"The Iraqi government can ask them to leave at any time. And the administration, fiscal structures, rule of law can be changed at any time by the Iraqi representatives". Oh tell us another one. My sides are aching! As if... Ans on the question of the birth of real democracy in England - I think you'll find that the universal franchise was forced out of those who had jurisdiction over the electoral process by decades of mass struggle by the working class movement. Real democracy won't come to Iraq until and unless mass secular movements prepared to resist US imperialism arise. The difference between elections to the Palestinian authority and the Iraqi government, is that in the former case elections are seen as an opportunity to elect (in Hamas) representatives who will STRUGGLE AGAINST the Israeli occupying forces. This is because the emergence of the authority has its roots in a popular uprising - the Intifada. By contrast, the Iraqi government follows in the aftermath of 'shock and awe', Abu Ghraib and all the rest of it. It's very existence speaks of an imposition of illegal foreign intervention. Of course people then wanted to press the claim for their own ethnic group to get the best deal possible in the redrawing of the map. But it in no way legitimises the very context in which that choice has to be made.