THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Volume VI, Issue # 145, July 4, 2004
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Government Committed to & Acting in Accord with Conservative Principles
Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity
AS THE U.S.A. HANDS OVER IRAQ TO THE IRAQIS:
SERIOUS MISTAKES THAT ARE BEING MADE
By Michael Rubin
FULL STORY:
While America slept on Monday, June 28, 2004, Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) administrator L. Paul Bremer formalized the
transfer of power and left Baghdad. Even though the rushed, secret handover telegraphed fear, Iraqis will nevertheless cheer. After
almost 15 months of formal occupation, Iraqis have resumed sovereignty and control over their own destiny.
When Bremer returned to Washington, he could point to some success in his stewardship of the CPA: The issuance of a new
currency in October, 2003, was a massive undertaking. School restarted on time. Telephone subscriptions in Iraq are 47.5 percent
above prewar levels; there are now 442,000 cell-phone users. Before liberation, Saddam Hussein withheld medicine and food from children
to fuel propaganda; today, 85 percent of Iraqi children are immunized. Despite electrical demand far in excess of pre-war levels
(thanks to importation of air-conditioning units, modern televisions, washer-driers, and other conveniences long unavailable to the
Iraqi masses), electrical supply is improving. As of June 9, 2004, Baghdad and Basra governorates each enjoyed 11 hours of
electricity per day; Karbala received 12 hours and Nasiriyah had 13 hours. Such figures do not include private-generator
supplements. Before liberation, only 3,000 Iraqis had Internet access. Today, thousands of Internet cafes dot the Iraqi landscape,
from the center of Baghdad to the edge of the restored marshes.
Our successes, though, did not require formal occupation. We could have achieved the same thing while transferring sovereignty
to an interim Iraqi government upon the fall of Baghdad (ironically, as recommended by the Future of Iraq project and the U.S.
Defense Department, but opposed by Foggy Bottom). The past is past, but inability to learn from mistakes is inexcusable. The U.S.
State Department decision to have U.S. diplomats continue in Bremer's palace headquarters is a serious mistake. It reinforces the
notion that the U.S.A. is insincere in transferring sovereignty.
The Republican Palace is a symbol. Destroyed by U.S. bombing in 1991, Saddam rebuilt the palace under sanctions, adding huge
wings, gardens, and a swimming pool. Visible from across the Tigris River, the complex symbolizes not only Saddam's dictatorship,
but occupation as well. Because of proximity to the palace, U.S. soldiers have closed the Fourteenth of July Bridge, tripling the
commuting time of Iraqis who wish to travel between two of Baghdad's busiest commercial districts. Baghdadis care little for the
grand strategy debated on Sunday-morning Washington talk shows, op-ed pages, and in the Ivory Tower; the closure of a major
bridge is the type of irritant with which we have squandered Iraqis' goodwill.
ELECTORAL MISFIRE
Such issues pale in comparison to what may be Bremer's greatest legacy. On June 15, Bremer threw aside the advice of both Iraqis
and Americans and issued CPA Order Number 96. His order declares:
"Iraq will be a single electoral constituency. All seats in the National Assembly will be
allocated...through a system of proportional representation."
Iraqi officials, including some on the election commission, said Bremer threw aside their advice, insisting that a party-slate election
would be easier to run. A party-slate election may indeed be easier to run. But, such a system sets Iraq down the slippery slope
toward a Lebanese-style communal system. That may have been the idea, at least of U.N. election specialist Carina Perelli. She
explained in June 4 press conference:
"...There are a lot of communities that have been broken and dispersed around Iraq. And
these communities wanted to be able to accumulate their votes and to vote with
like-minded people."
Ronald Reagan's death the following day shifted attention away from what was a crucial decision.
