Vote now or later?

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Rumors are beginning to circulate in Baghdad and around the Washington Beltway that Iraq's much-anticipated Jan. 30 elections may be postponed. For the moment these are merely rumors. Rumors? Or are they rather "feelers" being put out to gauge the public's reaction?

Despite strong insistence from the Bush administration -- particularly the president -- that the elections must proceed regardless of impediments to comprehensive balloting, reality may force a different course.

Iraq's realism is that national elections may be impractical, not to say impossible, amid the mounting violence gripping the country. Indeed, as predicted, the violence appears to be increasing as Election Day approaches.

The result may be that parts of the country -- the Sunni areas, for example -- may be unable to vote. Many Iraqis have made it known they will not venture outside their homes on Election Day.

On Tuesday, Ali Radi al-Haidari, governor of the Baghdad area, was killed along with several of his bodyguards. He is the highest-ranking Iraqi official to be assassinated since May. A day earlier interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi was targeted. Insurgents are also going after election officials; several have already been assassinated.

Reports from Baghdad indicate Mr. Allawi's government may be seeking a deferment, though the prime minister denies it.

In what may prove to be a trial balloon, Iraqi Defense Minister Hazem al-Shaalan mentioned the possibly postponing the elections. It would seem unlikely such a high-ranking member of Mr. Allawi's government would speak on such an issue without approval of his boss, the prime minister.

The Iraqi minister said delaying the elections was the "beginning of an American retraction showing flexibility." The defense minister was quoted by al-Quds al-Arabi, a London-based Palestinian newspaper, as saying the Americans might accept a change of date "after being convinced that holding them at this time will not change anything."

The newspaper said "the U.S. administration was undoubtedly in a crisis in Iraq." That may be the understatement of the year, even thought the year is just a week old.

And only a few days earlier, Samir Sumaidaie, Iraq's United Nations' representative pushed for a two-week postponement. Iraq's President Ghazi Yawar also urged the United Nations, which is providing election monitors, to re-examine postponement.