Despite the potential for a drastic overhaul of politics in the Middle East this summer when Iraqis are scheduled to elect a new government, the White House appears to be far more concerned with the re-election campaign of President Bush than with promoting representative democracy in Iraq. It’s no secret that many Iraqis aren’t happy with the way the U.S. is running the show in their country. Months of guerilla violence and protests  have illuminated an overwhelming sentiment of frustration and skepticism regarding the U.S.-led occupation of Iraq.

Why does this sentiment continue to reign in Iraq when the U.S. is scheduled to cease its political control and allow the Iraqis to elect a new government in less than six months? Rightfully so, the Iraqis fear that the Bush administration plans to continue to influence Iraq  through what Robert Scheer calls “an opaque process of caucuses designed, implemented and run by Washington and its Iraqi appointees. It is just colonial politics as usual. That’s why the conservative Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, the revered cleric of Iraq’s Shiites (who make up 60% of the country), is requesting a transparent one-person, one-vote election.”

The U.S. refuses to allow such an election. Initially, the Bush administration argued that this would be too dangerous since weapons of mass destruction were floating around Iraq. The U.S. didn’t want to take the risk that the people elected to the new Iraqi government had access to these weapons. But last week, the search party was called off, and Bush conceded that there did not appear to be any weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

So what is the Bush administration’s excuse now?  But Iraqis have surmised that the Bush administration fears giving the Iraqis too much of a voice in their government out of fear that they might elect a government that demanded the U.S. remove its troops and oil companies from Iraq. They have also surmised that Bush fears the prospect that the war he launched could result in a new Iraqi government as oppressive of that of Saddam Hussein, hurting Bush’s own chances of reelection. Bush, of course, has not actually offered up these excuses publicly.

Rather, according to the Bush administration’s official excuse, a free election is impossible because there is no consensus among Iraqis that they want a free election. It’s not quite clear, though, that Iraqis have ever been asked how they would like to elect their new government. Nevertheless, we’re told that “key Iraqis” have approved Bush’s election-by-caucaus plan. There are two problems with this, however. First, “key Iraqis” translates into something along the lines of “a few Iraqis hand-picked by the U.S. government because they will go along with Bush’s plans.” Second, as Scheer discloses, “The Washington Post writes that ‘there is no precise equivalent in Arabic for ‘caucus’ nor any history of caucuses in the Arab world, U.S. officials say.’ Perhaps a format Iraqis might better understand could have been generated by, say, Iraqis?”

It is impossible to predict whether the officials elected by Iraqis in a free election would be more benevolent than the last. But at least it would more closely resemble a representative government than the one that the U.S. seeks to put in place, which may represent U.S. interests but few of the democratic principlies that the U.S. government claims to stand for.

Laura Nathan-Garner