I have decided to take down– for now!– the “Democracy Denied in Iraq” counter that has been a feature of the JWN sidebar for more than seven weeks now.
On this day, 88 days after the partially legitimate January 30 election in Iraq, UIA list head Ibrahim Jaafari has won approval from the elected National Assembly for his list for a transitional government.
I realize that the path to sovereign and democratic self-government in Iraq still looks extremely bumpy. (An under-statement, that.)
As that AP report states,
- the 37-member Cabinet [presented to the NA by Jaafari] still has two vacancies, five acting ministers and fails to incorporate in a meaningful way the Sunni Arab minority due to a dispute over the suitability of Baathists who served in Saddam Hussein’s regime…
The historic decision also was made with a third of legislators in the 275-member National Assembly absent.
Prime Minister-designate Ibrahim al-Jaafari told reporters that decisions over the vacant and acting Cabinet positions will be made in three to four days.
Still, inasmuch as having the counter up on the sidebar expressed a forceful reproach to the US occupation authorities, I think it’s appropriate right now to take it down and “give Jaafari (and everyone else involved) a chance.”
I still have the HTML/script for the counter, however, and shall put it up at a moment’s notice whenever I think it should go back up.
“Empires will tremble!” (as a good friend of mine once said with I think just a touch of irony when I told him the Quakers were about to bring out a report on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.)
A couple more significant details from the AP report:
- Allawi’s Iraqi List party was not included in the new Cabinet. Many Shiites have long resented the secular Allawi, accusing his outgoing administration of including former Baathists in the government and security forces.
Al-Jaafari himself will be acting defense minister, a position that was supposed to go to a Sunni Arab.
Ahmad Chalabi, a Shiite Arab and former Pentagon favorite, will be one of four deputy prime ministers and acting oil minister.[equals big cash-cow!!]
I note at this point that the 88 days since the election represent 41.3% of the 213 days between the election and the TAL-prescribed August deadline for completing negotiations over the Constitution. I firmly believe the UIA leaders, who won the majority of seats in the NA, should lead those negotiations. But don’t you bet that “President” Talabani will be eager to take over the job instead?
Anyway, regarding the constitutional discussions, I note that in a number of recent statements Ayatollah Sistani has been stressing that they are more important than the arrangements for “transitional” administration of the country. (H’mm, I’m not so sure about that. The country’s transitional administrators have the capacity to wreak an awful lot more havoc on it if they do a bad job… Or, alternatively, to help lead it in a good, national-consensus-based direction…)
Anyway, given that so much time has now elapsed before the constitutional talks have even gotten started, there is even more reason then to drop the insistence that the entire, permanent Constitution needs to be agreed before the holding of elections to a permanent National Assembly. I urged that in my April 14 CSM column, and there was then an interesting discussion of the topic by comments on this JWN post.
So your are going to give Condi a chance (because it is HER choiceof “partial cabinet, not Jaafari and so on)? Nice try then, good luck
So you are willing to give Condi a chance (because it all about is her choice, not Jaafari or so on). Nice try then and good luck
I am sorry for doubleposting, but I am going to add insult to injury – Imshin, which blog is linked here is qouting torture-defender Dershovic to defend Israel ethnic cleansing in 1947-48, it is her right, but why not let readers here know that she is a staunch Zionist and not simple “sassy Israeli working mother” – I am an Israeli working mother and I am not a Zionist. By the way, why not put some link to Christian Peacemakeres Team (I know there are Quakers there)?
“I have decided to take down– for now!– the “Democracy Denied in Iraq” counter”
Helena I think you should leave this counter until US get out of Iraq, when Iraqis get real government not US puppet
Ahmed Chalabi as acting pertroleum minister?!?!?!?
Ahmad Chalabi: deputy prime minister, acting oil minister. Chalabi, 60, an MIT graduate and mathematician, left Iraq in 1958 and became one of the most visible Iraqi exiles as he lobbied Washington to help topple Saddam. After the war, he was named to the Governing Council and was touted by some in Washington to become Iraq’s next leader. But he fell out with the United States, moved to build ties with other Iraqi Shiites and made a political comeback.
