Iraq will have national elections tomorrow and the Washington Post has a preview up this morning. What I found most interesting is their choice of man-on-the-street quotes. In a country as diverse as Iraq, you could find someone to say almost anything, but the Post chose these:
“If Ayad [Allawi] wins, he will become a dictator,” said Ahlam Aboud Karim, 33, as she shopped for vegetables in central Baghdad. “If we have a strong man, we don’t need a democracy. A strong leader is better. Democracy won’t work in Iraq.”
Mesen Fanar Dawood, a merchant at a Baghdad pet shop, said he will be at the polls Sunday. But he was all but certain that the vote would be rigged.
“Iraqi people need a strong man, they need a strong man like Saddam Hussein,” he said, voicing his dislike of the brand of democracy in today’s Iraq. “But this is all we have available. If you leave your ballot blank, it will be abused by another person.”
I have no idea how representative those sentiments are, but it’s significant that the Post didn’t offer any other quotes to balance them out.
Iraq has twenty seven different groups, not three. The election is about the central government taking hold. Reporters are not out and about the entire country. Just like here, individuals have agendas and tell American reporters their point of view.
I’d take any sampling with a grain of salt. Also there are voters who are afraid to voice the way that they will vote.
Why are you surprised? You don’t think Fred Hiatt wouldn’t mind a George Bush like type strongman here?
Fred Hiatt runs the editorial page. And, the Post was all for the invasion of Iraq and the whole effort to democratize the Middle East, so I don’t see any obvious reason that they’d want to push for a dictatorship. Do you have a theory on that?
I think I do. They no longer like the results that democracy will bring (an Iraq allied with Iran) so they want a mulligan. A chance to put in power a Saddam like dictator but one friendly to the US. Allawi is and has been for years a CIA asset. The US wants him to win. They try to create public expectations that in fact he can win, but that there will be cheating (Odierno complaining about Iran influence).
When he does not win, we can assume that Iran will be blamed for rigging the election against him.
In this endeavor, the WaPO happily plays its part as a mouthpiece for the government.
That’s just a theory. We will see if I’m right or wrong by Monday.
That’s actually an excellent potential explanation.
The U.S. government never wanted a democracy in Iraq, nor do they really want it anywhere in the Middle East. They want to control the Middle East, and democracies are notoriously difficult to control compared to dictatorships. What they want in the Middle East is dictators like Mubarak, the Jordanian kings, the Saudis, the Shah of Iran – and Saddam for a period of time – over whom they can exercise control. And the U.S. has amply demonstrated its willingness to replace formerly compliant dictators, such as Saddam, when they “go rogue” and are no longer useful.
One only has to take a brief look at history over the last century or so to see that the U.S. has always been in the business of thwarting democracy in the Middle East, not promoting it, let alone forcing it by means of military violence. When they choose military violence you can be especially sure it is not about bringing democracy.
As for `Allawi, he is their best bet as compliant Iraqi puppet du jour, and has been since Ahmad Chalabi proved to be the unreliable crook he has always been. In the last election the U.S. backed `Allawi and his gang with their best PR firms and multi-millions of dollars, all to no avail. Then, when the Parliament chose Ja`fari again as Prime Minister, Bush declared him unacceptable, and Condi and Jack Straw were dispatched to Baghdad to “help” the Iraqis choose a “more suitable” PM, who turned out to be Maliki. If they couldn’t get “their bastard” in power, at least they would try to get someone weak whom they could push around. And Maliki proved to be pretty easy to push around until he decided he kind of liked his job, and it became clear that if he wanted to keep it, he was going to have to at least make some effort to keep Iraqi nationalists happy along with his American masters. Unfortunately for poor old Maliki, what the Americans want and what Iraqi nationalists want are diametrically opposed, so he has had a tough go of it.
Do you have a prediction on the outcome of tomorrow’s election, assuming that the elections are clean enough to reflect the popular will?
Also, have you read Wolfowitz’s more scholarly writing on the subject of democratization?
Thanx for the above compliment. I haven’t been paying close attention to Iraq, but my guess is the Sadrists will do rather well and so will various Shiite factions. Some secular factions will do OK, but the big names have been banned. The overall results will be favorable to Iran, and with the US leaving, more parties will seek Iran’s backing in the jockeying for PM and forming a government.
As I said above, do not be surprised if the US protests the results. But unless they are prepared to renege on the SOFA, there isn’t much they can do.
