It's a fact, Jack: Only two people have appeared in all three of my non-fiction books (for the slow ones in the back row, that's Making the Corps, Fiasco and The Gamble). Both these men are thoughtful, innovative, articulate Marine infantry officers who fought in Vietnam but rose to influence later. One is Gen. Anthony Zinni, now retired. The other is Col. Gary Anderson, also retired, who just got back from his a year-long tour working for the State Department in Iraq. Gravelly voiced Gary has been prescient about Iraq in the past-he actually publicly predicted the insurgency, in a piece he wrote for the Washington Post that was published just before the fall of Baghdad. To my knowledge, he was the first person to do so.

Here is his take on the current situation: 

By Col. Gary Anderson, USMC (Ret.)
Best Defense western Baghdad bureau chief

One of the problems with asking questions in Iraq, is that you get answers that are usually in the form of questions, usually followed by a sermon. One day last month, I was having a glass of tea with a shopkeeper in Khan Dari, a small town in the Abu Ghraib district of Iraq's Baghdad Province. It is the actual site of the infamous Abu Ghraib prison -- which since it became world-famous has been renamed. My friend fought in the Iran-Iraq War as an infantryman under the Saddam Hussein regime. The main objective of my visit was to ask him if he intended to vote in the upcoming March 7th election.

When I finally got around to asking the question, he looked me in the eye and asked, rather dryly, "How does it feel to have fought for seven years so Iran can take over Iraq?" This was followed by a litany of complaints regarding corruption in the administration of Prime Minister Maliki, and by his belief that all of Iraq's politicians are crooks and incompetents. When he finished his tirade, I reminded him that he had not answered my question. "Of course I'll vote," he said, "how could I not?" My friend, by the way, is a Shiite.

He was less circumspect than most, but his answer was typical of the over 200 people that I polled in the three months leading up to my departure from Iraq in mid-February. The vast majority of the respondents to my question said they would vote, but then alleged that the vote will be rigged by Iran and its stooges in Maliki's government.  This was true of Sunnis and Shiites alike. Even though I never asked who they would vote for, about a third volunteered anyway. Several went on to say that their entire neighborhood would vote for the Allawi bloc (the main challenger's alliance), but were fully expecting that once the votes were counted, they would find out that they had "overwhelmingly" endorsed Maliki's crowd. None of those respondents volunteered that he was voting for the Maliki ticket.

Why vote then? Most voter registration in Iraq is tied to ration cards, and there is a feeling among many that they will somehow be punished for not voting by a reduction in their ration allocation; this is an interesting alternative to an appeal to civic virtue. Almost all of the Iraqis I know think that a return to strong man rule is inevitable, and most hope that that dictatorship will not be preceded by civil war. Some openly hope for a military coup. The Iraqi Army is the most trusted element in society, and it is nationalistic. One Sheikh volunteered that there will not be enough piano wire in Iraq to hang Chalabi and his Iranian traitor friends when the army takes over. Ahmed Chalabi is a pro-Iranian legislator who recently led a committee that disbarred over 500 Sunni and Shiite candidates from the election on the grounds that they are former members of the Baath Party. My Iraqi acquaintances are quick to point out that that the other thing the disbarred candidates have in common is that they are anti-Iranian nationalists. Chalabi's last gig was as an American agent who gave us much of the false evidence that led us to war in 2003. As one nationalist Iraqi army officer friend commented to me, "he betrayed you once --- and us twice."

The precedent is being set for sham elections in the future. Maliki has used the Iranian ploy of getting rid of candidates who might threaten him. He has also shut down bars and nightclubs as a sop to his most conservative Shiite supporters, and he is encouraging the Iraqi Army chain of command to urge soldiers to vote for him. The disgusting images of atrocities committed by Sunni extremists shown on Iraqi television by far-right Shiite parties would make an American snuff film producer wince. These ads are clearly designed to re-ignite sectarian passions.

We Americans want an election in Iraq badly, and we are going to get an election ... badly. So what do we do about it? This election, and American support for it, reminds me of an old "Our Gang" movie short from the ‘30s in which Spanky and his friends decide to put on a play and, by gosh, there will be a play, no matter how awful.

There is enough slime collecting for us to repudiate the election and encourage the UN to join us in doing so. We should work for a new  election preceded by a vetting of the disbarred candidates by an impartial foreign third party group with a simultaneous investigation of Chalabi and his cronies for potentially treasonous activities. These actions would go a long way toward building some faith the electoral process which is now missing in Iraq.

Barring radical U.S. and foreign disapproval of this electoral travesty, Iraq is on its way to coup, civil war, and one man rule -- and perhaps all three. The only winner in the current Iraqi electoral situation is Iran.

Gary Anderson is a retired Marine Corps colonel. He recently left the State Department after completing a year-long tour in Iraq as the Governance Advisor with an embedded Provincial Reconstruction Team. 

Tom again: Also, good old Juan Cole offers a good roundup of the latest pre-election allegations of fraud and pre-emptive arrests. Meanwhile, young Steve Myers of the New York Times reports that Maliki's path has become "increasingly uncertain, his campaign erratic and, to some, deeply troubling." And the always interesting Reidar Visser comments, "We are barely a week away from the 7 March parliamentary elections in Iraq, but the electoral campaign just does not seem to be going anywhere useful."