November 04, 2008	Tuesday	Ziqa'ad 5, 1429

BAGHDAD: Dr Amira Edan al-Dabab has spent the past five years picking up the pieces of Iraq’s plundered past and fears the results may again be lost if America elects Barack Obama.

Since the fall of Baghdad in 2003, Edan, the director of the Iraqi Heritage and Antiquities Directorate, has been travelling the globe in search of up to 15,000 looted relics that used to comprise the essence of the National Museum of Iraq, treasures from three millennia which etched Iraq’s place in the Arab heartland.

Through half a decade of occupation, several years of brutal insurgency and attempts at sectarian cleansing, Iraq has seen tens of thousands of people killed, and at least two million leave. Security has improved and so too have prospects for some. But throughout Baghdad, many like Edan believe the country could again find itself at the edge of the precipice if the US doesn’t tend to unfinished business.

“The Republicans must finish their commitment to Iraq, especially by signing the security treaty,” she said. “McCain is going to win,” she continued. “I read that the other man nominated is going to pull out the troops. We wish, we need and we hope that this won’t happen.”

Most Iraqis seem more concerned about the short term. The time, they say, is not even nearly ripe for the Americans to leave and – for now – they’d rather the devil they know.

Twenty kilometres north of Baghdad, the Tarmeya and Qadr district was until earlier this year the most active spot in the most dangerous area of Iraq. But the worm has turned. Tarmeyah is no longer an Al Qaeda safe haven and McCain is seen as the best bet to keep it that way.

“If they go now, we may as well all leave too,” said Bassam Jassam, from the region’s dominant tribe, the Mashadani. “McCain is best for us now. But we need to get through the next two years and after that all the Americans can leave.”

“The thing we need is stability and strength,” said Edan. “If that goes, and it could, all of this could go again. There is so much at stake for us.”—Dawn/Guardian News Service