HAROON SIDDIQUI
As he prepares for his election-year State of the Union address Tuesday, George W. Bush is getting into some serious trouble, and not just because of mounting evidence that he invaded Iraq under false pretences.
| Depends on your definition of "mounting," as well as your definition of "evidence." |
The Carnegie Foundation, the U.S. Army War College and his own former treasury secretary, Paul O’Neill, have accused him, variously, of concocting the threat of weapons of mass destruction to launch a war he had planned well before 9/11.
Not only have weapons not been found, but Bush is giving up hope of finding any. He has quietly started withdrawing the 1,400 inspectors who’ve spent months and hundreds of millions of dollars scouring Iraq.
| That doesn't say they're not there or that they weren't there. And if there were no WMDs, it means Sammy was spectacularly stoopid in not proving they weren't there. If he had, he'd still be in power, merrily killing his fellow countrymen. |
Colin Powell has admitted there was no link between Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein. In fact, a document found in the fallen dictator’s bunker has him warning fellow-secularist Iraqis to be wary of Islamic jihadists.
| I must have missed Powell's statement. As we've explored here, sometimes to the point of gross redundancy, Ansar al-Islam is a subsidiary of al-Qaeda. Ansar had relations with Sammy's regime. And Sammy's exhortation to his underlings to be wary of the Islamists doesn't mean they don't have relations; indeed, it means they do have relations, and he didn't want them getting out of hand. |
Credible American voices are forcing a critical re-examination of the recent past. Just as American democracy is reasserting itself in the lingering fog of fear and false patriotism, Bush has got himself enmeshed in a new crisis.The commander of the biggest military power in history is on the ropes against an aging cleric living in a modest home in a dusty alley in a town in Iraq. And Paul Bremer, the American ruler of conquered Iraq, cannot get an audience with Grand Ayatollah Ali Al-Sistani, who refuses to confer on him the legitimacy of a holy handshake.
| I've mentioned before that Sistani is an important figure in Iraq. I've predicted that we'll reach an accomodation with him. That's what diplomacy does. We aren't going to cave into him, and we know he'll try and get as much out of us as he can. If we can't reach a deal, though, somehow we'll have to get along without him. And he'll miss the train himself and get nothing. |
This is a rare replay of the classic standoff of Islamic history: the ruler vs. the saint, with the former seeking the blessing of the latter and not getting it. In the early Islamic era, it was the orthodox alim (scholar) who refused the entreaties of the king for favourable fatwas. In a later era, it was the unworldly Sufi saint who resisted the blandishments of kingly riches. In the waning days of Islamic rule, the religious class was co-opted. It has mostly remained so in contemporary Muslim states — until the ayatollahs of Iran used liberation theology to usher in a revolution. But Sistani, unlike Ayatollah Khomeini, was not a political activist. Bush turned him into one and, true to form, turned a friend into a foe.
| I think there's been a modicum of respect between the two sides from the first. I don't think he's a foe, though I could be wrong, even if he and Bremer don't get together every Wednesday night to go bowling... |
In April, Sistani quietly helped ease the entry of Anglo-American forces to free Iraq from Saddam. But he has been getting angrier at what has been unfolding under the occupation. Last summer, he demanded that elected representatives, not U.S. appointees, write the new constitution. America responded by postponing the constitution until after the installation of a U.S.-picked government in Baghdad. The American-appointed Governing Council in Baghdad and similar ones in Iraq’s 18 provinces would choose 250 delegates to an interim assembly that would elect an interim executive to which the U.S. would transfer sovereignty by July 1. A constitution and an elected government would have to wait until Dec. 2005 — a full 32 months after a war waged ostensibly to establish democracy.
| I think Germany took close to ten years to regain full sovreignty. Under three years for Iraq is probably pushing it. The Iraqis had Sammy longer than the Germans had Hitler... |
Last Sunday, Sistani said the assembly should be elected. Also — and this was the real zinger — that only an elected government should approve the U.S. plan to keep 100,000 troops in Iraq for the foreseeable future. So, we have the irony of an ayatollah calling for real democracy and an American president dodging it. Or, at the very least, wanting an Iowa-like caucus to serve as a substitute for a national vote. Americans say there isn’t enough time to organize a voters’ list by June. True. But Sistani is not so much insisting on a timetable as a process free of American rigging and the dictates of Bush’s re-election campaign. The ayatollah is calling the president’s bluff. Democracy for Iraq? Sure. But make it real, not a phony one whose chief aim would be to plunk down a puppet regime to advance American geopolitical and corporate interests.
| It's not going to be an American puppet regime. Neither will it be the kind of Arab kleptocracy that's the norm in the Middle East. My preference, indeed, would have been for a military governor and an occupation force for five or ten years, a thorough de-Baathification, and the imposition of a bill of rights modeled on our own. We already have an Egypt in the region... |
The counter-argument is that a quick election would allow the majority Shiites, who are well organized, to "steal the election," as it is phrased. But is good organization a crime? Don’t our own democracies belong to the most organized groups? Tomorrow, Bremer meets Kofi Annan to bring the United Nations into the process. If this represents a change of heart by the Bush administration, it is welcome. But it may only be an attempt to get Annan to win Sistani’s approval. If so, that would fit the Bush administration’s pattern of leaning on the allies and the United Nations for help without conceding control.
| That's because relying on the United Nations would have resulted in something unacceptable to us. The UN, the NGOs, and the local governments all love slinging that word "unacceptable" around. We can use it, too... |
While Annan is keen to get the U.N. re-engaged, he won’t rubber-stamp American actions. The best compromise is for the U.S. to hand the entire election process over to the U.N., which alone has the credibility to organize a fair process and even to postpone the vote, if need be.
| The UN lacks the credibility with one of the parties involved to organize a fair process. That's us. If we felt the UN was both competent and an honest broker, there'd be no problem. But we don't feel either. |
The sage of Najaf has helped us understand that the underlying reality of occupied Iraq is not whether Iraqis are ready to govern themselves but whether Americans will let them. |