Every constructive thing the Bush administration claims to have built up in its 30 months in Iraq is a sham.
The “democratically elected Iraqi transitional government”?
— This government has never been held accountable to the 275-member National Assembly, the body that was directly elected (though in a flawed election) back on January 30. The National Assembly has rarely mustered even a quorum of its members of its members to deliberate together recently. Far less has it been able to hold Iraq’s strange, two-headed government to account.
–The “government” has not been able to deliver basic services to the citizens of Iraq. Provision of vital services– including, crucially, that of public security— has deteriorated markedly since January. A basic function of governments in the modern age is their “responsibility to protect” the citizenry. The transitional government elected in January has completely failed to exercise this reponsibility. In addition, delivery of other basic services like water and electricity has plummeted.
— The two contending “heads” of the governmental system have even, in recent days, had a serious falling out between themselves. I have written before about the troubling bicephaly of the governmental system established by the (completely non-democratic) Transitional Administrative Law of 2004. My reading of TAL would have given the transitional “PM” the executive responsibilities of a head of government, with the “president” exercising only the quasi-ceremonial function of a head of state. I guess the current “President”, the PUK’s Talal Jalabani had a different reading. Today, he even went as far as to call for the resignation of PM Ibrahim Jaafari.
What a sad, sick joke. What has either of them done for the people of Iraq?
Then there are “the Iraqi security forces”?
–Remember the Bush adage, “As the Iraqi forces stand up, we will stand down?” So where does that leave the prospects for a speedy, orderly withdrawal of US forces, given that the number of Iraqi battalions deemed ready to fight mysteriously declined by 66% over the course of two days last week? (To a puny total of one brigade.)
As I’ve written here on JWN a number of times in the past, the problem for the Iraqi security forces is not one of basic military training… It’s unit cohesion, and the cohesion and integrity of the command structures… I.e., it is primarily a political problem, not an issue of purely “technical” military training.
So you can send all the grandiose “NATO training missions” you want to Baghdad, with all their attendant fanfare… But if you can’t nail the issue of gaining the political integrity of the security forces, sorry buddy, you’re just pouring your training dollars down the drain.
— Well then, how about the state of the emerging democratic Iraqi constitution?
Ha-(sob)-ha-(sob)-ha…
The Draft Constitution that will be voted on October 15 was “rip’d untimely from its mother’s womb” (to quote from Shakespeare’s Macbeth, referencing Julius Caesar’s birth), in order to comply with US force planning and political election-planning timetables… It was notably not the result of an organic, inclusive process of intra-Iraqi negotiation… To say the least.
If this constitution is accepted in the referendum, its own terms already stipulate that it will be later be subject to considerable “fleshing out” and the detailed specification of many of its provisions… (But if it passes, most of Iraq’s Sunni Arabs will continue to be majorly pissed off with the political system.)
If it fails to pass, the whole text will have to be renegotiated sometime during the year ahead. (And if it fails to pass, the Kurds will be extremely pissed off, and will accelerate the many moves they’ve already made toward full independence…. )
Let’s be clear, whether this draft constitution is accepted or rejected on October 15, the following will happen:
- 1.There will be an election for a new National Assembly on December 15. (The only question is over whether this will be a “post-constitutional” assembly, or yet another “transitional” assembly.)
2. One or more of Iraq’s three major population groups will be majorly pissed off, and inter-group tensions– having been exacerbated by the very framing and holding of the referendum itself–can be guaranteed to continue.
3. There will remain many fundamental details of the constitution to be decided, and
4. The Kurds will continue their march toward secession/ independence, whether with more or less speed.
So what the heck real difference will the October referendum make? What the heck difference does this wad of paper called the “Iraqi draft constitution” actually make?
Goooood questions.
(And I didn’t even mention yet that the wad of paper that we currently have in our hands represents a massive step back for women’s rights and for freedom of religious conscience inside Iraq… Maybe I should have.)
And then there are… all the other things the Bush administration has constructed during its time in Iraq…
Like, um…
“Peace in our time?” Nah, scratch that.
“Freedom from global terror?” Don’t tell that to the people of London or Bali. (Or indeed, the people of Iraq, since they too are part of what people like to call the “international community”.)
Oh well, how about all those Iraqi schoolrooms that the US troops rebuilt and repainted?
Gosh we haven’t heard much about those recently, have we? Maybe this is because– whether in Tel Afar, Ramadi, or most recently Sadah or Al-Qaim— it is almost certainly the case that in recent months the US troops have been consistently destroying more schoolrooms each month than they’ve been rebuilding.
(Plus, back in the days when they were talking more about “rebuilding” and “repainting” schoolroomss, did you ever think how all those schoolrooms got destroyed in the first place? One hint: as of the US invasion in March 2003, the country’s tens of thousands of schoolrooms were still nearly all in decent– if sometimes rudimentary– shape… And then, the US military tried to get credit for repairing just a few of the many schoolrooms that its invasion of the country destroyed??)