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-4969347,00.html
I’d keep the counter up as well because this is just a partial cabinet. When Jafari has his full cabinent and when the government is officially sworn in ( Allawi right now is still prime minister isn’t he? ) that’s when the counter can come down, for what that’s worth.
Salah,
The US isn’t only occupying Irak with its troops. She is also dominating Irak through the economy and the reconstruction money. She has reduced the Iraqi state into rubbles, destroying the administration or rendering the civil servants superfluous and useless. She has destroyed the state owned enterprises when they weren’t already razed by the military actions. She has illegally transformed the state economy into an all free market. As a result, the Iraqi economy and the Iraqi state will be dependant of the US reconstruction money for years. And we all know : who pays command. The US will have a strong economic lever on any Iraqi government.
Read that essay of Naomi Klein : The Rise of Disaster Capitalism It is about how the war/disaster profiteers manage to turn help money into a lucrative business; there are examples of both the Iraqi situation and the tsunami disaster in South East Asia.
Here is also an informative report illustrating how the US managed the contracts at the time of Bremer and the CPA Contract Quagmire in Irak It shows how Bremers has signed huge contracts tiying the hands of the future Iraqi government. How they gave the management of the main port on the Gulf in the South to a private Danish company. How for that lucrative business that company charges too much money from the state (and will be able to retain the benefits of the traffic fees charged for the freight. Similarly, the Iraqi government is overcharged for the management of air controlling and security tasks in the main Baghdad Airport.
The report also describes how the Iraqi is trying to withhold payment of overcharging bills, how the US ambassy defends the “rights” of these companies to be paid.
BTW, Naomi Klein columns over at http://www.thenation.com/index.mhtml are always worth reading.
I have just translated Naomi’s article to Russian. It is enough not to take seriously all the noise about “the cabinet”, not mentioning others causes
Mark,
Chalabi has been condemned in absence for the fraud bankrupcy of the Petra Bank. He pretends it was for political reasons (Saddams pressures on the Jordan government). However, he has also been indicted in Switzerland for similar reasons. In one case linked to the Mediabank, one of his relative was condemned and he was aquitted, but only with the benefit of doubts. In another case he was also condemnded.
Dear Christiane
Thanks for that which most of it well known by most of us.
I wonder if Helena read your comment she is looking living in another world when she talking about Democracy in Iraq and occupation of state member of UN and member of Arab League (Not like Kuwait 300.000 people having ONE Million Servants
“Iraq’s new president has said he will not reside in the Presidential Palace, which for many Iraqis is a symbol of the country’s sovereignty. Jalal Talabani said that the interim government has agreed to rent the palace to the Americans for two years. The presidential complex on the banks of the Tigris River is a maze of palaces, green lawns and orchards… President Talabani said that the Americans ‘might’ evacuate the palace when the lease expires.”
I have just read it here http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=11&ItemID=7748
I concur with most everyone posting today. How can you possibly even think of taking down a banner reading “Democracy Denied in Iraq” just because of some political shadowdancing? The whole affair is orchestrated by neo-cons and Iraq functions as a US protectorate right now. I don’t see much change until the US (and ALL its permanent bases and permanent stranglehold on the Iraqi economy) are relinquished and ALL the Americans leave.
Frankly, I’m surprised you’d even think of taking it down….
Hi, friends old and new, I have read all your comments carefully and agree with most of what you all say. I’ve also been thinking a lot about the whole concept of democracy, the need for it to spring directly from the demos (people, sha’b) concerned, and how democracy is therefore almost by definition incompatible with a condition of military occupation.
However, two further things. One is that it IS sometimes possible for power to be transferred thru a peaceful act of voting from an illegitimate military regime to an authentic and democratically accountable successor regime– as in Namibia or South Africa. And it is strongly, strongly preferable that this transition occur through peaceful means like voting rather than through a violent campaign that always leaves terrible and longlasting scars on any society.
