bush administration - which has sometimes hailed hopeful signs as outright victories - hasn't made much of a fuss about its successful outcome. I take this as a sign the administration has steadied in its perspective on the war against terror and its strategic initiatives in the Arab peninsula.
By avoiding too much singing and dancing in the Oval Office, the US also denies traction to assertions by hostile critics that the constitution is less than worthless, exacerbating regional and sectarian divisions and hastening the outbreak of civil war. Comment in Australia has been almost universally glum, with no gleam of hope found in any facet examined.
I detect in this a certain amount of scheissenbedauern, a German word I've only recently discovered, meaning disappointment over things turning out better than expected.
Beyond our borders, pre-emptive scheissenbedauern could be read into the remark of a senior administration official who spoke to The New York Times "with some dread in his voice" about Iraq's general election to choose a permanent government, which is scheduled for December 15. After that, he said, "there are no more democratic landmarks to point to; that's when we learn whether the Iraqi state will stay together".
One hopes this senior official won't become more senior. Within days of his expression of dread, a new democratic landmark revealed itself: the virtual guarantee, by leaders forming coalitions and moving to get out the vote, of heavy participation in the December election by Sunnis, who boycotted the election of an interim government (or were scared off).
Repeated wrong calls on the dark side have diminished the impact of gloomy prophecy.
Memory reaches easily back to the beginning of this year, when commentary vibrated with the expectation of an election towhich nobody came.
There was more than enough scheissenbedauern to go around when eightmillion Iraqis defied threats of death ifthey even went near a polling station, and the makers of threats were exposed as impotent big-noters.
Now we hear that the Iraq constitution is so full of omissions and evasions that it can't possibly be put into effect. History indicates that flexibility is its strength.
The US constitution, generally regarded as the masterpiece of the genre, has been amended 27 times, the first time within three years of its ratification and most recently in 1972. Our own Constitution awards powers to the Queen and her representatives which, if exercised, would probably lead to our own insurgency. But we know what it means.
Amendments to the Iraqi constitution will have to be approved through a new referendum. Having come close to blocking passage in the recent vote, Sunnis with a substantial number of seats in parliament will be in a stronger position to negotiate changesthey want, encouraging the preference of at least some for the political process over suicide bombing.
John Chipman, director of London's International Institute for Strategic Studies, noted encouragingly last week: "Those perpetrating violence on either side do not represent the interests of a sizeable fraction of their respective communities."
Antagonists never give up trying to portray Americans as brutishly innocent yokels up against a highly sophisticated, infinitely resourceful enemy. The moron America image is being burnished at present by claims that Iraq has replaced Afghanistan as a training school for jihadist terrorism.
I learn from an Australian newspaper that al-Qa'ida is bussing recruits from Afghanistan into Iraq for training. Some bus ride, judging from the map. I hope al-Qa'ida got a package deal from its travel agents and that it includes transfers.
If terrorists are learning anything useful to take home from a school with a headmaster on the run and a faculty constantly depleted by death and imprisonment, only the most closed mind would reject the certainty that the coalition is taking away exponentially more knowledge of terrorism, jihadism, the culture (including languages) and politics of the region. Plus increments of influence in a neighbourhood that was once virtually terra incognito.
These were among the reasons for the strike into the heartland of jihadist terrorism following the air raids on New York and Washington.
Without celebrating victory, I take a little cheer from a recent editorial in The New York Times, whose detestation of George W. Bush has kept it vehemently on the dark side regarding Iraq: "The results of the referendum were at least modestly encouraging: Iraqi voters have demonstrated twice that they have the courage to go to the polls in defiance of terrorism. Now their leaders will have to persuade them to do more than just show up to vote for their communal faction.
"That would be the step that builds a nation, one that would make all the killing and loss mean more than just the rearrangement of pieces on a political chessboard."