There are multiple problems with a party-slate system: Iraq's stability depends on ensuring that all towns and villages are
represented in the new National Assembly. The Transitional Administrative Law calls for 275 electoral districts. This translates to
districts of 87,000 people, or approximately 40,000 voters. If all Iraqi towns are represented, then Iraq's ethnic and sectarian
communities will also be proportionately represented. Take Fallujah: In district elections, the town would likely send three Sunni
Arab delegates to the National Assembly; but, under Bremer's proportional representation system, Fallujah might be effectively
disenfranchised. Religious groups like the Mandaeans, Chaldeans, Yezidis and Kakai, who have not organized sectarian parties,
will also be losers. The latter two, together numbering 400,000 adherents, are especially vulnerable, since militant Islamists do not
consider them "people of the book" worthy of toleration or protection.
Bremer and Perelli defend their decision by citing the difficulty of drawing district boundaries, especially in areas of demographic
dispute like Kirkuk. Saddam's Baathist regime undertook a brutal ethnic cleansing campaign against residents of the oil-rich city
and surrounding rich farmland. Perhaps 200,000 Kurds and Turkmen fled to Baghdad or the relative safety of Iraqi Kurdistan. But,
victims of ethnic cleansing will not be disenfranchised in a district election, since towns swollen by an influx of internally displaced
persons will send additional parliamentarians to Baghdad. Such a result is consistent with Iraqi law, which allows residents to vote
in any district in which they have resided for at least three years.
UNDERCUTTING IRAQIS
Drawing districts may be problematic for Americans, but it will not be for Iraqis. Saddam gerrymandered districts, but most Iraqis
still recognize the pre-1970 districts. This was clear when ethnic violence erupted in Tuzkhurmatu on August 22, 2003. Rather than
take their protests to Tikrit, technically the governorate capital, both Turkmen and Kurds took their petitions to Kirkuk, to which
Tuzkhurmatu has historical attachment. Regardless, any parliament emphasizing the ethnic divide will do little to facilitate
resolution of disputed areas like Kirkuk. Iraqis tend to be tolerant of each other. The Transitional Administrative Law, contrary to
claims by American professors and diplomats wanting to take credit, is an Iraqi creation. Iraqi lawyers Faisal Istrabadi and Salem
Chalabi hashed it out with each other and the Iraqi Governing Council. The result is a document, ideal to none but fair to all. Left
to their own devices, Iraqis compromise.
Policymakers and pundits should not make too much of Iraq's communal divide. Iraq's ethnic and sectarian mosaic is important but,
while some pundits prognosticate — some have gone so far as to suggest partition into three states — the reality is more complex.
Ten percent of Iraqi Kurds, for example, are Shia, as are half of Iraq's Turkmen: Turkmen in the predominantly Shii town of Tel Afar
have little in common with Turkmen in Erbil, an overwhelming Sunni city. Baghdad is cosmopolitan. In January, I tagged along with
an Iraqi friend as he visited his old school headmistress. She was a lifelong Baghdadi, half Kurdish, one-quarter Arab, and
one-quarter Turkmen. Her background is not uncommon.
A far-greater problem with Bremer's party-slate decision is its vulnerability to foreign money. The influx of outside funds is a
problem that has plagued policy from the start. U.S. State Department diplomats have dominated the CPA political team since its
inception. Of the first 18 senior advisors dispatched to Baghdad, none were from the U.S. Defense Department. When the argument
reached its climax in July, Bremer agreed with his diplomatic colleagues who argued vociferously in favor of maintaining an
"even-playing field." CPA would neither draw distinctions among political parties, nor favor those who sought constituencies
spanning the ethnic or sectarian divide. The "even-playing field" concept may seem sound in theory, but, in practice, it was
disastrous. No one told Tehran, Riyadh, Abu Dhabi, or Amman that they were supposed to be neutral. As a result of our hands-off
approach, militant Islamist and Arab nationalist groups had millions of dollars at their disposal, while democrats and liberals could
not afford even Xerox machines. Shaykh Zayed, President of the United Arab Emirates, lent Governing Council member Adnan
Pachachi a private jet, while Songul Chopuk, his colleague on the disbanded council, had to bum rides in U.S. military convoys.
