Via War and Piece, I see this article from the Washington Post entitled "U.S. Lowers Sights On What Can Be Achieved in Iraq" and I think it's a very interesting read for individuals like myself who supported the invasion. Sourced at least in part to a "senior official involved in policy since the 2003 invasion," the article basically concludes that the US has failed to achieve its political, military, and economic goals in Iraq and are now revising those goals towards more "realistic" expectations, which are enumerated as follows:
The ferocious debate over a new constitution has particularly driven home the gap between the original U.S. goals and the realities after almost 28 months. The U.S. decision to invade Iraq was justified in part by the goal of establishing a secular and modern Iraq that honors human rights and unites disparate ethnic and religious communities.
But whatever the outcome on specific disputes, the document on which Iraq's future is to be built will require laws to be compliant with Islam. Kurds and Shiites are expecting de facto long-term political privileges. And women's rights will not be as firmly entrenched as Washington has tried to insist, U.S. officials and Iraq analysts say.
"We set out to establish a democracy, but we're slowly realizing we will have some form of Islamic republic," said another U.S. official familiar with policymaking from the beginning, who like some others interviewed would speak candidly only on the condition of anonymity. "That process is being repeated all over."
U.S. officials now acknowledge that they misread the strength of the sentiment among Kurds and Shiites to create a special status. The Shiites' request this month for autonomy to be guaranteed in the constitution stunned the Bush administration, even after more than two years of intense intervention in Iraq's political process, they said.
The ferocious debate over a new constitution has particularly driven home the gap between the original U.S. goals and the realities after almost 28 months. The U.S. decision to invade Iraq was justified in part by the goal of establishing a secular and modern Iraq that honors human rights and unites disparate ethnic and religious communities.
But whatever the outcome on specific disputes, the document on which Iraq's future is to be built will require laws to be compliant with Islam. Kurds and Shiites are expecting de facto long-term political privileges. And women's rights will not be as firmly entrenched as Washington has tried to insist, U.S. officials and Iraq analysts say.
"We set out to establish a democracy, but we're slowly realizing we will have some form of Islamic republic," said another U.S. official familiar with policymaking from the beginning, who like some others interviewed would speak candidly only on the condition of anonymity. "That process is being repeated all over."
U.S. officials now acknowledge that they misread the strength of the sentiment among Kurds and Shiites to create a special status. The Shiites' request this month for autonomy to be guaranteed in the constitution stunned the Bush administration, even after more than two years of intense intervention in Iraq's political process, they said.
"We didn't calculate the depths of feeling in both the Kurdish and Shiite communities for a winner-take-all attitude," said Judith S. Yaphe, a former CIA Iraq analyst at the National Defense University.
In the race to meet a sequence of fall deadlines, the process of forging national unity behind the constitution is largely being scrapped, current and former officials involved in the transition said.
"We are definitely cutting corners and lowering our ambitions in democracy building," said Larry Diamond, a Stanford University democracy expert who worked with the U.S. occupation government and wrote the book "Squandered Victory: The American Occupation and the Bungled Effort to Bring Democracy to Iraq."
"Under pressure to get a constitution done, they've lowered their own ambitions in terms of getting a document that is going to be very far-reaching and democratic. We also don't have the time to go through the process we envisioned when we wrote the interim constitution -- to build a democratic culture and consensus through debate over a permanent constitution," he said.
The goal now is to ensure a constitution that can be easily amended later so Iraq can grow into a democracy, U.S. officials say.
"Grow into a democracy?" What the hell is that supposed to mean? Were the enormous success achieved in the January elections just window-dressing then, as Juan Cole argued (at the time? No offense, but if the end-result (goal?) of this whole adventure is that Iraq is left in the hands of yet another dictator, even a benevolent one, I'm going to have to join the chorus of people asking why we've bothered to remain as long as we have. If we were planning to install yet another Iraqi dictator, couldn't we have at least stuck with Allawi, who if nothing else has been a steadfastly reliable CIA asset?
Now maybe all of this is a trial balloon that's being put out by somebody for reasons that are as yet unknown and maybe it's not. If it isn't, then this needs to be disavowed in reasonably short order (which it won't be even if it isn't for reasons I'll explain further down) and if it is then those of us, myself included, who have repeatedly argued in favor of remaining in Iraq in order to accomplish just that based on what we assumed was the administration's goals have every reason to feel betrayed. Now I'm not Greg Djerejian, who voted for Bush rather than Kerry in 2004 out of the belief that he was committed to building a stable democracy in Iraq, but I would be lying to all of you if I didn't say that this wasn't a major factor in my thinking.
