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TechnoratiIraq: Nightmare or New Democracy?
Parliament members are afraid to attend meetings. Iraq's nascent economy is deteriorating. Hundreds of armed militias are ready to fight for their own interests. This is Iraq today.
President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki met this week to discuss the future of Iraq. In a joint news conference, Obama acknowledged the challenges facing Iraq. More importantly, the president emphasized that Iraq needs to work for "national unity." With this statement, Obama refers to the nature and will of the Iraqi people. While Iraq could easily become Obama's nightmare with a policy that emphasizes sectarian divisions, a national unity framework will help Iraq become a new democracy in the Middle East.
The current deterioration in Iraq has made advisors and pundits (many of whom supported the initial invasion) fearful of pulling out U.S. troops. The misleading terms of the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) means U.S. troops are more involved than expected. The terms of the SOFA called for withdrawal of troops from the cities, for example, but the city limit lines were drawn within previous borders of the cities, allowing troops to be positioned in what was once considered part of the city.
The proper framework for stabilizing Iraq begins with a simple notion: Iraq is for all Iraqis. Armed militias, lack of safety, and deterioration of Iraqi society are artifacts of a vicious regime under Saddam Hussein, coupled with untenable laws written under America's occupation. These laws have undermined the sense of fairness that we wish for all living in a democracy — the majority rules, but minorities' rights are also protected.
The presence of U.S. troops, advisors, and contractors will remain the central point for Iraqis resisting occupation. Continued opposition and insurgency will undermine the legitimacy of any Iraqi government, and could promote instability in Iraq and the region. An Iraq that embraces the concerns of all parties, while having a strong centralized government, will have the greatest chance for success.
A successful policy framework must include complete withdrawal of all U.S. personnel, including advisors and military contractors. We should provide reconstruction assistance, assistance in building secular institutions within Iraq, and space for the Iraqis to modify the constitution and election laws to promote secular political structures.
Insurgent and nationalist groups (excluding terror groups) should
convene under United Nations auspices outside of Iraq for safety. The
conference should strive to determine the broad outlines of the
framework of agreement among all of the parties.
The United States shouldn't play the empire game of installing puppet
regimes. It's both foolhardy and against our moral values. Iraqis will
perceive that the presence of contractors and a bloated embassy are
thinly disguised attempts to continue interfering in their government.
If the withdrawal isn't genuine, the Iraqi government will have no
legitimacy.
The stakes are high after this week's meeting between Obama and al-Maliki. Failure in Iraq could engulf the whole region and threaten to escalate oil prices. The failure will embolden states like Iran and North Korea. A failed policy in Iraq could also mean a one-term presidency for Obama.
Iraq must be seen by its citizens as belonging to all Iraqis, as it has for thousands of years. Prior to the invasion, Iraq's ethnic and sectarian divisions were evident but fluid. Christians ate at the homes of their Shi'a friends. Sunni married Shi'a. Kurds intermarried with Arabs. These relationships have been threatened and diminished by a war that fanned the flames of division and nationalism. Occupation and laws imposed by U.S. occupying forces have only served to threaten any enduring peace in Iraq. The sooner we learn this fact, the sooner Iraqis will live together in peace.
12 Comments so far
Show AllWhy is democracy always framed in political terms?
There can be no democracy until there is secure right of ownership - land, businesses, personal assets. In Iraq, the agricultural economy has been destroyed - the breadbasket of the Middle East has been reduced to bomb craters.
Small business and workshops have been destroyed and have been looted by occupying forces and by in-country rivals. It is understandable that there will be violent competition as the economic pie gets destroyed and carved up among more and more people. Small business is the backbone of any developed country. Look at the number of people employed in the US by small business.
And of course - the source of financial support for small business and agriculture - oil - is under western countrol.
There can be no economic development or even a return to the staus quo until there is a meaningful credit flow. Look at the US and the current destruction of democracy through lack of access to credit.
Iraqi businesses and farmers need credit to rebuild and to survive. Germany, Japan and the Soviet Union needed large amounts of capital and credit to rebuild after WW II.
Some will argue that Japan and Germany were far more advanced than Iraq and could use credit responsibly.
This shows a singular ignorance of the Iraqi economy before the war - an economy that was far more developed than Japan and Germany in the 1930s - Even literacy rates and educational standards were higher in Iraq - They are not and were not ignorant muslim savages.
