Word: nasreddin
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Building contractor Omar Nasreddin, 47, says he intends to sit out the vote. Sunni clerics have called for a boycott, while extremists have threatened violence against those who take part. Nasreddin's reluctance stems from a suspicion that the U.S. will rig the vote. "Whoever is elected will immediately sign over Iraqi sovereignty to the U.S.," Nasreddin says, "and keep American troops in Iraq forever." He is so concerned about his fate under a new government that he asks not to be identified by his real name...
...would they participate? Across the ethnic and political spectrum, Iraqi leaders say the best way for the new government to garner support would be to set a deadline for the withdrawal of U.S. troops. It might even help convince rejectionists--nationalistic insurgents as well as disaffected Sunnis like contractor Nasreddin--that the new government is not a puppet of the U.S. Spokesmen for several militant groups have told TIME that a scheduled exit of U.S. troops is an essential condition for any negotiations with the new government...
...likeliest prospect is a landslide for the Republicans of old (76) ex-President Ismet Inonu, heir of the late great Kemal Ataturk. In coffeehouses the Turks cheered the return to democracy, happily discussed the merits of the new and old parties over rose-scented glasses of raisin liquor. As Nasreddin Hodja, a popular medieval sage, once declared: "When God wishes to make a man happiest, he causes him to lose his donkey, then find it again...
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