Deja Vu Again

Hope is a knave that befools us evermore
Which until I lost no happiness was mine
I strike from hell to grave on heaven's door:
"Abandon all hope ye who enter here."

--Nicholas Chamfort

"At polling centers hit by explosions, survivors refused to go home, steadfastly waiting to cast their votes as policemen swept away bits of flesh."

--New York Times article of 2/2/05


Ah, the post-election euphoria! Something about it seems . . . familiar. Perhaps it's like the euphoria most Americans felt at the sight of Saddam's statue being torn down by our soldiers in Baghdad. Or like the euphoria many felt at Bush's victory speech aboard the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln. Or the euphoria some (fewer) felt in the wake of Paul Bremer handing over "sovereignty" to the Iraqi interim government.

Can one develop a tolerance for euphoria, the way one can for cocaine?

So many pundits growing teary-eyed while describing the voter turnout in Iraq! "People actually showed up to vote! Lots and lots of people! Hurrah!"

Well, maybe not the Sunnis, not so much. Hardly at all, in fact.

"But the Kurds turned out in huge numbers, right?"

True enough. And Peter Galbraith reported in the New York Times that these same Kurds, upon exiting the polls, were polled again and voted ten to one that, if they had their druthers, they'd druther form a country of their own, independent of Iraq. Can you say "civil war"?

"Well, how about the Shiites? Huge numbers there, right? Masses of happy people voting [as conservative editorialist David Brooks would have it] against Saddam, against the old tyranny."

And maybe voting against Uncle Sam as well, a little bit? Against his continuing, and heavily-armed, presence in their midst? Voting for him to get the hell out of Dodge?

"But there was so little violence -- I mean, compared to what was predicted."

Fifty Iraqis lost their lives on election day. Fifty people slaughtered. Imagine if that had happened in the United States: fifty people whacked for daring to vote. The election would be considered a disaster, a nightmare.

But of course we are not talking about the United States, we are talking about Iraq, where one has to adjust one's expectations a bit. Lower the bar, as it were, civilization-wise.

Where's my anti-euphoria medication?