I would also note that, if accurate, this story appears to confirm most of the suppositions and analysis by Eric Martin over at Liberals Against Terrorism, who has just recently produced a number of posts arguing that the timing and deadlines of most of the Iraqi political process is now being determined by US domestic political considerations rather than by any actual commitment to the Iraqis.
Now I am all for a serious evaluation of US post-war failures and would recommend my extensive summaries of Anthony Cordesman's work on the subject for anyone who wants the full run-down of everything that went wrong. But to paraphrase a recent comment over at LaT, just hope and denial are not a strategy, neither are schadenfraude or snark.
There is also another element to this that nobody seems to be paying much attention to, namely how a US "cut and run" from Iraq based on political calculations (which is more or less what this article is talking about) is going to be seen from the perspective of people like Zarqawi whom, lest we forget, is bin Laden's designated emissary in Iraq and has a far larger agenda of which the Iraqi people are only incidental to. A lot of excellent discussion since 9/11 has revolved around the fact that US withdrawls from Somalia in the 1990s and Beirut in the 1980s led to the widespread perception within Islamist circles that the US was not capable of taking them on militarily. A US withdrawl from Iraq would only serve to further solidify these conclusions in Middle East and, as with Somalia and Lebanon, they would be entirely correct to draw them.
Allow me to explain.
I normally don't go that far into domestic politics for a variety of reasons, but in this case the two issues are intrinsically related. I've noted (as has Bill) what'll happen to the region if the US more or less abandons Iraq. Those remarks occurred within the context of calls by Democratic members of Congress to set a timetable for withdrawl, but I think they're still quite applicable to what is essentially a withdrawl so that the GOP can attempt to make some political headway in time for the 2006 mid-term elections. But let me just touch on one other point that I haven't really talked about before.
If the US withdraws and Iraq collapses and the Middle East destabilizes as a result, support among both the American public and the political establishment for any future military intervention is going to be out of the question for the immediate future. That's bad from where I'm standing because, for all the discussion of de-militarizing the war on terrorism, al-Qaeda is still out there, a point I would think would be rather painfully obvious by everything that's happened this summer in Ayodhya, London, and Sharm el-Sheikh among other locations worldwide. Given that the US withdrawl from Iraq will result in a recruiting bonanza for the group as well as an affirmation that everything bin Laden and his acolytes have been saying is correct, it puts the organization in a position where they can basically attack the United States with impunity without fear of anything save 1990s-style arrests and extraditions or token reprisals. The military option, in other words, will have been removed from the table for the immediate future during a period when it will be most needed. Moreover, it is quite likely that the organization will be able to nullify major US responses to small-scale attacks on our soil by framing them with in the context of "retaliation" for what the US did to Iraq.
Another likely outcome of this process will be that the Arab reform and democratization project will be dead. The "Muslim democracy = Islamists" script has already been written for Iraq and will be held up as proof of the futility of democracy in the Middle East if not in the Muslim world as a whole. So where exactly does that leave us if we get hit with say, what Zarqawi wanted to do to the good people Amman?
I honestly don't know and that worries me. Absent the political willingness to deploy conventional military forces in the Middle East, however, it is not altogether unreasonable to suggest that at some future date the US might retaliate with weapons of mass destruction in some fashion in response to a future terrorist incident. I don't consider that to be an ideal future by any means, but I do feel that the likelihood of it occurring increases by a factor of ten if the US ditches Iraq out of domestic political considerations.
Moreover, I would question the political wisdom of an abrupt US pull-out from Iraq due to the fact that it is the president's strongest supporters (myself, for example) in the GOP base who are most supportive of the war and that the inevitable Democratic nominee for 2008 is far from being a dove on either Iraq or the broader war on terrorism. If the GOP is worried about US public opinion with regard to Iraq, I would recommend re-reading the following that I wrote back in June:
To put it another way, the administration went into Iraq with something on the order of 70% of the population supporting it, including (as myself and countless others have noted) a sizeable number of self-described centrists, liberals, and Democrats. The vast majority of those (excluding those in the party establishment, expert, and pundit categories) the administration lost quite early on with the failure to find WMDs and subsequent allegations concerning pre-war intelligence and hasn't in my opinion been able to regain them since. A successful public relations campaign by the administration might have countered this, but internal conflicts within the administration over the post-war reconstruction made that impossible and, when combined with the Plame affair, pretty much solidified the vast majority (again, in terms of the general population) of liberals and Democrats' earlier unease with regard to the administration's conduct of the war, which soon led to a great deal of skepticism and then to open contempt. The party establishment, which near as I can tell had invested a great deal of political capital in the war under the expectation that at least most of the pre-war claims would pan out and they would be able to profit politically from participating in it. As a result, they proved insufficiently critical of the administration on the war in Iraq until it was too late (if you want to see a particularly memorable example of this, go back to Saddam's capture in December 2003 you can find John Edwards on TV talking about how he has always supported the president and the war), thereby leading to the rise of the Howard Dean campaign that drew heavily on many of the same organizational and social networks that had previously come together in the anti-war movement.
