Political progress: the missing element in Iraq

Okay, one more time, I want to restate my views on what’s really needed in Iraq. These views are based on my 30 years as a Middle East analyst, my experiences in Lebanon and Israel/Palestine, and my more recent work looking at how protracted and violent conflicts in Africa and elsewhere have been successfully terminated.
In the US (and some international) discourse, some people say you need to put emphasis on security in Iraq, so that you can get around to economic reconstruction. Some say you need to put the emphasis on economic reconstruction, so you can get around to security.
And so they duke it out between themselves! Security first! No, economic reconstruction first! You’re wrong! No, you are!
Are they listening to Iraqis? Not very much.
I think people engaged in those kinds of arguments are missing the essential element: the need many, many Iraqis have articulated and continue to articulate to see real movement to the building of an accountable democratic order.
It’s the politics, stupid!
I’ve heard echoes, certainly, of a similar missing-the-point debate between “security firsters” and “economy firsters” with regard to the Palestinian question. There, the almost wilful desire of the Likud government (and many previous Israeli governments) not to hear the clear demand of the Palestinians for some real political progress is quite easy to understand.
But why the deafness of the US government and the vast majority of US commentators to the similar demands now being voiced by Iraqis?


I guess I can understand why the neocons, the defense contractors, the Halliburtons, and all their friends want to keep the emphasis on either (purely military) “security”, or on big “reconstruction” boondoggles in Iraq. Both ways it translates into big profits for the contractors; it keeps Iraq in a state of dependency and peonage; and it allows the US’s super-bloated military-industrial complex to continue chasing after its various fantasies in Iraq.
There is also the very real prospect that if there’s real progress towards democracy inside Iraq, a truly accountable Iraqi government might say to all the US contractors and the over-testosteronized US military now in their country: “Just leave!”
You know what, folks? That’s what democracy is all about! It’s about–okay, she’s getting pretty radical here– the will of the people.
If that’s what the vast majority of the Iraqi people want… and all the available evidence screams that this is indeed the case… then what the heck is the government of a supposed “beacon of democracy” like the USA doing keeping its armies and its “reconstruction” contractors there at all?
I guess what I’ve been hoping to do in my humble way with this blog is to try to keep people focused on the facts that

    (1) there is an internal political process inside Iraq, and
    (2) there is a serious prospect of the election-preparation process working out…. if only the US decisionmakers don’t stand in the way!

So I’m kind of losing patience with all the well-meaning people who’re making arguments about “Yes, the security needs to come first!” or “No, the economic reconstruction needs to come first!” Because truly, neither a decent level of security nor a decent reconstruction and development plan for the country can be sustained without a workable internal political entente among Iraqis.
Trust me. I know. Six of the seven years I spent working in Lebanon in the 1970s were spent in a period of civil war there.
Security? You certainly don’t achieve that by “responding massively to every source of fire”. You achieve it by reaching a workable political entente. (Ask the Afrikaners; ask the Mozambicans; ask anyone who has experience of protracted conflict.)
Economic development? You certainly can’t achieve that without a workable political entente. The US soldiers can put in sewer lines and rebuild schoolrooms (the same ones their own bombs busted18 months ago) as fast as they want… But it will all get ripped up again as fast as the work is done so long as the conflict continues and an internal settlement is not reached…
(For the contractors, it’s kind of an eternal Keynesian scheme, like digging holes one week, having them filled in the next, and digging them again the following week… A perpetual-profits scam, so long as it continues.)
The way I see it, crude Clausewitzian that I am, it is politics that’s central to the march of human history. And political momentum is kind of like a bicycle: if you don’t keep it moving forward everyone ends up taking a nasty tumble off to one side. People need hope. They need their lives to have some kind of credible social meaning. If the strong hopes the Iraqi people have articulated for timely progress toward democratization are not met, I am 100% sure that their next set of hopes will be for something far, far more unsettling to the stability of the region and the world.
That’s why I’m really glad that there are people of huge substance and wisdom like Kofi Annan and Ayatollah Sistani who have kept their eyes firmly fixed on the goal of democratic self-government for Iraqis, and have repeatedly articulated their views that this has to be the top priority.
But I worry that those two men, and most of the others who voice the same wisdoms, are too meek and soft-spoken to get well heard in today’s cacophonous world. It’s the men of violence–whether Moqtada Sadr, Iyad Allawi, the American generals, or Bombs-Away Don and the rest of the Bushies–whose bombast has come to dominate most of the western discourse.
What can we do to amplify the wise voices of people like Annan and Sistani and turn people’s attention back to the urgent need to focus on real political progress in Iraq?
If that comes about, then “security” and “economic reconstruction” will certainly afterwards be do-able.

