Juan Cole had a quick link to this piece by Robert H. Reid in yesterday’s Guardian. Reid argued there that,
- The search for an end to Iraq’s violence is being complicated by an electoral system that empowers religious and sectarian leaders who see little gain in offering concessions to rivals or cracking down on factions that put them in power.
That makes it tough for the U.S. to steer Iraqi leaders toward the kind of political compromise that American military commanders believe is the only way to guarantee long-term stability.
He quotes the (American neo-con) analyst Michael Rubin– who had been a political advisor in an earlier portion of the US occupation rule in Iraq— as now criticizing the proportional representation electoral system that the US introduced there:
- “The problem with proportional representation … is that it encourages populism and empowers ethnic and sectarian leaders. It encourages politicians to be more accountable to party leaders rather than their constituents,” said Michael Rubin, a former political adviser in Iraq.
Well, yes and no. It is not as if the main alternative to a nationwide p.r. system– that is, some form of a constituency-based system, with either single-seat or multi-seat constituencies– may have been any better for Iraqis. In those systems you are more likely to get a “winner takes all” outcome. And it was always very unlikely indeed, in the very fragile political environment created in Iraq after the American occupiers had not only removed Saddam but also dismantled all the main institutions of national governance, that a constituency-based system would have served the interests of stability in Iraq any better than a national p.r. system.
The central political problem in Iraq by the summer of 2003 was how the Iraqis could conclude the kind of national political compact needed to act as the foundation on which they could quickly reassmble their national institutions.
Roland Paris recently published a very important book called At War’s End: Building Peace after Civil Conflict in which he studied the various attempts made to build stable post-conflict orders in 14 countries wracked by civil strife in the 1980s and 1990s. One of his big conclusions was the need, in general, to aim at achieving “institutionalization before liberalization”.
He summed up this approach in six important lessons (p.188):
- 1. Wait until conditions are ripe for elections
2. Design good electoral systems that reward moderation
3. Promote good civil society [with a warning there, that not all “civil society” is in fact good.]
4. Control hate speech
5. Adopt conflict-reducing economic policies
6. The common denominator: Rebuild effective state institutions
This list is, in my judgment, an excellent one. Of these steps, the US occupation authorities in Iraq only ever really tried to work on #2– by using a p.r. system instead of a winner-takes-all system. Meantime, they were acting determinedly against Paris’s recommendations as regards #1, #5, and especially #6.
I readily confess that back in 2004, when Sistani was calling for quick elections as a way to facilitate the quick exit of the US troops from the country I thought that was a good idea (and wrote so, many times, here on JWN.) However, it is now quite clear that that whole string of electoral “events” that were orchestrated by the occupation authorities between then and December 2005 never resulted in brokering and cementing the key political compact required within Iraq; nor did they succeed in providing a basis for the rebuilding of effective national institutionshin the country; and nor, finally, did they pave the way (as Sistani had hoped) for a speedy and orderly withdrawal of the US occupation presence from the country.
Back in 2004, I had hoped that speedy elections inside Iraq could play the same role there– in helping to midwife a basically peaceful transition from a non-representative, minority regime to one of full one-person-one-vote democracy– that nationwide elections had played in midwifing an transition of just such a nature in South Africa, back in 1994.
I think that far and away the main factor that was missing in Iraq in 2004 and since, that had been present in SA in 1993-1994, was a substantial degree of insulation of the country’s national politics from any influences from outside, meaning that all the players within the South African system realized that, for their own longterm survival, they needed to find a way to deal with each other, without having any option of using an outside force as a crutch. There were other differences, too, of course; but that was certainly the main one.
So now, all these three main challenges for Iraqis still remain: to find that internal political compact; to rebuild the country’s institutions; and to get rid of the occupying forces.
Right now, it does look as if, acting from purely domestic-US political motivations, the Bush administration may well be planning at least a substantial drawdown of the US deployment within Iraq. (And if we anti-occupation forces can keep up our pressure, there’s a good chance we can force them to undertake a complete withdrawal fairly soon, too?) So as the US footprint within Iraq shrinks, will the political forces inside Iraqi society be able to find the national-level internal political compact that will allow them to start rebuilding their country together? I certainly hope and pray that this is still possible. It won’t be easy– mainly because of the terrifying divisiveness that the US presence there has sown over the past 42 months.
But it’s not impossible.
And then, once Iraqis have made some good progress in rebuilding their core national institutions, perhaps one day in the future they can have some truly democratic national elections, whenever they themselves are ready for them… And by “truly democratic elections”, I’m not just referring to procedural issues like the nature of the electoral system or whether all parties have been given a fair chance at campaigning… I’m talking about elections that are not held under the heel of an occupying army, and elections that generate a national leadership that is connected to, and will accountably assume responsibility for a set of real, existing instruments of national governance.