... The mushy middle, for a whole host of reasons, seems to be primarily focused on results at this point. When Iraq was showing progress after the elections, the general mood was quite hopeful. Since those elections, however, there has been very little (from the perspective of the US population) progress and far too much violence for many of them to continue to support the amount of money and lives. And, if I might be so bold, this is compounded by the fact that the administration is perceived as continuing to react to the situation in Iraq rather than being proactive - Bush's recent round of responses in defense of the war, for instance, only came about in response to the bad polls, not Zarqawi's continued penchant for bloodshed. As long as that perception of reacting rather than acting holds up and little visible political progress is made by the Iraqi government, public opposition to the war is likely to increase.
You'll notice that I have touched very little with respect to the actual situation on the ground in Iraq. For lack of a better way to describe it, it is irrelevant as far as public perception on the ground is concerned. The security situation in Iraq was in far more jeopardy of flying apart last April than it is today and there was little in the way of calls for the US to pull out. Part of this is due to the fact that the insurgent strategy as laid out in Iraq al-Jihad is something similar to the Chinese idea of Ling Chi that is more designed to wear us down than wipe us out and is based heavily on the proto-al-Qaeda MAK's success at defeating the USSR in Afghanistan.
It remains to be seen whether the US and the current administration will be able to successfully counter this strategy while it still has the political will and capital to do so. If they want to, however, they're going to have be willing to fight for Iraq as hard politically as our troops have been on the ground.
I believed that this was true at the time and I still do today. Unfortunately, none of the administration's message people appear to be doing anything like this. There was a tentative attempt to explain why exactly we're losing an escalating number of troops to IEDs (answer: because there appear to be professional and pre-made ones being shipped over from Iran) recently, but that's already ancient history as far as the general public is concerned. There's a certain kind of irony here that if the administration is in fact planning to declare victory and go home in response to domestic political considerations for the 2006 mid-term elections they are doing so without even bothering to defend themselves on an issue that is, one way or another, going to define the president's political legacy.
Dan, minor point... LaT seems to close to LeT for my taste. And LAT = L.A. Times. This may be one term that's best used in full: Liberals Against Terrorism.
FYI, you also have a couple of repeated paragraphs in the quote.
Speaking of which, my general rule is that when a paper quotes an unnamed official of any stripe, you're looking at an attempt to spin a story as part of internal infighting. I get very skeptical when such quotes are presented as representing official policy - if they did, the person quoted would have used their name.
Still, it's worthwhile to make one's position clear on such things, and on where acceptable vs. unacceptable lies.
Besides which, all you have to do is read the GOP's "Blog Food" email out to see where Iraq and indeed the entire war fit in their priorities - near the bottom of the totem pole. Other communications to the base reflect similar priorities.
Whether it's a question of the "urgent" driving out the important, or something worse, the failure of mobilization and message isn't George Bush's alone. It belongs to the entire GOP, and has been a problem since Sept. 12, 2001. Only the Democrats active forays into conspiracy theories and defeatism has kept this from becoming a political problem for the GOP.
I don't blame Bush so much as the people who work for him who are responsible for formulating the message and getting the word out to the general public or even just the party faithful. To a certain extent we've been able to compensate thanks to the blogsophere and other media outlets, but that state of affairs cannot endure indefinitely.
I think your assuming a lot based on this article.
Did we really think they'd just set up a US style democratic republic? We didn't. It took us quite a while to get here.
But if they do build the right structures they can start moving that way...
A weak federal system with stipulations that the autonomous areas (re: 'states) have to follow federal rules (when they come down) and their militias must federalize when requested... aka just like the US... I see some posturing and even a future rebellion, but again, what did we expect?
A few good politicians and a few good judges could turn that system into an open and transparent one...
I can't say this type of announcement means all is lost... it may be lost later but that will be because of the Iraqis (and possibly vice versa)...
Thomas:
US-style democratic republic? Hardly. A democracy, yes, and this article looks as though somebody definitely wants to backpedal on that one. Instead, whoever leaked this article sounds like they want something that will gradually grow into a democracy, which is usually a codeword in diplospeak for a nice dictatorship.
My hope would be that the administration would be as dedicated to this enterprise as my companions were who came home injured for life ... or who didn't come home at all. Soldiers lay their lives on the line. Maybe politicians could risk their careers.
In other words, if Iraq is so darn important that we've expended this much blood an treasure, isn't it important enough for the politicians to say, "To heck with the elections ... we're going to see this thing through, win or lose in November."
