It might not be a bad idea to step back from events for a moment or two. I’m fascinated at just how casually many Americans – I’ve even caught myself doing it – are able to say how proud of and pleased with the Iraqis they are for pulling off an election with a minimum of violence. It’s just as if Americans had some kind of divine right to decide how the peoples of the rest of the world should act, and to tutor them in the ways of righteousness and democratic practice. This betrays a most unattractive smug self-satisfaction – encouraged by our leaders, our schools, and most of our media, of course – that this is something close to the perfect place, and it is possible to hold such attitudes only if one is profoundly ignorant not only about this country but about the rest of the world.
I don’t mind if Americans are ignorant about the rest of the world. It is for the most part not necessary to get on in the world to know everything about Zanzibar or Indonesia. But if you choose not to know about other places, it would seem only decent not to claim the right to run them.
I know, I know, that’s all too logical. In fact, almost the only way one could entertain the conceit that the United States actually could run other countries better than they can run themselves – leaving aside for the moment the question of whether our government has anything resembling a right to do so – is to be profoundly ignorant about those other places. Only profound lack of knowledge – perhaps even a stubborn and determined refusal to acquire knowledge – could have led people to believe we could waltz into Iraq, for example, spend a few moments straightening them out, and fix them up so they could be just like us.
Still Pleasing
Still, from a somewhat different perspective I hope, I have to confess I’m pleased that they managed to pull off an election with so little violence. One has to place that in context, of course. From the news accounts I’ve seen, it was a day when at least three Iraqis were killed and more than a dozen wounded – and three Americans were wounded – in politically-inspired attacks designed to disrupt or at least harass the election and those who chose to go along with the occupiers. Iraqi and American leaders were able to call that a low level of violence. In fact, it wasn’t nearly enough to disrupt the elections seriously – as the major insurgent groups had supposedly promised not to – so that really was low enough.
I’m pleased because it makes it marginally more possible that the United States will start reducing the number of troops in Iraq. I talked with Marina Ottaway, who studies transition to democracy at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (and has done a recent paper on Iraq), and she seemed convinced that’s what the administration has in mind. It makes a good deal of sense. With those sacred public-opinion approval numbers still in the toilet even though they have risen somewhat, with Republicans increasingly restive considering the midterm elections in November, with the president a fully quacking lame duck, he almost has to have fewer U.S. troops in Iraq by summer or face serious repercussions even his White House bubble won’t be able to insulate him from.
There will be a certain amount of chagrin involved. If things go even a little bit well, this president will be able to say that his policies worked and bestowed democracy on benighted Iraq, making the world a better place. Plenty of people will believe this, or pretend to. While the neocons might not have the power to influence policy in the direction of further foreign adventures very soon – it cannot be lost on people, even some who will claim to admire Bush, that the drawdown of troops began because the American people were becoming disillusioned, not because they were thrilled with the results – they will cite it as a partial success, marred only by not staying longer in greater force, or finishing off Iran or Syria.
It will require persistence and fortitude to punch holes in all these arguments, but at least there will be fewer troops in Iraq – perhaps even a genuinely minimal force that doesn’t actively intervene before too long . And in the end, a lot of people, perhaps even most Americans, will understand that the reason is that the invasion was not a good idea and didn’t work out as fantasized.
Changes in Tone
Far be it from me to admire a profoundly ignorant person who apparently thinks so little of putting other mothers’ children at risk of death to feed his own childish ambitions. But President Bush’s speeches on the Iraq war got progressively somewhat less worse – a teeny bit more honest about the situation on the ground, almost willing to admit past mistakes, more willing to accept responsibility for what lies ahead – during the run-up to the parliamentary election in Iraq. I doubt he has had a change of heart, but he does seem to be changing tactics and tone.
Even so, while asserting the "we will never accept anything less than complete victory," for example, he still did not define clearly just what would constitute that victory. Perhaps we should be grateful that it gives him wiggle room to declare almost anything short of complete and obvious disaster a victory, but it is annoying. And it makes the question of how to proceed difficult. One may hope the administration has more concrete plans than it has yet shared with the public, but its track record is hardly reassuring.
