I'm watching CSPAN at the moment. On it are folks from the American Enterprise Institute (which is notably right wing) talking about the handover and the structure left behind.
Radek Sikorski, the former Polish Deputy Defense Minister, is very well spoken. He is discussed the negative effects of installing a system of proportional representation as left behind by Paul Bremer. He sees it as a very serious mistake as it breaks the link between the people and their representatives.
They (the Iraqi candidates for election) cannot adequately represent their people if they do not know them. The current system would introduce an element of balkanization into the election.
I didn't hear the whole discussion but I'm a little concerned that of all the various democratic systems we could have left behind we left one that is so seriously flawed. Sikorski made the point that the last nation to use such a system without checks and balances was the Weimar Republic (and that this system allowed the Nazi party to rise to power).
Hmmm.
Posted by artandscience at June 30, 2004 02:30 PMI saw a rep from the AEI on CNN an hour or so ago. She wasn't impressive - just loud and abrasive.
To me, it seemed that she was living in a fairy-tale land in which all of the hard work was over with.
Posted by: michael at June 30, 2004 04:48 PMYeah.. weird. I saw two folks from AEI on CSpan who seemed to make total sense and whom I could agree with. Not what I had expected given their reputation.
Of course, maybe they just represent different viewpoints. I was pretty stunned to hear them criticizing the Bush adminstration's senior administrator so thoroughly.
I thought I was on Star Trek there for a while. You know, the parallel universe one where Spock has a beard and Chekov loves the "agonizer". (chuckle)
Posted by: stefan at June 30, 2004 04:54 PM