The western media and the crisis of the banned candidates

The western and specially the American media have been occupied by reporting about the decision of the Iraqi Accountability and
Justice Commission to ban more than 500 candidates from running in the upcoming elections. The commission s decision is due to their alleged links to the former Baath Party and its intelligence agencies as well as other criminal charges concerning certain candidates who will launch the elections. Observers expect key and crucial outcomes from these elections on the future of Iraq and the region, on one hand, and on the future presence of American forces in Iraq on the other.

What is startling is that the media coverage of the banned candidates case, and the way it is reported, analyzed and the political interpretation for its contexts were unreasonable and lacks the meticulousness and strictness.

It amazingly echoes the sectarian tendency, at a time that these newspapers should supposedly be committed to unbiasedness until the truth is unveiled and the reasons behind being excluded from running in the elections. These newspapers should not play the drums and applaud in such a disgusting sectarian rhetoric which the Iraqi people are fed up with and had denounced forever.

The recent sectarian rhetoric by both American and British newspapers on this case came into view at two levels; the first level was the way in which the headlines were outlined concerning this case which demonstrated an irresponsible sectarian aspect of the issue.

Such as:

*Could a Ban on Sunni Candidates Imperil Iraq’s Election? (TIME, Andrew Lee Butters, Jan. 19)

Sunni Iraqis fear disenfranchisement after hundreds of candidates banned (Washington Post, Leila Fadel and Ernesto Londono, Jan. 19; A07)

Regarding the contexts, Michael Knight. Scott Carpenter in the American "Foreign Policy Magazine" put it in this way "500 candidates banned, most Sunnis from running in the parliamentarian elections scheduled for March 2010". Los Angeles Times and the Wall street Journal also voiced concerns about excluding Sunni candidates and the possibility of a fresh civil war in Iraq before the elections.

I cite these analysis far from the realities on the ground and the sound perception to the nature of the conflicts within the Iraqi society since it is unfeasible for Iraq to once again slip into a new civil war between the Shiites and Sunnis as it happened in 2006 and 2007 between certain extremist militias from both sides which claimed the lives of hundreds of innocent people.

This kind of analysis, conclusions and concerns from these writers is based on a wrong lead up, accordingly any conclusion from a wrong lead up deems to be wrong as the logic tells us. The banned candidates are not only Sunnis, but also Shiites, despite the fact that the decision was not taken on sectarian basis, especially when it comes to the list of those who are excluded and we see that most of them are from the secular parties, accordingly it will be a miscalculation to portray them as Sunnis or Shiites and a misunderstanding to the concept of secularism.

There is also a very important issue which almost overlooked by most observers. If we assumed that the banned candidates are a certain constitute of the Iraqi Sunnis and it is a wrong assumption and unacceptable, as we mentioned .Are those the only ones representing Sunnis in imposing their will upon them and defending their expectations in Iraq? There is another question emerges from the previous one: Are there other Sunni figures in Iraq who are not excluded by the Iraqi Accountability and Justice Commission? The answer to the first question seems to be apparent, since no one in Iraq claims to be the representative of its own sect including the Shiites political leaders, it is also absolutely unfeasible under any pretext to argue that he or she represents Sunnis or Shiites in Iraq.

As for the second question, there are prominent Sunni leaders that remained safe and sound from the commission and no one dared to think of investigating them.

The list of those prominent Sunni leaders who are actively involved in the democratic process is so long that it needs an appendix to this article.

Finally, it seems that this reality has been overlooked by the American media.

Translation: Barzan Wahab

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