15 thoughts on “Political progress: the missing element in Iraq”

  2. but, Susan, as Helena has pointed out, the Iraqis may not want democracy, but they definitely want their country back. And they will get it — the only question is when, and after how much move killing and destruction.
    The Bushies (and Kerry) can only delay that day — they cannot forever avoid it. Folks in the US who have opposed the US invasion do need to listen for, amplify, and support any forces there who are trying to reactivate some kind of political rather than military solution (even if it tends to get our useless US polticians off the hook they’ve hung themselves on.) None of it will be pretty, but our best hope is that Iraqis someday get a government in which they find legitimacy.
    Thanks Helena, I did not so clearly understand this before your last post.

  3. Helena:
    Back when the war was gearing up there was a some public discussion of the White House’s political objective to establish major military bases in Iraq in order to project US military force around the region. I recall some NYT articles about moving a division or two from Germany to permanent bases in Iraq. I guess it was some sort of neocon strategy to leapfrog US force around the middle-east and central asia.
    In the past year I have heard absolutely nothing about long-term US military objectives in Iraq that go beyond simple stability and security.
    What I’m really curious about, and what I see nothing written about, is what sort of military footprint is the US building in Iraq. Although I’m no military expert, it seems to me that one sort of military footprint is required if you want to build a base from which to project conventional military force throughout a region. You would want to build big isolated bases that are heavy on conventional hardware and that have good land, air, and sea access. Another entirely different military footprint is required if your objective is internal security. To project internal security over vast civilian populations you would want a dispersed military footprint.
    Has anyone looked at exactly what type of military footprint the US is currently building in Iraq and drawn any conclusions about the ultimate objectives and uses?
    If it looks like the military is focusing more on building traditional large-scale and isolated bases that are permanent in nature then that would be powerful evidence of the White House’s real and perhaps hidden plans for Iraq. And would give lie to the idea that the US supports any type of democratic government in Iraq that might want to see US forces expelled.

  5. Interesting:
    Any thoughts about whether these 14 bases are designed more for the external projection of convential military forces, or to impose internal security on Iraq?
    If it is indeed the case that the US intends for Iraq to function as a permanent military base for force projection in the middle east, then I suspect all the talk about Iraqi democracy is a complete farce. In fact, the Iraqi insurgency may well be playing into the US objectives in two ways, first, by providing additional rationale for a buildup of permanent military force in Iraq, and also as an excuse to curtail or restrict elections.
    I worked in Guatemala in the 1980s and the situation there was somewhat similar. The US government and Guatemalan military actually needed the Guatemalan guerilla insurgency to justify the absence of democracy and what was in effect marital law in the countryside. For purely strategic reasons, the last thing the US government might want is a peaceful and democratic Iraq that shows it the door.

  6. Kent, I think you hit the nail on the head. In order to keep our gas tanks filled, we must protect and enforce our oil companies’ business interests in the Middle East. Our imperialism is just disguised subsidizing of our multi-national corporations’ security needs. To think that these corporations get all this and they don’t even pay their fair share of U.S. taxes! What a rip off.

  7. Kent, I think you hit the nail on the head. In order to keep our gas tanks filled, we must protect and enforce our oil companies’ business interests in the Middle East. Our imperialism is just disguised subsidizing of our multi-national corporations’ security needs.
    I suspect Kent’s surmise is true, but he didn’t mention petrol. The “counterinsurgency” in Guatemala was about land reform and labor rights, not defense of bananas. The gas would have flowed from Iraq regardless; the real prize is the rents from that oil, whatever the price. Hence,
    For the contractors, it’s kind of an eternal Keynesian scheme, like digging holes one week, having them filled in the next, and digging them again the following week… A perpetual-profits scam, so long as it continues
    And
    If it is indeed the case that the US intends for Iraq to function as a permanent military base for force projection in the middle east, then I suspect all the talk about Iraqi democracy is a complete farce.
    I’m not arguing with anyone, I just want to get to the bottom of this.

