Glenn Reynolds points to some interesting remarks regarding a plan for US withdrawal from Iraq:
In a report to be released Sunday, a panel of experts assembled by the U.S. Institute of Peace calls for a 50 percent reduction in U.S. forces in Iraq within three years and a total withdrawal and handover of security to the Iraqi military in five years. . . .
With some recent security improvements, the biggest problem facing the Bush administration and Iraq is the failure of politicians in Baghdad to reconcile Sunni and Shiite factions and pass critical laws to secure the fledgling new democracy. “The situation remains fluid, but a window has opened, fleetingly, for Iraq to proceed with political reconciliation. Iraq’s national politicians have been unable to take full advantage of this opportunity,” says the report, authored by USIP vice president Daniel Serwer.
This isn’t the first time, of course, that the inability and/or unwillingness of the Iraqi government to make the compromises necessary to securing a peaceful future for the country has been singled out for opprobrium. All the talk about civil war, irrespective of the semantics of the term, are indicative on that very problem. If the Maliki government cannot come to reasonable terms with the Sunni factions, then a full scale Iraqi civil war appears inevitable, accompanied by the unsavory possibility of a wider scale war throughout the Middle East.
If the worst case scenario is indeed the one that we face, and the number one factor in avoiding that scenario is an Iraqi government making the choices that need to be done, I have two questions:
(1) Why was one of the most successful programs for bringing about just such a political reconcialiation, which was being run through the State Department, defunded without any explanation, and the participants sent home?
(2) Is it now necessary to take the same approach to the Iraqi government’s intractability that we took with respect to Japan at the end of WWII, when we essentially wrote the Japanese Constitution?
The answer to Question #1 is still a mystery, and I invite any and all readers to offer some insight. If, as all seem to agree, the political process is the paramount consideration to ending US military maneuvers in Iraq, then it would seem that so to would be the funding of such programs designed to foster that process. So why was the funding cut off?
Abandoning our assistance the political process is what makes Question #2 necessary, IMHO. If we aren’t going to help the Iraqis with that process, that seems to leave two possibilities. Either we leave the Iraqis to their own devices (which does not seem to be going well) or we take the drastic step of writing their Constitution for them as we did for Japan. While that process was contentious when we did it after WWII, and it would be even more so now, I have difficulty seeing any other way. So, is it time that we simply took the reins and set to drafting those amendments that are necessary to reconciliation?
Historically, it worked out well with Japan, but that was a much different place at a much different time. For starters, there were no outside guerillas/terrorists working to disrupt the process in Japan as there are in Iraq. Perhaps the vested interests that the Saudis and the Iranians believe they have are too great to allow such a drastic move on our part. However, if we aren’t going to employ the assistance of NGO’s and other non-profits in the process, and if the Maliki government is incapable of doing taking the necessary steps on its own, what choice do we really have?
With Japan, we threatened to remain as an occupying force until the Constitution was adopted. Maybe the tact that thinkning Democrats need to take is to threaten a withdrawal unless the appropriate compromises are made, or such Constitutional changes as drafted by the US are adopted in toto. This approach is already being taken to a degree in the form of the benchmarks set out for the Iraqi government, but those measures are aimed more at President Bush than at Maliki. At some point, using a strongarm methods with Iraq may be necessary (maybe now?), but the Democratic Congress would be wise to do so with the President instead of in spite of him.
In any case, although the surge does appear to be working in that is providing the necessary time and space for the Iraqi government to do its thing, it will all be for naught if Maliki can’t push through the changes and compromises necessary for a political reconciliation. If Congress does not want to fund assistance in that drafting process, and if it has no confidence in the Maliki government to do the job on its own, then it would seem that last remaining option is to draft the changes ourselves and foist them upon Iraq. It’s not a pleasant choice, but it may be the only available option at this point.
If we truuly want a positive outcome in Iraq, that is.
[tags] Iraq, Maliki, Japan, WWII, Constitution, drafting process, Sunni, Shi’a, reconciliation, PILPG [/tags]
I think one of the problems is that Maliki isn’t interested in a reconciliation government, but rather just the permanence of Shi’a dominion. I see him as a barrier, and if we do want to establish a political solution to the fighting, he needs to go (democratically, that is). Until he does, just like with the police and security forces, you’ll see sectarian bickering.
I’m also skeptical of the idea of drafting their Constitution. If the British experience is any indication, even before this occupation Iraqis tended to chafe violently under foreign control. And I don’t buy the comparison with Japan: we could never have written their constitution if we hadn’t a) dropped two nuclear weapons on two of their largest cities, and b) acquired the active cooperation of the Emperor. There has been no catastrophic event similar to multiple nuclear explosions in Iraq, nor is there an Emperor figure who can grant legitimacy to American rule.
As for the funding question, we could just as easily ask why the Future of Iraq project – also run through the State Department – defunded. This seems to be a pattern in the Bush administration: State develops intensive, non-military solutions to problems in the Middle East, and then their funding it cut before any of it can be put into place. My personal opinion is that this is partly driven by the general conservative hostility to the State Department, which is routinely written off as staffed with feckless effetes more in love with their cocktail parties than doing anything to advance the U.S. or its interests… but I of course have no evidence to back that up, just a narrative that happens to fit events.
To a large degree, I think this may be true. The Iraqi Parliament will have its troubles just like every other governmental body (heck, look at our own Congress), but Maliki certainly appears to be intransigent on too many issues, or at best, he is incapable of bringing the Sunni parties into the government (although there does appear to be some movement in that direction, at last). The sectarian bickering is a fact of life not just in Iraq, but all over the Middle East. The goal is to channel the bickering into political fights rather than armed conflicts.
I’m highly skeptical of it myself, and only consider it in light of the waning options at our disposal. We can’t just up and leave. If it comes down to a stay/go decision, however, I do think that our least best option (and perhaps the final straw) is to simply shove a Constitution down the Iraqi’s throats. It’s not preferable in my opinion, but it may be the only option we have left at some point.
Well, except funding comes from Congress, not the POTUS.
Yes, but the President sets spending priorities. He cut Future of Iraq, and I don’t know if the Administration’s budget, or some wrangling from Congress, was what did it here.
Otherwise, I’m not sure it’s useful to “shove” a constitution down anyone’s throats. Most importantly, such an action would lack the legitimacy of a constitution written under surrender or the active cooperation of a country’s elites. And legitimacy is what’s needed to make it anything other than a piece of paper written by the American Occupiers/Satanic Jew brigades or whatever it is we’re called now.