Iraq itself may pull his chestnuts out of the fire. Having never had meaningful elections in its long history, Iraq has had three that matter within a year. The January elections to create a body to appoint an executive and write a constitution were marred mainly by a boycott by Iraqi Sunnis, the group that benefited most from Saddam Hussein’s despotism but constitutes only a fifth to a quarter of the total population and is the source of most of the current insurgency.
The October election to approve the provisional constitution saw participation rise from 58 to 63 percent, reflecting a decision by Sunnis to participate – in numbers almost large enough to reject the constitution. Yesterday’s election will constitute a "permanent" 275-member Council of Representatives. The hope is that it will give an increasingly independent Iraq a stable government that will eventually take over all security and other governmental functions, making the beginning of a withdrawal of U.S. troops more likely. I suspect most Iraqis, perhaps even some who are into insurgency just now, would like the project to have at least a modicum of success, especially if that’s the only way to get the Americans out.
Problems Remain
The fundamental problem for a country created by British colonial officials after World War I is its ethnic and religious makeup. Sunnis are about 20 percent of the population but accustomed to ruling. Shi’ites are around 60 percent, with long memories of brutal suppression by Sunnis during Saddam’s rule. The Kurds in the north are around 15 percent and had gained virtual autonomy (after bloody conflict) under Saddam.
While Kurds are concentrated in the north, Sunnis in the center, and Shi’ites in the south, many cities and neighborhoods are mixed, which would make a breakup or partition difficult – and a civil war especially brutal and tragic.
For a new government to work, Sunnis must be persuaded that they will do better, even as a minority, under a new government than they will by continuing to back a guerrilla insurgency. The Shi’ites, whose longtime grievances are real enough, will be the dominant power based on a strict one-person-one-vote calculation. Will they have the restraint to honor constitutional protections for minorities in practice as well as on paper? So far they have been remarkably responsible, but there are violent or radical Shi’ite factions with considerable influence.
Some argue that only U.S. troops can keep this volatile mix under control. As Barry Posen, a military historian at MIT, argues, however, an open-ended U.S. occupation "infantilizes" the Iraqi politics, allowing for a good deal of posturing and an army able to leave the most difficult chores to the Americans. Mr. Posen believes the Iraqis will start to take full responsibility for their country only when the U.S. military begins to leave and it becomes obvious there is no other choice.
De Facto Partition?
Perhaps the election will be one key to eliminating some passive supporters – willing to hide or supply fighters but not to participate openly – of the insurgency as they gravitate to more conventional politics. Would a beginning of a U.S. drawdown of troops take some of the starch out of the insurgency or intensify it? I believe the former, but nobody really knows.
What seems more likely to work is something resembling functional partition into three or four relatively autonomous regions. Marina Ottaway pointed out that when you examine it carefully, the interim constitution really provides for a relatively weak central government and allows something just barely short of secession for regions that want more autonomy. The Kurds have hardly made a secret of their desire for de facto independence. Last summer, a number of Shia factions talked of establishing an effectively autonomous Shia-dominated region in the south.
The sticking point is the Sunnis – who seem to have turned out in huge percentages yesterday and desire some sort of voice in what follows. Not only have they been accustomed to being the top dogs, which they never will be in a majority-rule Iraq, but theirs is the only region without a significant oil field. So accommodating them will require some delicacy. Still, other Sunni states, especially Saudi Arabia, might find it in their interests to support a Sunni entity in Iraq.
That’s hardly the "unified, stable, democratic Iraq" the administration has been promising. But if it can accept that brand of decentralization as something most Iraqis are willing to tolerate, it could give the United States a small window of opportunity to begin to leave Iraq on its terms, being able to maintain the conceit that it had accomplished a great deal, if hardly establishing utopia.
It could be worse – a lot worse – and the likelihood, unfortunately, is that it will be.
