Critics condemn as pigheaded President Bush's insistence that the Iraqi elections take place on schedule Jan. 30 - just more uninformed stubbornness by a president who makes his adversaries crazy with his refusal to waver.
Iraqis are not ready to vote, so the argument goes, because the country is not safe for everyone to participate, and an election in which only a portion of the population can vote must lack legitimacy.
It doesn't take a crystal ball to know that the Iraqi elections will be chaotic, controversial and bloody. Not everyone who wants to vote will get to vote.
Indeed, before a single vote has been cast, numerous people have died because of their role in the election: poll workers, candidates, people trying to register to vote. But before America (and the world) rushes to condemn Iraq's nascent steps toward democracy, we need to look in the mirror.
Our founding fathers would not pass the litmus tests being applied to Iraq. We t/files/storyimages/to forget how few people were allowed to vote in our country's first elections: white male property owners over the age of 21.
John Adams defended the requirement that only property owners could vote in 1776: "Such is the frailty of the human heart that very few men who have no property have any judgment of their own."
Besides, Adams warned, if you give the vote to "men of no property," women might be next, and that would be ludicrous, "because their delicacy renders them unfit for practice and experience in the great business of life, and the hardy enterprises of war, as well as the arduous cares of state."
Our political system limped along for a century and half before women won the right to vote, but that doesn't invalidate the founding of our country or our republic's early elections.
Iraq confronts this same problem of under-inclusiveness, albeit in a different form.
Sunni Muslims constitute roughly 20 percent of the population in Iraq. Sunnis, through Saddam Hussein, dominated the rest of the country for years, but now confront the specter of their minority status.
The largest Sunni political party, the Iraqi Islamic Party, has announced that it will boycott the election, partly due to safety concerns and partly, perhaps, to position itself to challenge the results as unrepresentative of the Sunnis.
Shias, who make up 60 percent of the population, are highly motivated to turn out to vote.
The success of democracy in Iraq may turn on whether the Shias will allow the new constitution to include real protections for minorities like the Sunnis and Kurds.
Our country confronted this same dilemma of how to avoid tyranny by the majority; it is why we structured our government to include checks and balances.
Iraq is composed of 18 provinces, and it seems unlikely that elections will be able to take place in all 18; four provinces in the Sunni triangle at the center of Iraq may be simply too violent.
Critics of the election point to this as another reason to delay the Jan. 30 election date. Note: Bridget Bush is an attorney who lives in Louisville.