The thing is, Lysander, the Americans aren’t really leaving any time in the foreseeable future. Oh, sure, they’ll draw down the so-called “combat” troops over time (and even that will be more of a rebranding of the presence than anything else), but unless the Iraqis kick them out, they will maintain a significant military and more importantly a controlling political and economic presence for as long as they can get away with it. As long as their
imperial citadelembassy on the Tigris remains populated and operational, you can be sure who it is that is really in power in Iraq.As for the elections, you may well be right about the outcome. Time will tell.
I really don’t have a prediction, BooMan. What happens happens.
I am acquainted in a general sense with Wolfowitz’s ideas, but I am far more interested in what the United States has done and continues to do on the ground. I consider that far more indicative of true intentions than anyone’s theories, and certainly a better indication than anything military and political
liarspropagandistsspokespersons have to say.As I said, I really don’t have any predictions, but there is one factor that might turn out to be interesting. An awful lot of Iraqis are sick and tired of foreign interference in their affairs – American interference for sure (in this case interference is far too mild a word, of course), but also Iranian interference. This could have some effect on their choices in the election. We will see.
Lysander said more or less exactly what I was going to say .. do you really think the Fred Hiatt gives a damn about democracy as we know it? .. of course not!! Why don’t we push Saudi Arabia to become a democracy if it matters so much? .. or Kuwait? It’s always been all about the oil .. and letting the big business get their hands on it .. why do we even give a damn about Venezuela? .. the oil!! and Chavez’s Gov’t controls it .. ever notice he’s become an enemy ever since he nationalized the industry?
Well, I don’t really disagree with you, except that Fred Hiatt has nothing to do with the reporting on the front-page.
Who hires Fred Hiatt? Who hires the reporters, especially if you count The Dick Whisperer(that’s Dana Milbank .. for anyone that didn’t know) and Chris Cillizza as reporters.
sigh
No it hasn’t.
I happen to agree with you that it has not “always been about the oil”, and I would interested in what you believe it has been and is really about.
What else do you think it’s about?
I think it’s about a number of things, including, but by no means limited to control over the oil market. One thing it is not about is obtaining cheap oil for the United States, or big profits for U.S. oil companies, though the latter is a nice side benefit. The one thing it was never about is national or world security.
But I really want to hear what Seabe has to say about it
I think you should make an effort to look at things from a slightly different point of view. You’re good at finding continuity in U.S. policy but not so good at identifying changes.
That the U.S. should micromanage in the Middle East as part of a strategic plan to safeguard access to energy sources is something that began during World War Two and hasn’t changed or been much debated. But the neo-conservatives really are distinct from that. And it isn’t just the Bush Doctrine.
In intelligence circles, it was predicted that Iraq would come apart without Saddam, that Iran would benefit, that Hamas would win elections in Palestine, and so forth. It was known that Shi’a religious parties would dominate in a democratic Iraq. But Bush pushed ahead with elections anyway. There was definitely an element of ideology involved, which was most espoused by Wolfowitz, but also by people like Fukuyama, that democratic countries don’t fight each other, and they don’t engage in terrorism, and that they defuse terrorism. And they discounted the realists who said Saddam’s a bastard because only a bastard can keep the country together.
The agony of that debate from an American foreign policy point of view is that once you’ve decided to micromanage you’re screwed either way. Coddle a dictator in Egypt and people react by flying planes into your buildings. Topple a dictator in Iraq and replace it with a democracy and the place falls to pieces.
Either way you go, you get the blame. So, the meddling causes terrorism, which keeps getting more and more dangerous and large scale, and Wolfowitz doesn’t draw the conclusion that the meddling is the problem, but the opposite conclusion.
I don’t have time right now for a full response, but a couple of things jumped out at me that I really want to address now:
“But Bush pushed ahead with elections anyway.“
This statement completely ignores what actually happened on the ground in Iraq that led to the holding of elections. In fact, the Americans did the exact opposite of pushing ahead with elections. They did everything they could to avoid them until Sistani forced their hand in the matter. It was only then that Bush decided elections would be a good idea, and even then they went through all kinds of contortions to devise a system for “elections” that they could control.
“the realists who said Saddam’s a bastard because only a bastard can keep the country together.“
That is yet another sort of typical western mythology about the Middle East for which there is no actual evidence. Like most “realities” about the Middle East, it is just another baseless notion that sounded good to someone, and has become “received truth” by virtue of incessant repetition.
leadership is both understandable and consistent with a desire for democracy. Hence the calls for President Obama to be “more like LBJ”.
