Is this the promised Iraqi democracy?

The Iraqi military put local journalists on notice on Monday that their organizations could be shut down for misquoting officials, while the Iraqi government accused the news media of deliberately seeking to promote sectarian strife.

The top military spokesman in Baghdad, Maj. Gen. Qassim Atta, said he was filing a lawsuit seeking to close the Baghdad office of Al Hayat, one of the most prominent newspapers in the Arab world, as well as the satellite signal of Al Sharqiya, a popular Iraqi television channel that has been a strong critic of the government. The lawsuit was announced on the Web site of the Baghdad Operations Command, which coordinates Iraqi security forces in the capital.

First of all, Al-Hayat is a Saudi-owner paper that is not “one of the most prominent.”

Anyhow, the Iraqi government contents that Sunni-owned papers are portrayed former Sunni militia men whom are currently part of the Awakening as heroes when, in fact, according to the government they are wanted criminals. The Iraqi government has been going around arresting Sunnis and worries that Sunni papers may provoke a backlash.

There is a lot wrong with this picture. First, government censorship is never the answer. This is akin to the Obama administration shutting down Fox News, because it provokes opposition.

Second, these Sunni men switched sides and joined the Americans in combating al-Qeada in Iraq. They are now the “good guys” who make up the Sunni Awakening. But at a time when the predominantly Shia Iraqi government should be promoting reconciliation between all Iraqis, it has decided to use the occasion of peace in Sunni cities to go on a revenge arrest scheme. Many of these Sunni men may have committed crimes against Shiites, but so did the Shiites against the Sunnis. And, yet, the Iraqi government is not going after the latter.

The Sunni papers are right in raising opposition to the arrests. If the Iraqi government imposed justice on all sides that would be fine and fair, but, instead, justice here is behind a veil of sectarianism.

At a time when the civil war seems to have ended, vindictive and short-sighted Shiite officials in the central government in Baghdad could end up re-inciting sectarian warfare.

They will be mistaken if they believe that by shutting down some media organs they will pacify opposition to biased justice.

The Americans need to rein in Baghdad. What Iraq needs now is to place a black mark on the civil war years and instead move forward as a united nation toward building a democracy. If arrests are to be made, then they have to done against all sides not just the minority Sunnis.

Further, whatever the government does; there needs to be a hands-off approach to the media.

The Awakening and the Surge have worked, let not the effort be in vain.