Fernand Braudel Center, Binghamton University http://fbc.binghamton.edu/commentr.htmCommentary No. 126, Dec. 1, 2003
The sudden change in U.S. policy in Iraq concerning the holding of elections brings to the fore the question of what is the future of Iraq. The U.S. proconsul, Paul Bremer, had hoped to have his appointed interim governing council draw up a constitution that the U.S. would like and then, a year or two later, hold elections under this constitution. Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the leading Shiite cleric in Iraq, had issued a fatwa already in June saying that this procedure was unacceptable, that only an elected Iraqi assembly could draw up a constitution. Al-Sistani had been the Shiite leader least hostile to the U.S., most seemingly ready to cooperate, and this was a blow to U.S. intentions.
It took Paul Bremer five months to realize that he could not simply ignore al-Sistani and proceed without his support. So, he flew to Washington and came up with a supposed compromise. The U.S. would allow elections first and a constitution later. But the elections he proposed would be that of multiple regional caucuses, composed of persons approved by the U.S. authorities, and they would elect the group that would draw up the constitution. The Grand Ayatollah then issued another fatwa saying this was equally unacceptable. Everyone is waiting to see what Bremer will do next. At the moment, he is trying to get al-Sistani to back down. Good luck.
What is the problem? The problem is that the U.S. has a simple dilemma, clearly spelled out by Sen. Jack Reed, a leading moderate Democratic senator: "A quick, hasty election might bring to power a person who doesn't share the values we're trying to encourage. But the more we wait, the more it looks like an occupation." Translated, this means, the U.S. wants elections that will have the results it favors, and it is worried that this might be difficult. But since the U.S. says it invaded Iraq in order to bring democracy (read: elections) to Iraq, it's equally difficult not to hold them.
What is it the U.S. wants at this point? Democracy, whatever that means? Not really. What the U.S. wants is a pliable regime that can successfully maintain internal order and that will be a de facto ally of the United States in the world arena. That is, it wants a regime that will not do very much about Israel/Palestine, not allow the French or the Russians to get economic advantages over the United States, not be a haven for Islamists or "terrorists," and not try to develop nuclear weapons. It wants a regime more or less like that of Egypt or Jordan. And oh yes, the U.S. wants a regime that might allow the U.S. to have bases there, should the U.S. want them. For the rest (rights for opposition movements, civil rights, women's rights), the U.S. is rather unconcerned, provided that the Iraqi regime they put in place doesn't do anything to embarrass them internationally.
Can the U.S. achieve these objectives? It will not be that easy. For one thing, the U.S. is in great military difficulty. It's not I who says so but General Barry McCaffrey. The general is a professor of international security studies at West Point and the one who led the 24th Mechanized Infantry Division in the 1991 Gulf War. So, he's hardly a pacifist, a leftist, or someone ignorant of the military reality. Hear his voice in The Wall Street Journal of Nov. 28, 2003: "Iraq is a military and political mess, and it's not getting better....Donald Rumsfeld is in denial of reality....The U.S. Army is stretched to the breaking point....Many of us are concerned that we won't be able to carry out the strategy we've embarked on in Iraq because we won't be able to sustain it....[T]he heart of the problem [is] that U.S. forces in Iraq are being forced into a drawdown situation."
By now, we've all learned about the basic realities of Iraqi politics. The country has three zones: Kurds in the north, Sunni Arabs in the center, Shiites in the south. The oil is located in the north and in the south, but not in the center. The Sunni Arabs have dominated every Iraqi government since the creation of the modern state, to the unhappiness of both the Kurds and the Shiites. Demographically, however, the Shiites are about 60% of the total population, and free, unfettered elections would undoubtedly give us a government heavily dominated by the Shiites, which the Sunni Arabs and even the Kurds would not appreciate.
One "solution" being bruited about is dividing the country into three separate sovereign states. This might seem to serve U.S. interests, since it would take an important middle power in the world geopolitical arena and turn it into three small states, which as the U.S. well knows are more vulnerable to its pressures. But we have seen what happened in Yugoslavia when the federal state broke up. All but one of the resulting states were still not ethnically homogeneous. But the states were in the hands of the dominant ethnic group most of whom sought to create a homogeneous state, if necessary by ethnic cleansing. Or if, like Bosnia, there was no clear ethnic majority, the state split de facto into three substates. We can hardly call Yugoslavia a model Iraqis should want to follow.
But do they want to follow it? Well, the Kurds would say yes. But the Sunni Arabs would be violently opposed, since they would lose everything thereby (a state that was powerful, power within that state, oil). And the Shiites would probably be opposed as well. Why settle for a Shiite state when they could have a whole Iraq dominated by them? Nor would dividing up Iraq be all that easy. In the Kurdish north, there are significant minorities of Sunni Arabs and Turcomans. The Sunni Arabs would fight to have Kirkuk, the oil center, and a city in which many of them are located, placed in the Sunni Arab state. And the Turcomans would welcome a Turkish invasion which the Turkish government would seriously consider. The center has a significant Shiite and Kurdish minority. The Shiite state in the south (the most homogeneous of the three) would find it harder to keep its distance from Iran, which it could more easily do if Iraq were a unified state. In short, were the U.S. to proceed with trying to chop up Iraq, there could be significant Iraqi-Iraqi violence to add to the guerrilla war against the U.S. that already exists. Not a pretty picture.
So what will happen? No one can be sure at this point. It is unlikely the Iraqi exiles that the U.S. catapulted back into Iraq and who are its favorites will survive the electoral process. The elections (and there will be elections) will probably put into power a regime that will call for U.S. withdrawal without expressing total hostility. Will the guerrillas then cease to exist, or become ineffective? That depends on whether the new Iraqi regime could gain enough legitimacy and enough force to put them down. Both elements are in doubt at this point. And in the background, there is always the possibility of a resurgence of the Baathist forces.
And U.S. forces? They will probably, as Gen. McCaffrey suggests, "draw down." For there are inconvenient elections in the U.S. as well. And there are very few real hawks among the U.S. population. In addition to those opposed to the war outright, there are very large groups who do "support" the troops as long as they are there, but who really wish they'd come home as soon as possible. The hawks and the militarists in the Bush administration want to hold fast to their initial objective of getting a pro-U.S. regime firmly in power in Iraq, but Bush's political advisors may start to press him to withdraw. As I've said before, Bush has no good option available to him. As for Iraq, it will take a long time for it to recreate a politically stable situation.
