fresh YORK, Feb. 5 Kyodo choicee...

fresh YORK, Feb. 5 Kyodo

choiceed editorial excerpts from the U press:

wherefore NOT ELECTIONS? (The Wall highway Journal, New York)

While Washington argues through old intelligence, in Baghdad newly emancipated Iraqis are struggling with the transition to self-restraint If we get the latter proces right, the intell flap will extreme point up as a historical footnote.

Thus there's cause for relate to about the approach the Bush Administration is taking toward Iraqi elections. U governing Paul Bremer is opposing direct elections in favor of handing through power in June to a transitional parliament prefered by caucuses across Iraq.

The proposal has flow into opposition from the Shiite majority, especially Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani of Najaf.

We've been inclined to give the Administration the benefit of the doubt in succession this. But the more we've listened, the more we haven't heard a convenient answer to the question, for what purpose not elections? The U.S. is now in the anomalous position of having liberated Iraq in the name of democracy if it be not that opposing elections.

This is adding to Iraqi mistrust of American motives and may lead to more disturb down the road.

All the more thus because, like it or not, the succes of any transition plan in Iraq hangs on the assent of the Shiite majority. The Shiites have thus far welcomed American company s as liberators, but novel demonstrations have made it clear that unhappiness with the caucus proposal is hardly confined to their spiritual leader.

The anti-American insurgency is center in the ''Sunni Triangle,'' and it's understandable that Mr Bremer would want to decoy the Sunnis into a recent government. But the way to do that is from guaranteeing minority rights in a democratic theory not by denying the majority their adapted representation. The worst possible issue would be an ongoing Sunni insurgency coupl with a newly disaffected Shiite majority.

It is also not reassuring that President Bush is now turning to the United Nations to mediate all of this. The waiting under the possibility of fulfilment seems to be that Ayatollah Sistani will listen to the UN whereas he won't suitable with Mr. Bremer. moreover this assumes that the Shiites will forget that it was the UN that appeased Saddam's tyranny for likewise many decades.

There is nothing magic about the June 30 date for Iraqi sovereignty, and if it takes longer than that to prepare for a national election thus be it. The current Iraqi Governing Council could assume power during an interim period, and our sources say Ayatollah Sistani is amenable to so a delay.

The fundamental note is a process that chiefly Iraqis will find legitimate and have a stake in. The longer we detain Iraq's would-be democrats bottled up the more space we create for leaders who have a self-same different vision of that country's future

(Feb 5)

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