With fears for a low voter turnout among Sunni Arabs due to a boycott and insurgents' intimidation, the administration no longer touts the elections as a catalyst to spread democracy across the Arab world.

Instead, U.S. officials now emphasize the political process that will follow the vote.

Unable to deliver on its lofty goal of bringing democracy to Iraq (news - web sites) through the Jan. 30 elections, the Bush administration is pressing a damage-control campaign to lower expectations for the vote.

"Clearly, we don't see the election itself as a pivotal point," Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage told NPR on Friday. "It's the beginning of a process, the process where Iraqis will write a constitution and at the end of the year will actually vote for a permanent government."

"Once their original rationale (to rid Iraq of weapons of mass destruction) fell apart, they created very high expectations for democracy to be able to justify their takeover," he (Juan Cole, a professor of modern Middle East history at the University of Michiga) said. "Now that they have ended up with a not particularly good demonstration of democracy, they are forced to lower the public's expectations for these elections."

- posted by Anonymous @ Monday, January 17, 2005