Another point is that the way my counter was set up, it highlighted the January 30th election as an authentic act of popular consultation, but that was only ever problematically so (if at all). Should the counter start from the beginning of the military occupation then? I’m still figuring that out…
I should also repeat that my inclination is still to give Jaafari a chance. But more importantly, will the Bush administration actually give him a chance to build and lead a government that is truly answerable to the Iraqi demos?
I guess I need to write a whole new post about that…
When Christiane mentions that the “Iraqi state will be dependant of the US reconstruction money for years” he is pointing to fundamental reality that exists between the Iraqi and US governments.
Iraq has become a dependency – one whose government is dependent militarily, politically and economically on the US. This is very definition of a client state and that’s what Iraq is now.
The new Iraqi government may well be dissatisfied with this situation. They may not want to be ‘puppets’. But for the moment at least they appear to have little choice in the matter. And they may already be losing legitimacy in the eyes of the Iraqi people as a result.
There is every indication (with no contraindications) that the Bush administration has all along sought and expected Iraq to become a loyal US client. What they didn’t expect is that the Iraqis would be so recalcitrant, that their plans would encounter such resistance.
The US can be expected to exploit the condition of dependency to squash any significant moves by the Iraqi government towards self determination, especially in its foreign relations. (Helena, there is no basis for giving Bush & Co. the slightest benefit of the doubt in this matter.)
Moreover, Bush can be expected to oppose a political settlement with the Sunni insurgency since this almost surely imply the departure of the US from Iraq. We have already seen the US oppose such an initiative from Talabani.
Danielle Pletka in her article she said:
“Only economic liberalization and political freedom can quell the frustration that breeds Islamic extremism in the Middle East”
http://www.aei.org/publications/filter.all,pubID.22396/pub_detail.asp
I don
“should also repeat that my inclination is still to give Jaafari a chance. But more importantly, will the Bush administration actually give him a chance to build and lead a government that is truly answerable to the Iraqi demos?”
A good guestion. What about to give a chance to Quisling and see, whether Hitler actually give him a chance to build and lead a government that is truly answerable to the Norwegian demos?
Dear Helena
beyond the rhetoric about Chalabi’s corruption and American neocon geopolitical/economic conspiracies, a more meaningful consideration imo is the willingness of Hakim/Jaafari and the Kurdish leadership to truly engage those Sunnis who feel increasingly frightened and marginalized or, whether under the guise of a Robespierrian de-Baathification campaign, to deepen the sectarian split in Iraq.
“rhetoric about Chalabi’s corruption”?
It is the same as said rhetoric about Kenny-boy corruption, would Americans like see him as energy minister?
“Bush hawks. The first rule of any Iraq invasion is the pottery store rule: You break it, you own it. We break Iraq, we own Iraq”
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN – NYT, February 14, 2003
Its exactlly what happend now as long as Iraq breaks that’s the RULE of OCCUPATION
altho the notion may not sit well with the political agendas of certain posters here, Bush had nothing to do with Chalabi’s appointment…Jaafari’s cabinet list was not vetted by the Americans.
Hammurabi
What
I may be a minority of one here, but I place no creedence in Maureen Dowd’s theory that uprooting the Saddam regime was all about a neocon plot to implant Chalabi as Energy Minister.
I agree with Hammurabi that the Americans can’t control everything in the Iraqi government. For instance concerning Chalabi, the state department didn’t want him (at the time of Powel) and probably that the US would have preferred someone else.
But 1) Whatever the Americans think now, Chalabi won’t be in the government if they hadn’t brought him back after the invasion.
2) I don’t think that who leads the Iraqi government makes a great difference for the Americans in the end. The continuation of the occupation and war may be easier to sell to the US citizen if the there were less corrupt leaders, if the situation of the women wasn’t worsening, etc. etc. But the most important thing for the US is to have military bases there in order to control the oil ressources. The US has both the economic and military power in Iraq and the actual governement is too divided, so not real threat can come from the Iraqi government, even if they aren’t pleased by the way the Americans handle things.
The story of the two years lease of the presidential palast to the US ambassy is an incredible symbol (thanks Lidia for the link) tells it all.
