Iraq Election May Worsen Ethnic, Sectarian Tension
President Bush has hailed Iraq’s first postwar election as a “grand moment in Iraqi history” but it runs the risk of deepening communal divisions and pushing the country toward civil strife.Sunday’s poll for a national assembly is vital to the U.S. plan to transform Iraq from dictatorship to democracy, 22 months after an invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein. “It has the potential to make things worse, precisely because it will accentuate communal differences,” said Robert Springborg, director of the Middle East Institute at London’s School of Oriental and African Studies.Full Story