Way back when, in the officer basic course, those wiser and more experienced told us about taking unpopular stands that bucked political realities: "You can only fall on your sword once ... make sure it's important." Surely the converse is also true, "If it's truly important, be willing to fall on your sword." "Honor" is a soldier value. Wouldn't it be nice if it were a political value as well.
I know that there is no way to guarantee a positive outcome in Iraq. However, calculations based on political survival are unacceptable.
Some gave all ...
We've seen the exact same kind of infighting leaking from State since 2003. I don't find this as discouraging because I think that this is the same crowd of "Gee, if you would have listened to our defeatism ahead of time ...".
Does your opinion change if we withdraw from Iraq by going through Iran?
What I was thinking too. Of course we'll be withdrawing from Iraq if we intend to do anything about Iran/Syria/Saudi Arabia. And I don't know that we can micromanage what sort of a system the Iraqi's come up with. We had hoped they would compliment us by adopting our Constitution and all that it entails, but if they want to go in a different direction and still manage to be civilized in the same way that Denmark, Australia, or India are, then I think we should treat them like adults and respect that decision.
I don't favor regime change by military force in Iran at this time for reasons of effectiveness, though there's enough casus belli at this point.
Don't forget Dan the internal struggle between those wanting a strong central state "Saddam 2.0" to counterbalance the Iranians (State, CIA, most Dems of the "centrist" variety and of course Powell, Scowcroft, and the rest of the "realpolitik" crowd) and those wanting a decentralized federalist state that would be more stable.
The reality internally is that each community, Kurds, Sunni and Shia have a lot of trust/revenge issues that a weak federalist state side-steps. A strong central state has with it the probability of revenge seeking; federalism spreads out the graft/money and keeps people moderately happy. It's also IMHO a policital key to ending the Sunni tribal chiefs support for jihadis cause now they have something to lose ... oil money.
Islam as part of the laws? No question a real problem, but sadly unavoidable given the need to have the Shia and Kurds as well as the Sunnis on board. The other alternative is a massive swelling of the military to about 3-4 times it's size, and massive WWII occupation and armed forces parked all over. Support for that in the Reps is zero, cause it's expensive. Dems of course are pretty much the Howard Dean party now, sadly, and folks like Lieberman who could mount this effective critique are being set up with primary challengers by Kossacks.
You are right about the nuclear dangers. A withdrawal would pretty much prove Osama right, and lead to another massive attack, with either nukes or something else (like hijacking a FedEx plane and crashing into the Orange Bowl or something during a Miami Game).
The urge to simply "solve" the problem with 20,000 dead and Muslims around the globe dancing in the streets would be IMHO overwhelming and lead to a strategic retaliation. Something that works strongly as you say against just pulling out, no matter how much Code Pink and Medea Benjamin dominate the Democratic Party and Media.
That last is why Bush has done so little, it's just taken for granted that the Media is Code Pink. LAT routinely prints the Code Pink letters and hagiography of Cindy Sheehan (omitting the hate America and anti-semitism). Why bother with the media when there's no way they'll give you a fair shake?
To put it bluntly, is there any reason to assume that the US won't go down to defeat in Iraq? It seems they have pretty much a stalemate now that will go on until either the US doubles or triples its resources to utterly crush the enemy or until it disengages. I don't see the public in general willing to accept the cost that it would take to obtain victory.
While it might seem terrible, put it in perspective. We're perfectly willing to accept a significant crime rate (11,500 murders in the USA last year (source here) because actually addressing the issues that cause crime is just too damn expensive and inconvenient. We simply choose to take the chance of being robbed or murdered because in general, life is better that way.
I strongly suspect that the same is true about terrorism. We'll take the odd hit and if it's big enough, we'll do something significant (but relatively cheap) about it (i.e. Afghanistan), just like we hire more police when something terribly atrocious happens. But in general, we'll just try to keep the incidents down to an acceptable level through security measures, just like we have police around.
The terrorists will have to be a lot more threatening before it will be worth the political, economic and military effort to actually finish the job. Or to put it in perspective, over 11,000 people were murdered in the US last year. What are we willing to spend to stop another 11,000 dying this year?
(Personally, I think the US has a moral obligation to see this through now that it's started it, but I seriously doubt that the will is there...)
I think the entire drive for a secular democracy in Iraq was mistaken from the get-go. A secular democracy was exactly what the shah had in Iran prior to its Islamization. A secular democracy in Lebanon collapsed 30 years ago and has never reformed, Syrian interference aside. In order for a secular democracy to work in the Middle East, a tradition of orderly negotiation, compromise, and a respect for the 'other' in broader Islamic culture, be they Sunni Arab, Sheat, Kurd, Allawite, or Maronite must first be learned. This can happen in a federated Iraq that has Islam as the source of its laws. It cannot be learned on a secular basis in 28 months post-invasion during an active insurgency.
