Results of Iraqi election may define standing international community

Long after the ’07 March elections fade into history, Iraq will continue to need the assistance of its strongest ally. The country’s defense minister, Abdel Qader Jassim, told Reuters last week that “the biggest challenge we have on the security level is the transition of security from U.S. forces to Iraqi forces” which he predicts will last until 2020. In that same article, the writer acknowledged “speculation that Washington and Baghdad may revisit the security agreements they signed in 2008 to keep on a number of U.S. soldiers in Iraq after 2011 as trainers.” Gen. Odierno has already signaled that.

No matter what your view on whether or not President Bush should have gone into Iraq, we have a moral obligation as a country to make this right. In two days, the world will witness the purple finger moment once again as the Iraqi people choose a future that looks more promising than just a few short years ago.

Call me optimistic but the stakes are just too high, the cost has been too great, and the results just may help prove that Iraq is slowly but surely becoming a full participant in the international community.

Scott Sadler is an experienced communicator with an in-depth expertise with crisis communications who has served in senior level positions in the Federal government, Capitol Hill, and in a military theater of operation.