No, not on Bush’s pres­i­dency, although I’m begin­ning to think that’s not such a bad idea. (Tech­ni­cally, we have to wait two more years for that chance.) Instead, 11.56 mil­lion Iraqis will vote next week (Oct. 15) on another 7-year term for Sad­dam Hus­sein as the pres­i­dent of Iraq. Gee, who do you think will win? Reuters reports that tha last time such a ref­er­en­dum was held, in 1995, Sad­dam received 99.96 per­cent of the vote of almost 8 mil­lion votes cast.

The ques­tion that occurs to me is, Why now? To con­fer legit­macy on his rule, of course. The first ref­er­en­dum was in 1995, and his “term” is up. An over­whelm­ing vote of sup­port (note this is not an elec­tion since that would imply there are other can­di­dates) from the Iraq peo­ple can be trot­ted out and pre­sented to the world as “proof” that Sad­dam should not be deposed. But no one really believes that the vote is full and fair, so who the hell is he try­ing to impress?

This story offers some clues, I feel. The top­pling of a “legit­i­mate” pres­i­dency for Sad­dam (and he is the rec­og­nized head of state, for bet­ter or for worse) would mean that no head of state is in the area is safe. As Iraqi Deputy Prime Min­ster said on Wednesday:

“No Arab coun­try is free of the threat, even if it takes part along­side Amer­ica in the aggres­sion against Iraq,” Aziz told reporters in Dam­as­cus. “Don’t think that (they are safe) if they make nice state­ments and offer bases to the Amer­i­cans. When the crime ends, they will be made to sub­mit to Amer­ica and Zionism.”

So, Iraq’s no doubt over­whelm­ing sup­port for Sad­dam, as evi­denced by the vote count, will be used as pro­pa­ganda to be fed to the masses in other Arab coun­tries who are already deeply antag­o­nis­tic to United States’ actions. It should be noted that pres­i­dents Hosni Mubarak of Egypt and Bashar Assad of Syria, both sec­u­lar Arab lead­ers of coun­tries with tense rela­tions with the United States, reg­u­larly receive 90+ per­cent of the vote against non-entities. And like Iraq did in the 1980s, Egypt receives a great deal of aid from the United States. (Granted, Egypt gets it because of the Camp David accords and Iraq got it because it was fight­ing Iran, but still.)

Could Iraq be send­ing a mes­sage not just to the inter­na­tional com­mu­nity but specif­i­cally to Egypt and Syria, two of the most impor­tant allies of the United States in the Gulf War in 1991? This might be the case, espe­cially since Assad is also a Baathist, like Sad­dam. Hm.