All economies need infrastucture for development - Even the corrupted US Government admits the need for the repair and development of infrastucture.
The big difference here is that Iraq has the petroleum resources to do it on their own.
If only they could get beyond the political arguments and regain control of their country and natural resources...
It won't be easy ... It's in western interests to keep Iraq underdeveloped -
The worst aspects of a "shock doctrine"
Nightmare. The U.S. never has brought any peace and stability to Iraq, and never will. Iraq was far better off under Saddam. You can call him a murderous (dead) thug; but there is only one way to rule Iraq, and that is with an iron fist. The Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds will get along no other way. The only other way would be to split Iraq into three separate countries.
The U.S. needs to get the hell out and let the chips fall where they may. This so-called "war" has been a disaster from start to finish. Iraq will have a Civil War, and the winning sect's dictator will bring peace to the country. All this thanks to Bush Sr, Clinton and, most of all, to Bush Jr.
Obama is weak and only a puppet of the military and its lackeys in the government. He is definitely a one term president, unless he gets his act together now and starts fulfilling his campaign promises.
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Leave.
This article is ridiculous.
"The United States shouldn't play the empire game of installing puppet regimes. It's both foolhardy and against our moral values. "
Really?
"If the withdrawal isn't genuine, the Iraqi government will have no legitimacy."
The withdrawal is NOT genuine (as we've known since the SOFA was signed over half a year ago). And the Iraqi government was never legitimate to begin with. The US leaving (which we're not even doing) will not legitimize them.
"Armed militias, lack of safety, and deterioration of Iraqi society are artifacts of a vicious regime under Saddam Hussein, coupled with untenable laws written under America's occupation."
BS. We caused these things. Fist of all, the Americans are responsible only because of our poorly written "laws"? What about our invasion and occupation? Our airstrikes and patrols? Our prisons and fortresses? They are not "artifacts of a vicious regime under Saddam Hussein". Saddam practiced state oppression. He violently put down opposition groups such as the Kurds or the Marsh Arabs. But there was no "Armed militias, lack of safety, and deterioration of Iraqi society" other than what was caused by a decade of US-backed war with Iran (in which we also aided the Iranians against Iraq), the Gulf War (which we lured Saddam into - Google April Glaspie, or read Web of Deceit by Barry Lando), or over a decade of bombing and sanctions. Prior to Iran/Iraq war, Saddam was using Iraq's oil wealth to invest heavily in social programs and government assistance. In anything, the US was afraid of a successful Iraq and wanted (indeed, assisted) in a "deterioration of Iraqi society".
First, the Soviet Union supported Saddam far more than the U.S. did.
Second, the April Glaspie thing is way out there. An ambassador saying that the U.S. doesn't have a position on a border dispute doesn't mean we don't have a position on an invasion.
"First"
The Iran/Iraq war lasted from 1980-1988.
Iraq's main financial backers were the oil-rich Persian Gulf states, most notably Saudi Arabia ($30.9 billion), Kuwait ($8.2 billion) and the United Arab Emirates ($8 billion).
The Soviets were neutral till 1982, at which point they tilted towards Iraq. Only after 1986 did the Soviets change their neutral policy to actively supporting Iraq.
Between 1986 and 1988, the Soviets delivered to Iraq arms valued at roughly $8.8 to $9.2 billion, comprising more than 2,000 tanks (including 800 T-72s), 300 fighter aircraft, almost 300 surface-to-air missiles (mostly Scud Bs) and thousands of pieces of heavy artillery and armored personnel vehicles.
The US had been aiding Iraq since 1980 with technological aid, intelligence, the sale of dual-use and military equipment and satellite intelligence to Iraq (remember the 1983 photo of Rumsfeld reassuring Saddam of these continued exports).
Howard Teicher served on the National Security Council as director of Political-Military Affairs. He accompanied Rumsfeld to Baghdad in 1983. According to his 1995 affidavit and separate interviews with former Reagan and Bush administration officials, the Central Intelligence Agency secretly directed armaments and hi-tech components to Iraq through false fronts and friendly third parties such as Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Kuwait, and they quietly encouraged rogue arms dealers and other private military companies to do the same:
"[T]he United States actively supported the Iraqi war effort by supplying the Iraqis with billions of dollars of credits, by providing U.S. military intelligence and advice to the Iraqis, and by closely monitoring third country arms sales to Iraq to make sure that Iraq had the military weaponry required. The United States also provided strategic operational advice to the Iraqis to better use their assets in combat... The CIA, including both CIA Director Casey and Deputy Director Gates, knew of, approved of, and assisted in the sale of non-U.S. origin military weapons, ammunition and vehicles to Iraq. My notes, memoranda and other documents in my NSC files show or tend to show that the CIA knew of, approved of, and assisted in the sale of non-U.S. origin military weapons, munitions and vehicles to Iraq.