As opposed to all the Potemkin elections that have been held in the occupied country so far.
It seems to me Helena that the Iraq we are seeing today is just about optimum by right wing Israeli standards. A fractured Iraq is no threat to Israel and won’t be for a long time. What a coincidence!!
I agree that PR elections were better than winner-take-all, except for the fact that the Sunni boycotted the first 2005 election. If you recall this is what led to the crisis of winning over the Sunni population prior to the Constitutional referendum in Oct. 2005. By the time of that referendum, with many Sunni voting “Nay,” and serious questions about vote rigging by occupation authorities, the entire election process-qua-act of reconciliation was a sinking ship.
I felt the same way you did about Sistani’s demand for immediate popular elections. I still think he was wise to take this stance, given the alternative of allowing the neo-cons to rig a government by appointment. Thus I do not think Sistani should hold blame. Blame rests with the occupying force that acted like an imperium in Saddam’s former palaces, believing they had all the time in the world (think: post-war Japan) to remain an occupying force.
I always thought if democracy stood any chance after the travesty of the American invasion, then the US should have made clear it intended an early exit; and after catching Saddam, the US should have packed up and left, thus compelling Bathists and Sistanists and Sadrists to sort things out under a UN/international umbrella.
I hate to think what further tragedies now lie ahead for Iraqis. I just heard Peter Galbraith on Lehrer News Hour pushing his “Lawrence of Kurdistan” view of a three-state solution. Talk about Israel’s dream plan!
“A fractured Iraq is no threat to Israel and won’t be for a long time.”
That’s what they think now, but they’ve got another think coming.
Helena-
Elections result from democracy. Democracy does not result from elections. After all, an election is nothing but an opinion poll.
Over the last year or so Sistani’s influence has waned considerably and he seems resigned now to commenting exclusively on religious matters.
It seems to me that he has made a serious miscalculation. Like many within the Shiite religious establishment (e.g., the al Hakim brothers), he wanted to use the American occupation to advance the position of the Shiites. He may not have wanted a permenanent US presence, but he didn’t want them to leave too soon either. During 2003-until 2005, when his influence was at its zenith, Sistani could have spoken a few words, called for a timetable for a US withdrawal, and brought out the Shiite masses to force the point. It was within his power to end the US occupation, but he didn’t.
Peter Galbraith is just another know-nothing “expert” jumping on the opportunity the Iraq mess provides to get his name in the public eye. He hasn’t got a clue of an idea what the hell he is yammering on about.
“he was wise to take this stance, given the alternative of allowing the neo-cons to rig a government by appointment.”
Instead they did their best to manipulate the “election” to their advantage while reaping a big PR boost over the fact that they “allowed” it. I am not sure how much better that really was overall. Somehow I think it would have been better had they been allowed to go ahead with their more blatantly anti-democratic plan.
I do have to hand it to the wily old fox Sistani, but let us not deceive ourselves that he was thinking of the good of all Iraqis. He simply made brilliant use of an opportunity to grab power and put it in Shi`a hands. Not sure it turned out exactly the way he hoped, though.
“Blame rests with the occupying force that acted like an imperium in Saddam’s former palaces, believing they had all the time in the world (think: post-war Japan) to remain an occupying force.”
Certainly that is where the primary blame belongs. But then they were only acting as they naturally could be expected to act.
“if democracy stood any chance after the travesty of the American invasion, then the US should have made clear it intended an early exit; and after catching Saddam, the US should have packed up and left, thus compelling Bathists and Sistanists and Sadrists to sort things out under a UN/international umbrella.”
Surely you do not believe, and have never believed for a nanosecond that the Americans would allow any democracy – or “democracy” – that would not leave them in control of things there. Why on earth do you suppose they did their best to thwart even a make-believe democracy until they had no other choice?
“Somehow I think it would have been better had they been allowed to go ahead with their more blatantly anti-democratic plan.”
We just disagree on that point. But it is a minor disagreement given the wider context. I am certainly not saying that the US deserved its PR boost in 2005. In fact, every chance I could get, I constantly pointed out back in 2004 and 2005 that the US had originally been opposed to direct popular elections, so it deserved no credit.
“…let us not deceive ourselves that (Sistani) was thinking of the good of all Iraqis”
No, of course not. This is why I made the point on a different thread that, after America’s May 1, 2003 declaration of victory, Iraq’s partisans worked primarily to prevent the US from installing a puppet “strongman.” Sistani and other Shia leaders knew they had a popular majority that could win direct elections, and I am sure they saw this as the best way to upset America’s “strongman” designs for Iraq.
The tragedy of Iraq’s 2005 elections was that popular elections in ethnic-regionally divided countries like Iraq inevitably exacerbate ethnic rivalries, tensions, and hatreds. And again, this is why I argued back in 2004 and 2005 that Iraqis should have been focused on building inter-sectarian bridges in the midst of the election campaigns, rather than focusing on what party list was going to win the most seats in parliament.
