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Q. Why are we expecting the Iraqis do to something in
a rush that is vital to the success of this external regime change? A. Political expediency, borne of bad planning and
motives. Good common sense here, something in short supply from
the increasingly deaf Bush2 White House.
Like some of you may have, I’ve heard this author speak in panels on the
PBS NewsHour. She’s articulate,
straightforward and held her own in a “one on one” with Richard Perle (very
good facial control, Keith). As
noted below, she is the president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
- KWC New vocabulary acronym: FRL = Former regime loyalists. Iraqis Can Do More
OpEd by Jessica Mathews, Monday, September 29, 2003; Page
A19 @ http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A15100-2003Sep28.html To visit Iraq today is
to be forcibly reminded of the obvious: There is no military solution to politically
inspired violence by locals against foreigners.
What was true for the French in Algeria, the British in Northern Ireland, the
Russians in Chechnya
and the Israelis
in the West Bank
is proving true for the Coalition
Provisional Authority (CPA)
in Iraq. Notwithstanding a huge and impressive military effort, the security situation,
at least for now, is worsening. A
delegation of which I was a member was told at the U.S. support base in Kuwait
last week that ambushes on supply convoys are "increasing in frequency and
effectiveness. " At Baghdad headquarters we learned that the average
number of daily attacks nationwide has climbed over recent weeks from 13 to
22. According to CPA officials,
foreign terrorists are a "burgeoning problem." And the "biggest concern," in
the opinion of the commander of coalition forces, Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, is
"an overlap of FRLs
[former regime loyalists]
and foreigners [that] has emerged in the last 30 days." Another commander called it the
"coming together of Sunnis and terrorists." U.S. military leaders
insist that the answer is not more troops. As one noted dryly, "More people are more
targets." The one exception
is on the borders, where some combination of more people and more technology is
needed. Rather, the answers to the
security situation in Iraq are political.
The most urgent is to address the feeling among Iraq's Sunnis that they
have no future. Beginning with the
decision to send the Iraqi army home without pay, and reinforced by
"de-Baathification" and other decisions, the message has been
inadvertently sent that the
United States considers Sunnis, Baathists and Saddam Hussein loyalists to be
one and the same. They are not.
With no political party and what many feel to be no voice in the present
government, Sunnis feel disenfranchised.
It is no coincidence that the worst violence is in Sunni regions. This is not an issue that can wait. Equally important is
to reconsider the decision to avoid any form of interim or provisional
government and to proceed in a linear manner from U.S. sovereignty to an Iraqi
constitution to national elections to Iraqi sovereignty. This plan forces a completely unrealistic pace
of constitution-writing in order to meet the pressures in Iraq, at the United
Nations and at home to turn over sovereignty as quickly as possible. The value of a constitution,
however, is not the document but the process of coming to agreement on
fundamental political choices and tradeoffs.
It took the United States more than seven years. The notion that in a country with
Iraq's history, demographics and recent experience "these deals could be
struck quickly," as the CPA official in charge repeatedly insisted to us,
is laughable. A document can be
forced down Iraqi throats to meet our deadline (as Secretary of State Colin
Powell put it: "They've got six months"), but it would be a piece of
paper with little meaning, seeded with political land mines that would explode
soon after we were gone, perhaps into civil war. There is an
alternative and, oddly, the United States is implementing it with one hand
while ruling it out with the other. It is to put
in place an interim government, sovereign in name. Currently, Iraq is divided into six regions under military
command, each encompassing several Iraqi provinces. Commanders have chosen
local leaders in the provinces in proportion to ethnic and religious numbers to
attend delegate conventions. These
have met, and they have chosen interim councils of 25 or 30 persons, which in
turn elect governors and local officials.
The process is obviously not democracy and the results are not uniformly
welcomed, but it has put in place governments of Iraqis that are doing things
and can do more. At the national level,
where the process can't be quite so rough and ready, the analog would be to adopt a
straightforward election law and under it hold elections to choose members of a
provisional assembly empowered to hold office for a few years. The assembly would choose an interim cabinet and write a
constitution. Like everything else
we are doing in Iraq this course would be risky, but it would have great
advantages in popular legitimacy and time available. It would also provide a natural basis for compromise at the
United Nations. Ambassador Paul Bremer
acknowledged last week that "some Iraqis are beginning to regard us as
occupiers and not as liberators."
At about the same time, Sanchez was saying to us that a U.N. role under
a new resolution would ease Iraqis' sense of foreign occupation, providing a
security bonus regardless of how many troops are forthcoming. On the economic front,
too, coalition actions seem to be more on the right track in the regions than
at CPA headquarters. Military
commanders are doling out money through hundreds of small projects,
decentralized down to the battalion level. They are removing trash, restoring buildings, repairing
telephone systems and water treatment plants, painting lines on roads and, in
at least one case, restarting factories.
At CPA planners are deep into nearly every crevice of national government,
from the postal service to tax policy, from finance to telling Iraqi teachers
how they could teach better. A lot of this could be and should be
left to Iraqis to decide eventually, even if we're convinced that we know
better. Our delegation was told of the need for
"unified command and control at the political/economic level." We
should know better. CPA is also letting
the best be the enemy of the better-than-Saddam, employing U.S. contractors in
needlessly expensive projects that strive for U.S.-level technology. U.S. contractors can't fix 1960s
technology. They have to replace
it. Iraqis, with a fraction of the money and
sometimes with help from their original suppliers, could make it go.
The benefit would be cost savings for us, employment and a priceless
sense of ownership for them. It is, after all,
their country. The sooner we can
convince Iraqis and the rest of the world that we understand this, and the
sooner we can add the legitimacy conferred by a U.N. political role, the
greater our still slim chances of success. We will need all the help we can get. The
writer is president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. |