So we need to face it: look as hard as we might, we can’t actually see the US troop presence in Iraq doing anything particularly constructive there at all, whether at the political, the geopolitical, the economic, social, or educational levels.
Meanwhile, they’re creating a heck a lot of physical destruction, and their presence is whipping up a maelstrom of inter-group tension, escalation, and distrust…
G-d save the Iraqi people. Somehow. G-d save the whole Middle Eastern region lest it become sucked into the vortex of violence in Iraq. And G-d save us Americans, and please, please, give us the strength and wisdom we need if we’re to pull our government back from its present destructive course.
And, amazingly enough, the main reason people give for the US military staying in Iraq is that it will get worse if we leave. I tell them it will get worse (for awhile) and the longer the US military stays there the worse it will be.
Of course, there are still those Bush supporters who think we are defeating terrorism in Iraq, and that is why we have to “finish the job” there. They are nuts.
Most Arabs and many European observers believe the Constitution and popular referendum are a dog and pony show for the American people, overriding the interests of the Iraqis.
And the document has a number of fatal contradictions and it is doomed.
Fatal contradiction No. 1: Islam [spirtual dogma]is a main source of laws and no act of legislation may violate its principles nor those of a democracy.
Fatal contradiction No. 2: The people are the source of the authority and the legitimacy of the law and Islam is a main source of legislation.
Fatal contradiction No. 3: Everyone is equal before the law but each person has the right to observe the tenets of his faith
Looks like a framework for an Islamic regime.
Helen,
I think there are many issues with just blaming the US invasion in large but I had many think to point out if you don
Macbeth, not Julius Caesar
I wanted to post something but don’t know how to be courteous. Thank you.
Lack of political leadership from Tony Blair is putting British troops at risk in Iraq, according to a former commander of the British invasion force. Britain could lose the war against Iraqi insurgents and risks being driven into neighbouring Iran.
He added: “We blundered into Iraq, relying on pure military force and brute instinct to remove the regime and then step back and think that would solve it.
ROBERT FISK: But I haven’t met any Iraqis who think there will be a civil war. I’ve met lots of Americans who think there will be a civil war, that’s what’s odd about it. You know, the first warnings of civil war came from the occupation authorities as early as 2003, and it was always couched in the following terms: if the occupying powers who brought you freedom leave you will have a civil war.
Most Arabs and many European observers believe the Constitution and popular referendum are a dog and pony show for the American people, overriding the interests of the Iraqis.
Nice assertion. It’s good that you know what most Arabs think.
Interesting that, as I believe I pointed out earlier, those clauses are quite similar to what is in the Palestinian draft constitution concerning Islam and personal status. Perhaps that is also a dog and pony show for the Americans?
Good analysis Helena !
There is a new development to the comedy of the constitutional referendum : Fearing a rejection from the Sunnis, the transitional parliament dominated by Kurds and Shiites has just changed the rules : it will be accepted if the majority of the voters say yes. It will be rejected if the majority of the registered voters refuses it in at least three provinces. This is of course a double standard which may lead the Sunnis to another boycott.
Concerning the multiple failures of the successive governments of the postwar period, there is a good analysis of what went wrong in the oil industry, why Iraq more than two years after the invasion produces less oil than during the Saddam era and last but not least, how these failures could have a very negative impact on the future extraction potential of the Iraqi oil fields. (incompetence at the US level, no bid contracts to KBR and ignorance of the Iraqi experience).
“But if you can’t nail the issue of gaining the political integrity of the security forces”
What exactly does this mean? Are you claiming the security issues plaguing Iraq can be solved through some policy shift and if so, exactly what???
This is from Tom Engelhardt, who is red-hot right now. (go to : http://www.tomdispatch.com/index.mhtml?pid=26174 for the rest of the article)
‘(Thomas Friedman
Vadim, is it so hard to understand? To gain the political integrity of a country’s security forces you need to win a national consensus at the political level, through political means; and then make sure the security forces act in loyalty to this consensus. This is the basic principle of civilian control of the military.
If you don’t have a natinal political consensus you can never have the integrity of the officer corps. Integrity around what principles?? That’s what the officers (and also the men) need to know before they can become motivated to put their lives on the line.
“To gain the political integrity of a country’s security forces you need to win a national consensus at the political level”
Yes but what practical steps would this [or any other] Iraqi government need to take in order to earn such a consensus? Exactly which principles would in their articulation diminish the violence and enhance the integrity of the security forces? Exactly which “political means” are you recommending that haven’t been tried?
It seems tautological — obviously a consensus would result in fewer security problems as well as an effective security force.
Let’s be clear, whether this draft constitution is accepted or rejected on October 15, the following will happen :”
I thing now its obvious there is game playing in all this show.