As in America's own formation, democacy must first begin on a regional basis. If Basran Shiites enact draconian religious laws in the south while the Kurdish north becomes relatively free, a tide of northward progress and migration will quickly point the southern Islamists to their errors. This kind of governmental experimentation works in a federal republic like the United States. All the conditions for it to work in Iraq also exist.
Besides the obvious fact that regional governments will have to work by comparison with their neighbors, overreaching by regional governments, especially in the south, will likely be challenged strongly by Shiite leaders in Baghdad such as Jafaari. In this case in particular, the very fact of Shiite preemience within Iraq also makes a civil war or breakup less likely to happen.
"Still, it's worthwhile to make one's position clear on such things, and on where acceptable vs. unacceptable lies."
Yep, I see that the administration has achieved its goal. We're into the miasma of what we're going to make all right and it isn't truth vs the opposite.
tom cuddihy: admirable ... gimme more
Lifestyle is downwardly rigid and upwardly mobile. Give the Iraqis a chance to develop sound economies and you will see US style democracy, in time.
In a simplistic manner, I have always seen the Iraqi war in an "Opening of the West" context. The good has to come from the good guys living there, not from those occupying the area (no matter how well intentioned).
The name of the game is capacity building, fighting corruption, and building trust in secular values for government. It's getting there.
Look at the American support expressed by the Iranians. A slow step by Iraq may be what is needed to start Iran down the democratic pathway.
The game is now to improve the lifestyle of the voting Iraqi.
The problem with stories such as the linked report (which I admit I did not have the energy to read in its entirety) is that one can only sometimes divine the purpose. It may have been a "trial balloon" to test a change in policy, or it may have been another example of bureaucratic revenge. Or even good faith bureaucratic dissent.
The interesting question is whether the American focus on the "deadline" is ultimately useful, or not. On the one hand, one might argue (as implied in the article) that the deadline is "rushing" the full flowering of Iraqi democracy. On the other hand, there may be something to the idea that only the threat of American withdrawal can force the various parties to come to terms on the constitution. Without American pressure, each side will continue to hold out.
So what pressure can the Americans bring to bear? It seems that the most credible is the threat to withdraw, notwithstanding Bush's pronouncements to the contrary. The risk that we will truly unleash the dogs of ethnic war by withdrawing is too harsh for many intransigent Sunnis to contemplate, so they may reach a compromise. But if we threaten to withdraw to explicitly, it will embolden the insurgency. So the best strategy may be to continue to declare that we will "finish the mission," but hint around the possibility of withdrawal sufficiently that the Iraqi political class gets serious about coming to terms.
Good post Dan - thanks for and honest take on this.
For all the reasons you have mentioned, leaving Iraq now is a bad idea. But are we caught between a rock and a hard place?
There have been warnings that the current deployments of the Army can only last through the end of this summer. If that is correct, the drawing down will begin because of military realities, not only because of the political positioning (which I'm sure is being discussed, at a minimum).
And, as you know, there are a lot of centrifugal forces in play in current Iraq, that threaten to moot the achievement of a united Iraq (especially a democracy), whatever the United States does.
I echo Joe Katzman's initial response to Dan. We have seen so much of the CIA's political maneuverings, I'm surprised this isn't more self-evident.
Policy advocates of the Strong Man counterpoint to Iran don't want the messy uncertainties of "little d" democracy any more than the Baathists do.
These people (leakers, fighting policy clandestinly rather than within the policy conference rooms) are unprincipled and do much harm to any hope of creating a common front against Terrorism.
Media wants the conflict, they abet the crime.
Reasonable thinkers should reject most of this stuff out of hand as the self-serving crap it is.
Nobody's given up on Iraqi democracy, and I believe Bush, we aren't leaving until the job is done.
Dan,
The Washington Post has been a mouth peice State, CIA and the "geo-political realty" faction of the Republican Party for the entire Iraq adventure. This sounds like more of the pro-Sunni Arab bull firmly in line with the Arabists of the "geo-political realty" school.
News flash:
President George W. Bush is not a member of any of the above.
Iraq will not be secure until Iran and Syria under go regime change. That is the one thing not in the article above. It is one thing that is most carefully avoided
Please also note that George W. Bush publically underlined this week end in a Crawford news conference (It was a headline story in the Washington Times) that he had not ruled out the use of force to stop Iranian nuclear ambitions.
The only way the "usual suspects" can move Iran off the Presidential table to spook him into declaring Iraq a failure by deed if not by word.
