Iraq Election Update – Mother Jones

Get your news from a source that’s not owned and controlled by oligarchs. Sign up for the free _Mother Jones Daily_. Last month about 500 allegedly Baathist Sunnis were banned from running

in Iraq’s upcoming parliamentary elections. Sunnis were pissed. But then, a week ago, an appeals court overturned the ban. The elections were saved! But no: Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki,

after some pro forma attacks on American interference, at first tried to convene an emergency session of parliament to overrule the court but then switched gears: > Calls for the 

emergency session were later dropped after a highly > unusual meeting convened by Maliki with other key leaders and the > head of the Higher Judicial Council, Medhat al-Mahmoud. 

Following > the meeting, the appellate panel was directed to immediately > recommence its review of all case files with decisions having to be > announced prior to the start of the 

official electoral campaign > period on February 12. It appears, based on the public statements of > al-Maliki and others, that the impending decisions of the panel on > the 

de-Ba’athification status of these individuals will bring this > entire affair to a close. Needless to say, this is a …. _noteworthy_ …. amount of executive interference with the

judiciary. Marc Lynch is cautiously pessimistic: > I still expect this to work out in one way or the other and for the > elections to go ahead, and for some Sunni politicians to take

> advantage of any attempt by others to boycott. I don’t expect it > to lead directly to a return of the insurgency. But at the same > time, by this point significant damage has 

probably already been > done….Sunni-Shia resentments have been rekindled, with such > polarization evidently being seen as a winning electoral strategy in > certain quarters. Sunni 

participation may well be depressed, though > a full-out boycott is unlikely. The damage is likely to be measured > in increments, not in a single apocalyptic collapse. Gregg Carlstrom

is, I guess, slightly more pessimistic. But no one seems to think it spells doom. The election is on March 7.