The American administration’s desire to avoid a purge of their ‘ex-Ba`athist’ agents in the ING may be as foolish as their previous trust in Ahmad Chalabi and his cousin. These agents may be providing valuable intelligence to the Sunni resistance too, as many Iraqi Shi`a suspect.
ya know, anyone in most any field who wanted to get ahead in the Soviet Union joined the Communist Party…even the new Pope joined some nazi youth group in Bavaria…there were doubtlessly many young Iraqis – especially Sunnis – who joined the Ba’ath Party for such careerist reasons…now in any of those cases, those with blood on their hands deserve to be treated severely…but a Robespierrian witchhunt to purge Iraqi society of all ex-Ba’ath members and low level officials is extremely unwise and counterproductive. The new government should be reaching out to the Sunnis and not further marginalizing them.
Hammurabi,Chalabi as oil minister is but a side effect of USA agression against Iraq, but very symbolic one. Chalabi has srong backers in Bush administration and anyone believeing that Condi and Dick talk with “Iraq president” and such were about weather in Iraq are amusing me.
The new government now in power let see the outcome and let hold our judgments for now, the test start for the new government should first and last work
“If the U.S. is serious about spreading democracy in the Middle East, that
Christianne thanks – actually I was well aware of why Chalabi is known as “Ahmad the thief” throughout the Middle East, he’s got some very dubious backers/investors in Saudi who were ALSO involved in the BCCI collapse.
I’d be inlcined to agree that his inclusion doesn’t necessarily YET invalidate what legitimacy the icoming govt. will have. I also agree with those who say “wait and see” but I wouldn’t be inclined to wait too long.
Mark
The point is her we all specially Iraqis knew who is the Thief Ahamad, the irony is Why US backing this guy we knew he left Iraq when he was 14 years old, he never been in Iraq since, he did not had and have any sporter inside Iraq and the aftermath proved that.
We all knew the War builds on lies by US & Brit backing Puppets liars, why on earth we should trust either of them US or these Puppets, can some one tell me?
If this happened in western country, a politicians convicted with fraud or laying on his country and supporters did he survive? What the reaction will be?
This is the point US lost the confident of Iraqi from the start they lost the harts & minds of Iraqis not just that most of the Arabs in the region realised that how US lies big and how they so ignorant they do not care about you and me they care just about there objectives even if this cost death of thousands of civilians.
What the differences in the faces from the establishment of CPA by Bremer and the Alawyies transition government and the new government, are these only faces in Iraq? Is Iraq empty we have only these guys educated in US and Britain they knew to read and to speak English is it a joke or what?
Though my arguments were will be the democracy in all of that in Iraq?
“Laundering billions of dollars from the Middle East to the US and other parts of the world”
http://www.american-buddha.com/bcci.affair.21.htm
Read this I thing may be Bin Laden also involve with collapse of BCCI Affair.
No argument from me on any of the points you’re making Salah :-). I think it shows exactly what they think of you to even try it. I’m not convinced that Khalid Bin Mahfouz’s involvement in both swindles demonstrates a link to OBL however.
Chalabi is a sinister opportunist…he used his Jordan connections to swindle investors…he fed American fears of Saddam…he passed on American secrets to the mullahs in Iran…altho a secularist, he ingratiated himself with Sistani, Hakim and the other Shi’ite religious leaders…beyond all that, the greatest danger he poses imo is his zeal for de-Ba’athification and marginalizing moderate Sunnis…this will only extend the life of the insurgency.
Hammurab
“The greatest danger he poses imo is his zeal for de-Ba’athification and marginalizing moderate Sunnis…this will only extend the life of the insurgency”
I reach to conclusion, the old regime used the Iraqi people to gamble with the lives and unhuman sanction for 13 years he did not care about them he thinks as much the sanction destroyed the life
“The American should withdraw its troops from the streets and towns and cities back to their military camps, only holding major hubs and places and leave the Iraqi forces & police to do the job by supporting them logistically and intelligently.”
— I agree.
The Americans should withdraw its troops from Iraq and pay reparation. Or repeat Vietnam in whole(ever heard about “Vietnamisation”?)
Is not Falluja massacre enough example of “supporting” Allawi “logistically and intelligently.”