Donald Rumsfeld meets Saddām on 19 December – 20 December 1983. Rumsfeld visited again on 24 March 1984, the day the UN reported that Iraq had used mustard gas and tabun nerve agent against Iranian troops. The NY Times reported from Baghdad on 29 March 1984, that "American diplomats pronounce themselves satisfied with Iraq and the U.S., and suggest that normal diplomatic ties have been established in all but name."
The full extent of these covert transfers is not yet known. Teicher's files on the subject are held securely at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and many other Reagan era documents that could help shine new light on the subject remain classified.
In fact, more than 30 countries provided support to Iraq, Iran, or both. But what's your point here? Enough wrongs make a right?
"Second, the April Glaspie thing is way out there. An ambassador saying that the U.S. doesn't have a position on a border dispute doesn't mean we don't have a position on an invasion."
Remember Iraq's invasion of Iran?
Said Aburish, author of Saddam Hussein: The Politics Of Revenge, says the Iraqi dictator made a visit to Amman in the year 1979, before the Iran–Iraq War, where he met with King Hussein and, very possibly, three agents of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Aburish says there is "considerable evidence that he discussed his plans to invade Iran with the CIA agents." Timmerman records American officials meeting only with King Hussein on precisely the same date, noting this "top-secret negotiating session was Brzezinski's idea." He quotes National Security Council staff member and former aide Gary G. Sick.[4]
Brzezinski was letting Saddam assume there was a U.S. green light for his invasion of Iran, because there was no explicit red light. But to say the U.S. planned and plotted it all out in advance is simply not true. Saddam had his own reasons for invading Iran, and they were sufficient.
Keeping that in mind, what April Glaspie said to Saddam was:
"We have no opinion on your Arab-Arab conflicts, such as your dispute with Kuwait. Secretary Baker has directed me to emphasize the instruction, first given to Iraq in the 1960s, that the Kuwait issue is not associated with America."
Obviously, we later decided that the exact opposite was true.
Journalist Edward Mortimer wrote in the New York Review of Books in November 1990:
“It seems far more likely that Saddam Hussein went ahead with the invasion because he believed the US would not react with anything more than verbal condemnation. That was an inference he could well have drawn from his meeting with US Ambassador April Glaspie on July 25, and from statements by State Department officials in Washington at the same time publicly disavowing any US security commitments to Kuwait but also from the success of both the Reagan and the Bush administrations in heading off attempts by the US Senate to impose sanctions on Iraq for previous breaches of international law."
There is of course, much, much more information with which to refute your claims. So do yourself a favor (and save me some time) and go read "Web of Deceit: The History of Western Complicity in Iraq, from Churchill to Kennedy to George W. Bush" by Barry Lando.
http://www.amazon.com/Web-Deceit-History-Complicity-Churchill/dp/1590512383
Nonsensical.
Shouldn't we have a truth commission to make sure mistakes like this are avoided in the future?
We already know the truth about the wars. They were fought for oil, profit, and hegemony. So that won't help.
But since we're coming up with improbable scenarios, why not suggest war crimes prosecutions instead?
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The rule of law is a supposed evolutionary step up from tribal law which contains the "top dog" element as one of it's main elements. Saddam Hussein was the alpha male in the pack who kept order with his teeth rather than words. The collective awareness of the pack is one of physical force. altering the group behavior from the body to the head is a monumental task because most group changes in collective consciousness come about in an unseen subjective fashion and are made known by external symptoms. To assemble a list of the salient points of democracy and impose it on a group whose collective awareness is not showing sufficient "symptoms" of an internal shift on their own is arrogant and clever. clever in that the implementation of democracy is nothing more than a means to control the oil through a matched set of laws. This rarely works because when the top dog is removed from the pack, chaos ensues.
Iraq: Nightmare or New Democracy?
Nightmare. We have no intention of getting out of there. Al Maliki has already set the stage for tossing out the SOFA. After 2011, however, quislings like him will start rapidly losing their clout. Eventually, the Iraqis will kick the USA out. It's inevitable.