Italian-military-intelligence estimates that the Iranian government funds firebrand cleric Muqtada al-Sadr and other Shia militants
$70 million per month. A party-slate system will make Iraq's electoral process more vulnerable to such an influx of Saudi, Iranian,
and Jordanian cash. Simply put, it is easier to fund an entire party list than buy voters in 275 districts. In district elections, in which
candidates live among their constituents, foreign cash would stoke resentment, backfiring.
The tragedy of Bremer's decision to impose a party-slate system is that, where it has been tried, it has failed. David Schenker is
perhaps the most astute American observer of Jordanian, Palestinian, and Syrian politics. In July, 2001, he wrote an analysis of
changes in Jordan's election law. In 1989, Jordan held national parliamentary elections for the first time in 33 years. The Islamic
Action Front, affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood, won a plurality. When King Abdullah switched from party-slate to district
elections (expanding the number of districts in order to make constituencies smaller), Jordanians returned moderates to Parliament.
Next door, Israelis also vote for party slates rather than individuals. Dislike of the system is about the only issue upon which
Israelis agree.
Party slates have been disastrous in Russia. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia inaugurated an electoral system
based largely on proportional representation. Vladimir Zhirinovsky's ultranationalist party benefited. As Russia moved away from
party slates, extremists like Zhirinovsky lost power.
So much of official opinion regarding U.S. policy affecting Iraq has been polarized by the State Department/Defense Department
rivalry, and by the unwillingness or inability of the U.S. President's National Security Advisor to force decisions and enforce
implementation discipline. But, with regard to problems surrounding the party-slate system, there is rare unanimity from Foggy
Bottom to the Pentagon: On April 13, 2004, Roger Noriega, Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs,
delivered a speech to the Baltimore Council on Foreign Relations. Noriega addressed problems involving regional democracy:
"Many political parties in the region are not doing their job well. They are often bereft
of new ideas, too focused on patronage and too dependent on the very particular skills
of one charismatic leader. That 'spoils' mentality is too often reinforced by electoral
systems that favor legislative candidacy via party slate — whereby politicians owe too
much allegiance to the party structure and not enough to constituents."
Bremer's departure marks not the beginning of the end, but rather the end of the beginning. The Transitional Administrative Law
mandates elections by January 31, 2005. By August 15, 2005, the National Assembly should complete drafting a permanent
constitution, submitting it for popular referendum two months later. Elections for the new government are set for December 15,
2005, with the elected government taking office on December 31. The stakes are simply too great for failure. Speaking to the U.S.
Army War College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, on May 24, President Bush declared, "Like every nation that has made the journey
to democracy, Iraqis will raise up a government that reflects their own culture and values." Unfortunately, Bremer's Order Number
96 threatens to undercut Iraqi "culture and values" for short-term American expediency. We may buy a smooth January, but the
results for Iraq — tyranny of the majority, increasingly shrill communal friction, erosion of religious freedom, and women's rights
— may very well haunt us for years to come.
LINKS TO RELATED TOPICS:
The American Political System: Politics & Government in the U.S.A.
Politics & Government: The Essentials
Constitutional Democracy & Other Political Regimes
British & American Constitutional Democracy
The Middle East & the Problem of Iraq
Page Two
Page One
The Problem of Rogue States:
Iraq as a Case History
The Middle East & the Arabs
Islamism & Jihadism -- The Threat of Radical Islam
Page Three
Page Two
Page One
War & Peace in the Real World
Page Two
Page One
Islamist Terrorist Attacks on the U.S.A.
Osama bin Laden & the Islamist Declaration of War
Against the U.S.A. & Western Civilization
Islamist International Terrorism &
U.S. Intelligence Agencies
U.S. National Security Strategy
Michael Rubin is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and editor of The Middle East Quarterly.
Republished with Permission of the Middle East Forum
Reprinted from the Middle East Forum News
mefnews@meforum.org (MEF NEWS)
June 28, 2004
The original version of the article can be found on the Internet website maintained by the Middle East Forum.
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Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
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