  9. Greetings, all, and thanks for a good discussion here.
    Peter, that last link is really helpful. (I’m glad that Tom Engelhardt is, like me, a fan of Sven Lindqvist’s “Exterminate all the brutes”.)
    It’s useful and important to follow the news on the Penatgon’s longterm planning for basing in Iraq (as elsewhere), and Tom’s piece there is a good place to start… I’m hoping to follow up more on that, later.
    However, we should all note that, though the Bushies might very seriously want and be planning for these permanent bases in Iraq, that doesn’t mean they’ll get ’em. Provided that the Iraqi people are allowed to hold a free and fair election for the leaders, I can guarantee you that no Iraqi leadership thus constituted would ever dream of giving Uncle Sam any longterm basing rights…
    So yes, y’all may well be right who say that means that the US military has a strong determination not to let the free and fair elections proceed. However, the rhetoric of the USG continues to be one of supporting democratization in Iraq, and I think we should call them on that as much as we possibly can. (Hence, e.g., the content of my column in yesterday’s CSM.)
    This is surely something on which the vast majority of Americans (as well as, of course, everyone else around the world) can agree: that the Iraqis should have a truly sovereign and accountable-to-Iraqis government…
    Anyway, this discussion will continue. I just wanted to make one small comment on something Tom Engelhardt wrote in that post Peter linked to. Tom wrote: In fact, our [i.e. American] particular version of military empire is perhaps unique: all “gunboats,” no colonies. I would go even further: “All gunboats and no (effective) diplomacy”!

  10. However, we should all note that, though the Bushies might very seriously want and be planning for these permanent bases in Iraq, that doesn’t mean they’ll get ’em. Provided that the Iraqi people are allowed to hold a free and fair election for the leaders, I can guarantee you that no Iraqi leadership thus constituted would ever dream of giving Uncle Sam any longterm basing rights…
    Helena, I have one word for you: Guantanamo.
    Seems to me that a far-sighted Pentagon would certainly want to lock up long-term basing rights BEFORE they have to deal with the unpredictability of a democratically elected government. In fact, I would be surprised if they have not already done so in some type of form. As I understand it, the CPA locked in all sorts of policy decisions before turning things over to the interim government. Could this have been one of them? Could they have prepared some sort of long-term lease agreement that is unbreakable by future Iraqi governments just like the Guantanamo Bay lease is unbreakable by Castro?
    There are so many layers to this entire Iraqi fiasco that it’s hard to know where to even start. But from my point of view, this is very much like the Israelis in the West Bank. Don’t look at what they say, look at what they do. That’s why I find the long-term US plans in Iraq to be so relevant.

  11. In view of Susan Watkins’ article in the NLR, available at http://www.newleftreview.net/NLR26201.pdf, the US with the accord of the UN has foreclosed effective democracy in Iraq. Apparently all the oil revenues for the next 5 years will be controlled by a fund dominated by the US. How an Iraqi government will get around that without a fundamental change of the facts on the ground, which can only happen with a great deal of violence, is beyond me.

  12. Huh? None of these speculations make any sense? Most nutty: that the US needs the insurgency in order to justify repression.
    Why military bases to protect military forces? Why tie down troops to protect troops? This costs billions and is completely contrary to the rapid deployment concept. None of these bases would be useful for anything except protecting themselves.
    To obtain oil, why should it matter who rules Iraq? Iraq, whoever is in charge, will export oil to world markets.

  13. I don’t think it is worthwhile to denigrate motives,this moral war is a typically rightist tactic. I think the adminstrations vision of things was sincerely benign. They wanted a democracy that was pro Israeli and a spontaneous response of the Iraqi people. They believed it possible.
    The issue is the reality barrier, like communists and other ideologists “purity” was the goal. Thus actual Iraqis were not worthy. Despite millions of economic and business majors for a while we had the allocation of funds under the control of Ms. Ledeen (daughter of rightwing columnist) whose only experence was trying to found a cooking school. She directed a couple dozen other twenty somethings who did lack accounting skills, but had sent therir resumes to the right place, the Heritage foundation.
    How could the pure of heart go wrong? Certainly this was the way to allocate 20 billion in aid. Of course we still have only spent a small fraction of this, but we prevented it from going to dastardly knaves like the French and Germans who had the parts needed for infrastructure. But what would decent Iraqis prefer, electricity or money given only to the righteous?
    To those pure of heart the anser is clear. Thus it has been discovered that few Iraqis are worthy. For a while the military was giving seized funds to local counsels and other projects, but thankfully this has ceased. The problem is who is worthy after we lost Chalabi?
    However there is hope. As rightist magazines point out there is the great accomplishment of a flat tax and no trade barriers. If this doesn’t liberate Iraq it’s because of those naysaying scoundrels in the press!!!! And liberals!!!!
    The motives are pure and good, so good. This is why so many are wounded and killed by the deluge of flowers.
    Of course the press covers these accomplishments up and only mentions the bad things.
    The reality we have to face is not that of cynical manipulators (though they do huff and puff to play tough,) but sentmentalists living in a perfumed house filled with knick knacks and Barbies who think this is reality, who don’t see the grit of the street. They are the nicest people, just ask their friends. Dick Cheney is a lovable old teddy bear!
    And they all mean well. So sincerely.

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