Just today, there is some changes in the constitution in regards of 2/3 of voting to get approval, the new change is the 2/3 the registered voters which mean the voter registered in last election, Hahhooooo, Sunni out of this process again, Well done Noah….and Adel Abdul Mahadi
BTW, UN condemns these changes
UN condemns Iraq charter change
The United Nations has criticised changes to Iraq’s electoral law that make it harder for Iraqis to reject the draft constitution.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4309164.stm
vadim– the same kind of practical steps that, e.g., the apartheid government in South Africa made when it reached outto the arch-‘terrorist’, Nelson mandela and cautiously explored what it would take to have a ceasefire and negotiation… and then did that.
I’m not saying the government in Iraq needs to reach out to Zarqawi (who may or may not exist) or to any other foreigners. But there are certainly plenty of Iraqi opposition figures with whom they should be actively striving to talk, and with whom they could win a mutually agreed ceasefire… Instead, they just allow the US forces to continue all these pointless, destructive, and highly escalatory campaigns running rampage thru the Sunni areas.
Another Brits caught in Najaf “Colin Peter” caught with ten Arabs (Yamane, Libya, Saudi..) they had explosives, GPRS, Satellite phone, and more maps and tools, they are planning to do dirty job in Najaf during Ramadan specially in 21 of Ramadan when Najaf full of visitors.
This in Alsabah Iraqi news Paper
واعلن الناطق الرسمي لقيادة قوات الحدود العراقية في المنطقة الوسطى من مدينة النجف (160 كلم جنوب بغداد) امس الثلاثاء عن اعتقال مجموعة “ارهابية” تضم شخصا يحمل الجنسية البريطانية.
وقال سعدون الجابري الناطق باسم قوات الحدود لـ” أ.ف.ب“ بانه تمكنت قوات الحدود من اعتقال مجموعة ارهابية من عشرة افراد بينهم شخص يدعى كولن بيتر يحمل الجنسية البريطانية.
واضاف: تم اعتقال هذه المجموعة عند منطقة مظلوم القريبة من الحدود السعودية العراقية وقد عثر معهم على اسلحة رشاشة وكاميرا تصوير فيديو وجهاز هاتف ثريا وجهاز تحديد الموقع عبر الاقمار الصناعية دون الاشارة الى الوقت الذي تم فيه اعتقال هؤلاء.
ومن جانبها، اكدت القوات البريطانية في البصرة (جنوب العراق) اعتقال شخص يحمل الجنسية البريطانية من قبل قوات الحدود العراقية.
http://www.newsabah.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=12107
Thanks for the link, Salah. I think the article says the Brit, Colin Peter, was with a group of Iraqi saboteurs, not other Arabs… I’ve been looking for the story in british media, but not finding it. Still, maybe it’s important enough for me to do a main post here on JWN about it…
Okay, I found this other story about the man, too. His full name is given there as Colin Peter Walney. He claimed to have been working in Iraq as a “contractor”. His wife told local media in Cumbria, in northern UK, that she’d received a call Monday night from Iraqi police saying he’d been arrested. (Very gentlemanly of them, don’t you think? Do you imagine the US forces do the same for family members of Iraqis they arrest?)
… The next day she got a call from Colin himself:
She said: “He’d been released without charges. He told me he was fine and had been treated well.
“The only thing was he had his mobile phone and handheld computer taken from him, which had a lot of valuable information for his work.
“But the most important thing is he is allright. He is now travelling back to the office in Kuwait.”
Mr Wanley set up the company ten years ago, and had carried out humanitarian work in Bosnia.
He spent 12 years in the Army as a bomb disposal expert and served in the Falklands and Northern Ireland. After leaving the Army, he had been employed by a mines advisory group in Cockermouth…
The story seems less incendiary to me at this point than it did at first… Especially if the Iraqi police released him fairly rapidly after checking his credentials.
This poet by Iraqi Poetry Ma’arof Al Rasafy he introduced it at the time of British occupation of Iraq and the King Faysal was put in power.
It’s exactly same what we experiencing now with government just in name with ministers who they are corrupted and the peoples suffering.
شاعر العراق معروف الرصافي :
علـمٌ ودستورٌ ومجلسُ أمة
………………………. كل عن المعـنى الصحيح محرّفُ
أسماءُ ليس لنا سوى ألفاظُها
………………………. أمّـا معانيهـا فليست تُعرفُ
من يقرأ الدستـورَ يعلم أنه
………………………. وفقـاً لصكّ الاحتلال مصنّفُ
من ينظرُ العلمَ المرفرفَ يلقهُ
………………………. في عزّ غيرِ بني البـلادِ يرفرفُ
من يأتِ مجلسنـا يصدّق أنه
………………………. لـمُرادِ غير الناخبين مؤلّـفُ
أفهكذا تبقى الحكـومة عندنا
………………………. كلَماً تمـوَّهُ للورى وتُزخرَفُ
كثُرت دوائرُهـا وقلّ فعالها
………………………. كالطبلِ يكبرُ وهو خالٍ أجوفُ
كـم ساءَ منها ومن وزرائها
………………………. عمـلٌ بمنفعةِ المواطنِ مُجحِفُ