This is Victory?

The referendum on the Iraqi Constitution passed today, which means we've cemented an Islamic Republic in the heart of the Sunni/Shi'a divide in the Middle East. The Ninevah province results (a majority-Sunni area which was the Ohio of Iraq) were held until the last minute, and then came in at 55% no, just short of the 67% no that would have been enough to overturn the document. There were earlier reports that the Yes vote was running 75% in Ninevah. After the fraud allegations, I guess the Iraqis took it down to a nice respectable number where they could still get their Constitution in and not be as open to fraud charges.

Sunni Arabs are getting a hard lesson in majority rule. They strongly voted down the Constitution and it still passed. The question is whether or not they will now see the political situation as unwinnable, and resort even more to insurgency as a means to achieving their goals. Quotes like this do not make me optimistic:

Farid Ayar, an official with the Independent Electoral Commission of Iraq, said the audit had turned up no significant fraud.

But Saleh al-Mutlaq, a Sunni Arab member of the committee that drafted the constitution, called the referendum "a farce" and accused government forces of stealing ballot boxes to reduce the percentage of "no" votes in several mostly Sunni provinces.

"The people were shocked to find out that their vote is worthless because of the major fraud that takes place in Iraq," he said on Al-Arabiya TV.

Adnan al-Dulaimi, a spokesman for the General Conference for the People of Iraq, a largely Sunni coalition of politicians and tribal leaders, said the audit took so long it left many Sunnis suspicious of possible fraud and manipulation. But he said his group "will work to educate Iraqis and get them to participate" in the December vote.

Incidentally, now that this Constitution has passed Iraqi women will have their rights severely diminished under Sharia law, forcing them to wear abayas, leaving them unable to divorce, and subject to clerical tribunals with enlightened notions like this:

As one of the Shi'ite clerics' representatives put it the other day:

"We don't want to see equality between men and women because according to Islamic law, men should have double of women. This is written in the Quran and according to God."

Now those are some strict constructionists right there.

This should be celebrated, according to the war supporters stateside. This is why we went to Iraq, to create a democracy that subjugates 50% of its population. This is why we went to Iraq, to create a Shi'a-Sunni split in the Muslim world that could easily spread in the region (The Iran-Iraq War, after all, was a Shi'a-Sunni conflict, for even though Sunnis are the minority in Iraq, they held power under Saddam). This is why we went to Iraq, so our troops could get caught in the crossfire of an internecine conflict without a definable strategy.

Am I supposed to be happy with this turn of events? Am I supposed to look at chaos and call it victory?

UPDATE: 2000 lives now snuffed out. It's no mor a milestone than the 1st, the 82nd, the 923rd, or the 1864th. They're all tragic, all this brave people, many of them teenagers, who deserve to go to war with a better plan, better equipment, and a better rationale. The 15,000 injured in this war, most of them severely, also should occupy some of our thoughts. One thing about this war that we can all be proud of, maybe the only thing, is that those of us on the antiwar side are steadfast in blaming the policy and not the troops. Those at the top deserve to be blamed for this loss of life, not those who follow orders under harrowing circumstances. What's really shocking is when those at the top turn on these troops who they've ordered to do the unspeakable, calling them "a few bad apples" and the like. It's a discredit to their memory and their legacy.