I think some Americans in Baghdad were genuinely concerned about building inter-sectarian bridges through consensual democratic power-sharing, but they were the powerless minority. Real decision-making power was in the hands of neo-con military and political advisors who eagerly played old colonial games of divide and rule.
I wish there was more information available on this issue, but I remain convinced that the neo-con group in occupied Baghdad used the autonomous Kurdish region as their model for developing a future Iraq. And they were quite content to let Sistani have his Shia majority vote, as long as they could play jokers wild with the Kurds and Alawi/Pachachi’s ability to sway a few Sunni and Shia Arabs from the old Bath regime.
In other words the most critical power dynamic in Iraq was never the electoral result once all the individual ballots were counted. This was not the “purple index finger” democratic miracle that the media made it out to be. It was a power contest between those who wanted to keep Iraq united, and those who wanted to see it divided.
I heard Peter Galbraith yesterday saying he thinks the US should withdraw all its troops from the “Shia South” (as if that is a well-defined territory that actually exists), allow the Kurds to have their own nation-state in the north under their own flag (Peter’s pet project; he talks of the Kurds like post-WW II European Jews who went through genocide under the “hated flag of Iraq”), and … incredibly, he says the US should keep troops in the Sunni regions west of Baghdad, where “we can best help the Sunni Arabs set up their own state, something (he reminded Lehrer NEws Hour viewers) that could take a decade or more to achieve.”
Such noblesse oblige! Anyone remember the San Remo Conference!!
Democratic Sen. Biden and Les Gelb at CFR have been peddling ideas like Galbraith’s for more than a year. And my guess is Galbraith aka Lawrence of Kurdistan is positioned to be chief diplomat at the soon to be announced new San Remo. Given that the Dems are poised to take back Congress in a week, and then most likely the White House in 2008, don’t be surprised to see a DNC foreign policy team that is prepared to redraw the lines in the sands of a new Middle East, much like post-World War I. Ironically it is the Republican Bush administration, having shed a few neo-con ideologues since 2004, that remains in favor of a united state of Iraq. (Talk is cheap, I know, but my point is that there seem to be more Democrats who are in support of the break-up of Iraq.)
And finally…
“Surely you do not believe, and have never believed for a nanosecond that the Americans would allow any democracy – or “democracy” – that would not leave them in control of things there.”
You would be right, I never believed this. There are obviously different levels at which discussions of democracy can be carried out. I always tried to discuss Iraqi democracy from the perspective of Iraqi interests, with emphasis on the fact that Iraqis need to understand how American neo-cons would manipulate the “democratic” game in US and Israeli interests.
The neo-con advocates of “democracy” in the post-9/11 Middle East well understood that the democratic game in Iraq would lend itself to divided-and-rule, as well as the weakening or eventual break-up of the Iraqi state. And as I said above, it should come as no surprise when neo-liberals in the Democratic party prove as adept at this same game.
Iraqis need desperately to work on inter-sectarian cooperation that can ensure a full American troop withdrawal and foil US and Israeli divide-and-rule plans. The Sunni and Shia Arabs of Iraq, and the Kurds, had best soon wise up, and prevent the splintering of the entire region.
Me thinks there is an Israeli intention for a second wave of Palestinian refugees, like 1948-49, when the imagined/predicted fight over a failed and broken state of Iraq really gets underway. The kooks who are pressing the idea of a three state solution in Mesopotamia believe the fighting and killing between Iraqis during the last three years is nothing compared to what will happen when Turkey, Iran, Syria, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia are brought into the scramble for all the broken pieces.
Let’s hope that the leadership of these states have enough sense to stay out, and encourage all Iraqis to reconcile. If they need convincing about why they should obstruct American desgins, they should wonder why the American governments of the future would be so quick to create “Three States” in the land of the two rivers, when they have failed so miserably to manage two viable states in the land between the river and the sea.
E pluribus unum! One state solutions that unite a diverse people are always best!!
“I heard Peter Galbraith yesterday saying he thinks the US should withdraw all its troops from the “Shia South” (as if that is a well-defined territory that actually exists), allow the Kurds to have their own nation-state in the north under their own flag (Peter’s pet project; he talks of the Kurds like post-WW II European Jews who went through genocide under the “hated flag of Iraq”), and … incredibly, he says the US should keep troops in the Sunni regions west of Baghdad, where “we can best help the Sunni Arabs set up their own state, something (he reminded Lehrer NEws Hour viewers) that could take a decade or more to achieve.” ”
I repeat my earlier remark about Peter Galbraith. He may not be quite as big a blowhard ignoramus “white man’s burden” type as Thomas Friedman – yet – but he is getting there. Perhaps he has some area of competence, but it is not the Middle East.