“I insisted on voting, even though my neighbors told me it would be dangerous,” 38-year-old Haifa Ahmed Satoor, told The Washington Post. “I don’t want more people killed in the name of Sunni resistance,” he said, explaining why he voted in favor of the draft constitution. “We already lost neighbors. I don’t want to lose relatives.”
Remember that just three years ago, Saddam Hussein was in charge. There was no political process, only violent repression. These days, Iraqis line up to vote peacefully. And one of the benefits of the new political process is on display this week: Saddam’s trial.
As CNN puts it, “The former dictator, along with seven of his followers, will answer questions about a massacre in the small Sunni-Shiite town of Dujail, about 50 miles north of Baghdad, in 1982.” This is one of the lesser crimes Saddam is charged with, of course, but it serves as a good reminder of where Iraq has been, and thus where it’s going. A free people will soon pass judgment on their former dictator.
There was a time in the U.S. when politics -- like football -- wasn’t as genteel, relatively speaking, as today. In 1856, the political debate over slavery turned violent when Rep. Preston Brooks pounded Sen. Charles Sumner repeatedly with a cane.
His constituents approved of Brooks’ actions -- he was re-elected, and people even sent him new canes. But such an act seems unthinkable today.
In much the same way, the Sunni bombs last week are anything but a “reentry into politics.” They’re a flailing attempt to derail a political process that nevertheless moves forward, and will in days to come yield a political outcome that will make such bombings less and less likely in the months and years ahead.
Iraqis have approved a new constitution, which will make the country a beacon of freedom and opportunity in a violent region. No doubt the country’s nervous neighbors -- including dictatorships in Syria and Iran -- would have preferred that violence win out. But it won’t.
As Iraq’s political future takes shape, many would-be suicide bombers will find their way home to Syria and Iran. The leaders in those countries will soon find out that, like the Raiders, their time has past.