Bush is not a man who is spooked by that sort of game.
The American victory in Iraq rests firmly with our patron-client relationship with the Iraqi Shia.
If we have it, we are victorious.
If we don't, we are not.
The Sunni, who were clients of State and CIA, are extinct as power brokers in Iraq forever and the only question now is whether they are physically made extinct as well.
Yet Iraq can be a democracy that ethnically cleanses the Sunni. Just as America remained a democracy after it ethnically cleansed the American Indian tribes. That is the sort of thing that happens in a rough neighborhood.
That "won't count as a democracy" far as the hacks in the CIA, State and the Geo-political realists are concerned. They will have lost even as America, Bush and the Shia win.
Big whup.
A win is still a win. A "W" is still a "W."
The following is something I clipped from the UK Guardian via a link on Lucianne.com. The Guardian is hardly a supporter of the Bush Administration and they are sounding a hell of a lot more reality based than the Washington Post spin peice is.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,3858,5262493-111322,00.html
Dammit, Dan, you know better than this. On the day before the Iraqi constitution is due to be finalized -- a constitution that includes religious freedom, freedom of speech and of the press, universal suffrage, and the right of nearly everyone (including women) to run for office -- the Washington Post publishes a story quoting mainly anonymous sources saying that the administration is lowering its expectations for Iraq, and you swallowed not only the hook, line, and sinker but also the rod, reel, and almost the whole boat too. You not only take the story at face value, you expand it to include an abrupt withdrawal from Iraq and a president Bush so fretting over his legacy that he would be completely unable to respond to direct terrorist attacks on the United States. I mean, c'mon! Anyone capable of fogging a mirror these last five years should be able to recognize that that ain't the Bush that sits in the Oval Office.
No, what's happened here is that the Post, realizing that Bush is about to be triumphant once again is trying to steal his victory by redefining victory as failure. They've done it over and over again since 9-11. We should all be used to it by now, especially regular readers (and posters) of this blog.
Mike
Dan -- I've tried my hand at a response [warning, long] to your thoughts with what I hope is neither excessive hope nor schadenfraude. ;) and btw thanks for the link. (see trackback).
Here is the link to Nadezhda response for those that are interested.
Good to see a serious cross-blog conversation about this important subject.
You know, when I imagine that metaphor, it does sound rather like Dan comes out on top.
In fact, the mental image I get is a lot like this one from Donna Saxby's Rhizodonts - Big Dead Fish page.
Yet Iraq can be a democracy that ethnically cleanses the Sunni. Just as America remained a democracy after it ethnically cleansed the American Indian tribes. That is the sort of thing that happens in a rough neighborhood.
Do you really think that the average American citizen is ready to see themselves as the facilitator of strategically useful ethnic cleansing?
I don't think the public is ready to follow you to apocalyptic victory. In fact, I strongly suspect that the citizenry would lynch anyone who would irretrievably shatter the self-image of America as a source of "good" on this planet. And that means "means", not just "ends".
Tom West, answer for me this riddle:
How are the Arab Sunni in Iraq any different from the Bosnian Serbs?
The Dayton Accords ratified the Croation ethnic cleansing of the Bosnian Serbs with the help of American military mercenaries under US contract to the Croats and the American Air Force.
That happened in the heart of Europe.
Why should the American public care more for Arabs who suicide and IED bomb American troops?
The only people who will be worked up over it are Democrats and Sunni Arab media like Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabia.
IOW, people who are irrelevant to vital American foreign policy decisions.
This from strategypage.com and this development is why we are seeing such an article in the Washington Post. The Sunni Arabs of Iraq and their patrons in State, CIA and the American "Geopolitical Realist" faction of the Republican Party are seeing their pay day go away with a truly Federal Iraqi constitution:
Mate, actual democracy in the Middle East does in the near term mean "Islamists" in the widest sense.
That is a fact on the ground. Pretending it is not merely will lead you into frustrated fantastical thinking.
However, that does not mean democratisation is not a good, it may be incompatible, however, with near term interests of the US.
Failure? Eh. Realism.
Else, I am amused by the naive bastids who think the constitution means something. Welcome to the bloody Middle East my dear gits.
"Ethnic cleansing" can mean forced relocation, or it can mean genocide. The Dayton accords did ratify the Croation ethnic cleansing of the Bosnian Serbs is certain areas, but I think it much more akin to partitioning.
On the other hand, I think the vast majority of Americans would not accept being party to the massacre of a few million people, even if some members are participating in attacks on Americans. "It is politically necessary" won't assuage American consciences when pictures of massacred women and children start getting out. America is a powerful and wealthy country, and one of the things that this power and wealth affords is the ability not to have to take the expedient, but morally repugnant solution.
