Newswise — Violence seems to be increasing in Iraq with the approach of parliamentary elections on Dec. 15. Will the electoral outcome make the troubled nation safer and more stable?
Dr. R. William Ayres, director of the International Relations program at the University of Indianapolis, says past Iraqi elections offer little hope that next week's voting will reduce the deep ethnic and sectarian divisions.
"The violence in Iraq and the elections are part of the same struggle for control, and the violence is by far the more important of the two," Ayres says. "So far, in two elections " one for the interim government, the other for the constitution " Iraqis have voted almost entirely along ethnic and sectarian lines: Kurds voting for Kurds, Shiites for Shiites, and Sunnis either sitting out or voting 'no.'"
Those same divisions also are driving the bombings and other attacks in Iraq, he says, and the violence is unlikely to ease if the new government is composed like the current interim parliament.
"The best outcome for the United States would be a coalition government in which secular Shiites held the key positions, such as a return of Iyad Allawi to power," Ayres says. "But this is extraordinarily unlikely and would do little to change the nature of the war or the underlying political problems."
BackgroundDr. R. William "Bill" Ayres is director of the International Relations program and an associate professor of International Relations at the University of Indianapolis. He specializes in the study of violent ethnic conflict and civil wars, and has published numerous scholarly articles on the subject. He has written and been interviewed extensively on issues of international and ethnic conflict for radio, TV and print, including National Public Radio, USA Today and international newspapers and journals. He also hosted a radio program, News and Views, for two years on WICR-88.7 FM in Indianapolis.
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