I wanted to report on the Voice of Iran‘s reaction to the Iraq elections, but alas the ionosphere was not helping last night. Tuning around the dial, I instead came across a broadcast from Voice of America. According to Passport, this transmission was targeted at South Asia — such are the properties of shortwave radio.
Anyway, here is a clip of a segment [289K, 2m15s] introduced as “the views of the US government” — although I didn’t hit the record button fast enough to get the introduction, it’s repeated at the end — on the subject of the elections.
One Iraqi voter had lost a leg in a terrorist attack. He told a reporter, “I would have crawled here if I had to. I don’t want terrorists to kill other Iraqis like they tried to kill me.”
There’s gumption for you.
As [...] an Iraqi schoolteacher put it, “today for the first time, I feel like an Iraqi.”
Meanwhile, Scott Burgess sizes up Robert Fisk’s disappointment at the success of the elections, and R.C. Dean and the Samizdata Commentariat have their say.