On the other hand, the idea of a federal Iraq, with the Sunnis sort of losing out is a definite possibility.
According to a recent survey, twelve percent of Iraqis do not feel that women should have the same rights as men. This appears to be an unscientific survey, but this might be a good time to reduce expectations.
I imagine a good liberal like Larry Diamond would want the Constitituion to guarantee equal rights to women. Unlike the U.S. Constitution.
Michael Kent: a constitution that includes religious freedom, freedom of speech and of the press, universal suffrage, and the right of nearly everyone (including women) to run for office
Sounds good.
dan
I share concerns about the admin, but really couldnt make head or tail from this confused, constradictory piece by the highly agendaed (is that a word?) Robin Wright. See my comments on Drezner.
T.W.
Why should Americans care. The Sunni are already ethnically cleansing themselves.
This is from the Bellmont Club blog:
http://fallbackbelmont.blogspot.com/2005_08_01_fallbackbelmont_archive.html
I have also seen reports elsewhere of the Sunni bugging out for Syria:
London Daily Telegraph
August 10, 2005
Baghdad Elite Flees Iraq And The Daily Threat Of Death
By Thomas Harding, in Baghdad
Quietly, in their ones and twos, the professional classes of Baghdad are slipping out of the country to avoid becoming another fatal statistic.
Iraq is losing the educated elite of doctors, lawyers, academics and businessmen who are vital to securing a stable future. There is also fear that their departure will leave a vacuum to be filled by religious extremists.
Outside the shelter of the Green Zone, home to the American and Iraqi political leadership, lawlessness has overtaken the capital.
Prof Abdul Sattar Jawad, the head of English literature at Baghdad University, will leave next month to take up a post in Jordan. Two of his colleagues left recently after being intimidated.
At his home in east Baghdad the professor answered the door with an outstretched hand. In the other hand he carried a loaded revolver "because I don't trust anybody nowadays".
While the lack of basic needs and a barely functioning infrastructure are considerable hardships, it is the daily threat of death that was the catalyst for his decision. Since the new government came to power in April there have been up to 3,000 civilian deaths, about half attributed to criminal activity.
"I love my country but I am unable to do any service for the people because it is overrun by fanatics and extremists," Prof Jawad said. "The streets are ruled by gangs, looters and goons."
Last month he resigned a position as dean of arts after "religious animals" surrounded his office and shouted "war-like slogans".
The threats have also forced him to close down two English newspapers he ran because "it now is anti-religious to have free speech, liberal minds and civilisation in this country".
Prof Jawad's wife Sarah, a former geography teacher, said she now wore a headscarf to avoid being harassed by religious extremists.
For his son Omar Jawad, a single 30-year-old lawyer working for a British company in the Green Zone, the one ambition is to leave Iraq "as quickly as possible, as soon as I find somewhere to go".
He added: "I see a lot of educated people leaving Iraq. I talked this morning to one of my friends who has a PhD in law. He has just resigned from his job and is going. You hear so many similar stories. It is more security problems than economic. Under sanctions [imposed on Saddam Hussein by the United Nations after the Gulf war] we had no problems like this."
Aside from the daily risk of kidnap, suicide bombers and drive-by shootings, his half hour journey into work is now a two-hour slog through roadblocks.
There are no land-line telephones, water has to be pumped from a well and electricity is on for only two hours a day compared with 21 under Saddam. In a country that perches on a lake of oil, the petrol queues last up to four hours.
"I am not very optimistic," Mr Jawad said. "We have this fear of civil war because when the Americans are out it will be left to the Iraqis.
"It is two years now since the war ended and we see no development."
For the past three years Mahir Mahmood, 37, has built a successful business importing cars and spares but by the autumn he will be gone because he fears his wife and four children will be held to ransom by criminals.
"I think the bombs, explosions and killings are enough for anyone to leave the country," he said. " What good has the government done for the people to make them stay?"
He has arranged an apartment for his family in Syria where he knows of half a dozen other Iraqi businessman who have already moved.
Baghdad's doctors suffer most of all. They are now authorised to carry firearms after some were killed by angry relatives of dead patients and after threats by police officers demanding immediate treatment for injured colleagues.
Dr Tariq Bahjat, who became a hospital director in Baghdad after his predecessor was killed and where a radiologist was recently shot dead, said: "No one can provide doctors with protection. I am afraid the same will happen to me; that is why I will go abroad."
A spokesman for the prime minister, Ibrahim al-Jaafari, said: "It is a worry, of course, and they are going to be difficult to replace.
"Many people are getting jobs abroad and in terms of what the government can do about it? Very little."
Tom West,
We are never going to do anything about the criminal murder rate in this country. Why? Because it would mean doing something about Republican Socialism: price supports for criminals.