The sentiments expressed in those quotes are very common ones among Iraqis of all persuasions, both in Iraq and in the diaspora. There are lots of reasons so many of them believe that, but all you really have to do to understand that sentiment is to look at their only experience so far with “democracy” as brought to them by the American bomb, tank, bullet, and torture machine. The Americans have made many, many Iraqis long for the “good old days” of Saddam, including many who used to long to see him gone.
It’s interesting to look back at Wolfowitz’s thoughts in second month of the war.
Yeah, well, Wolfowitz is first and foremost an ideologue. He may or may not have a decent intellect, but that does not matter because with people like hm ideology trumps intellect every single time.
yes, he’s an ideologue, but part of his ideology is that you can solve these problems in the Middle East with democracy. If you want to ignore that, fine. But that is what he sold Bush on. Iraq was supposed to have a domino effect, and damn the nasty uncertainties of the whole thing because the status quo sucked anyway. I recognize the role Sistani played in getting a more transparent democracy in Iraq than the Bushies intended, but they did intend all along to have elections. I think the problem was that the realists were telling them it was a really bad idea, and so there was indecision. Even the Defense Dept. was split, since they fancied Chalabi so much.
I am not ignoring it. I was addressing something different, which is that, as with most ideologues, Wolfowitz did not let facts and reality stand in the way of his ideology. He did not base his theories on fact, reality, and reason, he shaped fact and reality, and tortured reason to make them fit what he wanted to believe.
“I recognize the role Sistani played in getting a more transparent democracy in Iraq than the Bushies intended…“
Don’t you mean more transparent elections? After all, there is much more to democracy than elections, regardless of how transparent they are (or, as in the case of Iraq, are not). Furthermore, no matter how many elections you hold, or how transparent they are, you do not have a democracy of any kind when your country is under foreign military occupation, and its economy, institutions, and society – and its elections – are controlled by a hostile foreign power.
What YOU do not seem to recognize is the role Sistani played in forcing Bush to hold any elections at all. I followed that situation and those events very, very closely and in great detail, not based on theories and words coming from the U.S. government and press, but as it was happening on the ground in Iraq.
I remember, for example, that the hapless Jay Garner, who had actually spent time in Iraq before this and at least had some real Iraqi contacts (as opposed to the so-called “exiles”) and knew something about the country (and please do not get the impression that I was ever a fan of his) immediately began working with Iraqis to organize and schedule local elections and to plan for national ones. What I also remember is that he was suddenly and unceremoniously fired, and replaced by that ridiculous swaggering little know-nothing cock-a-hoop and self-appointed “terrorism expert”, L. Paul “Jerry” Bremer III, who could not even be bothered to read the information sheets he was handed before he boarded the plane for Iraq. Bremer immediately canceled all the scheduled local elections, scuttled the national election plans, and set about ignoring real Iraqis altogether in favour of the self-interested, opportunistic “exiles” who were crowding around the carcass of Iraq, pushing and shoving for a position at the meatiest part of the body.
What I also remember very well is that Bremer, arrogantly ignoring the Iraqis, then proceeded to put his own hand-picked appointees in place in major cities. His Mayor of Najaf, the most important of Shi`a holy cities, was not only a Sunni, but a person well known to be deeply corrupt (which is no doubt why he was happy to collaborate with the enemy to begin with). His mayor for Basra, Iraq’s second most important city, and a city filled with highly educated, experienced, and extremely capable Iraqi technocrats, was not even an Iraqi, but a Dane who had no Arab background and did not speak Arabic.
I also recall statements from military and civilian occupation officials stating explicitly that they could not allow elections until they could be sure the “right” sorts of people would win. Right for whom, you ask? Well, certainly NOT right for the Iraqi people, of that you can be sure.
And I recall the Americans, once they were forced by Sistani to permit Iraqis to hold elections, not only brazenly manipulating the election process in an effort to get “their bastards” elected, but also refusing to accept the results when they were not suitable to the empire. And to you that qualifies to be called democracy because Wolfowitz supposedly “sold” Bush on his wacked-out theories?
Oh, I think the Bush administration probably intended to allow Iraqis to have elections of a sort – eventually, after the Bush regime had sufficiently transformed Iraq’s economy, infrastructure, civil structure, society, and culture to solidify their control over the country. And I believe they might even have believed allowing the Iraqi people to have elections (after the U.S. had enough political and economic hooks in place) actually meant there was democracy in Iraq. But whatever “democracy” they allowed was to be on their timing, and on their terms, and 2005 was definitely not their timing for elections of any kind, nor was it on their terms, although they did what they could to manipulate those and subsequent elections to their advantage.