Vultures of the media and intellectual feather have been circling for weeks over the Iraqi National Assembly's deliberate inauguration of the country's first democratically elected and obligated government. The Bush administration and some military officials recently confirmed reports that Washington had made overtures to Baghdad to speed the process, and members of the leftist press added to that equation whatever was necessary for implying political negotiation made terrorists more bloodthirsty — instead of the more sensible explanation that a central authority without clear leadership might be less capable of coordinating law enforcement and military operations. And now, despite the heavy doubt in learned circles, Iraqis are approaching completion of their first representative body. The Daily Star in Lebanon has stepped out in front of most press agencies by generally drawing on the unsubstantiated word of insiders to describe Ibrahim al-Jaafari's cabinet in detail:
Under Jaafari's proposal, Iraq's majority Shiites would get 17 ministries, according to Ali al-Adib and Hadi al-Ameri, two lawmakers from the UIA, which controls 148 seats in Parliament. Eight ministries would go to the alliance's Kurdish allies, six to Sunnis and one to a Christian, the lawmakers said. ...According an earlier report by Al-Iraqiyya television, Roj Nouri Shaways, a Kurd, former Pentagon favorite Ahmad Chalabi, and Sunni MP Saad al-Lehebi were all named as deputy premiers. It also said Saadoun Dulaimi, a Sunni, was named as defense minister. ...Jaafari's list includes several outgoing ministers remaining in their posts, including Hoshyar Zebari, a Kurd, as foreign minister and Nasreen Mustafa Barwari as public works minister. In addition, Sami al-Majoun was named justice minister and Ali Abdel-Amir Allawi finance minister, according to a partial list provided by the television.
Let's assume that this roster is only partly accurate; we can do so, and still remain certain that Jaafari will provide the Iraqi electorate with a mosaic government, whatever the particulars. We could also consider the investment made by Jaafari and his party counterparts to deliver pluralist democracy with startling fidelity. Some few thousand miles away, the oldest democratic republic has had just four consecutive presidential cabinets, out of several score, constructed in deference to a deafening political expectation that leadership posts should be manned with men — and women — whose appearance and heritage are representative of the country's population. An administration that would "look like America," as President Clinton put it, who appointed four women and several minorities over two terms in office. President Bush has appointed the first black Secretaries of State, Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice; the first hispanic Attorney General and Secretary of Commerce in Alberto Gonzalez and Carlos Gutierrez.
Should we quibble over who assigned who based on aesthetics rather than a happy medium of life story and professional commensuration? It's well known that the Democratic Party issues quotas of every attribute for its national conventions; Republicans don't, and yet minorities readily scale that party's echelon. Methodology aside, people notice their face, faintly, looking back at them from high places. Inclusion has a value, even if it is more emotional than arithmetic. And it seems likely that merit will eventually win over style, so no one need believe his accolades are a crass or empathetic product.
Maybe the better point is that allotment based on a sharply abstract concept of fairness is never easy; and yet the nation whose founders invented the modern democratic constitution has after two centuries just embraced what a country which spent all of five thousand years under one dominion after another will have carefully entered into before four months' time.