Did I mention the Drug War?
Actually doing something about the murder rate would mean less spending, not more.
Did I mention Drug Prohibition and the associated moral panics?
BTW, if a state in which marriage and divorce among muslims is decided based on Sharia is not a democracy than Israel is not one. Thats right, Israel doesnt have civil marriage or divorce - while the Jewish majority is subject to halacha, the muslims are regulated by Hanafi Sharia, though with modifications on some issues (like abolition of plural marriage)
And U.S. courts will enforce Islamic mahr (dowry) on the theory that it is a prenuptial agreement.
"According to a recent survey, twelve percent of Iraqis do not feel that women should have the same rights as men. This appears to be an unscientific survey, but this might be a good time to reduce expectations."
Are you kidding me? If it really is only 12 percent, this makes me revise my expectations upward, not downward. Any political opinion that has less than 20% support is not worth worrying about at this point.
Trent,
Why should Americans care?
Because Americans want to think that their aims abroad are for the benefit of those foreigners and certainly don't require the deaths of several million women and children. They want to believe that not only are the "ends" noble, but so are the "means". (And thank God for that. I tremble to think of American power following a realpolitik course without the restraint imposed by the American electorate's desired self-image.)
On the other point, it's quite possible that we'll see a few thousand Sunni's who have the means leave Iraq. It's another to talk about several million, They'll not be welcome anywhere (if the Palestinians are any indication).
I can hope for a decisive defeat of the insurgents, but to be honest, until I see long term evidence of that (after so many declaration of near victory), I'm going to assume we're in a long-term stalemate. Personally, I think a stalemate is a hell of a lot better for the Iraqi people than pulling out.
Tom West,
The emphasis here is on the conditional you neglected to include. _SOME _ Americans.
The Arab Sunni of Iraq are well on their way to dehumanizing themselves in the eyes of a great many people in the American public…just as the Serbs did via Srebrenica and other atrocities.
You seem to think that process isn’t happening and won’t continue to shape American public’s attitudes towards them.
The historical analogy is the treatment of the American Indian during the Indian wars and "The Only good Jap is a dead Jap" attitude of the American public in the final days of WW2 when the Baatan Death March and other Japaese atrocities against American POWs became widely known.
What is happening now is the Arab Sunni escape plan being activated.
Iraqi Baathists/Al Qaeda are trying to establishing a “misery zone” a’la the Palestinian territories on the West Bank in Syria. Where they would have permanent refugees under their control, a la the Palestinians being ordered out of Palestine by Arab leaders in 1947.
This pattern has also happened elsewhere and recently. The losers in Rwanda and East Timor also forced out a fraction of their populations in order to have a United Nations/NGO subsidized "refugee sanctuary" that provides them political power, a secure base to run terrorist operations out of, and a place to avoid international tribunals.
For terrorism to operate it needs a sanctuary, a major political patron, a captive population to propagandize/recruit from and a steady funding source. The UN provides all four. This makes the UN -- and not a few international non-government organizations -- a key functional ally of terrorism.
For the US homeland to be safe, the UN must die.
T.W, while I agree about stalemate being better for Iraq than a new Sunni Ba’athist or Mullahocracy tyranny, victory for America does not include either victory or even survival for the Arab Sunni.
It would be better if the Sunni are reconciled with a permanent loss of status in Iraq.
It is not required.
>>On the other hand, I think the vast majority of Americans would not accept being party to the massacre of a few million people, even if some members are participating in attacks on Americans. "It is politically necessary" won't assuage American consciences when pictures of massacred women and children start getting out. America is a powerful and wealthy country, and one of the things that this power and wealth affords is the ability not to have to take the expedient, but morally repugnant solution.
I'm with Trent here. By the time its over the vast majority of Americans will cheer the murder of Sunni women and children -- just like at the end of WWII. The veneer of humanism is very thin, and underneath it is brutal tribalism.
"#4 from Dan Darling on August 14, 2005 10:01 PM
Thomas:
US-style democratic republic? Hardly. A democracy, yes, and this article looks as though somebody definitely wants to backpedal on that one. Instead, whoever leaked this article sounds like they want something that will gradually grow into a democracy, which is usually a codeword in diplospeak for a nice dictatorship."
I've reread this article just looking for facts and I see very few.
Again, I'm not going to see all as lost if the Sunnis and Kurds both get semi autonomous status. It might actually defuse things as long as the Sunnis don't over reach. Actually, dividing the power up will help defuse a lot pressure. Why is this a sell out?
Also, the Iraqis keep claiming that the constitution's saying that Islam is 'a' basis for law does not mean 'the' basis / a Islamic Republic.