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2003-09-05 Iraq
Letting Iraq Save Itself (Opinion)
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Posted by .com 2003-09-05 2:21:02 AM|| || Front Page|| [11133 views since 2007-05-07]  Top

#1 Perhaps Salame is looking too much at what's going on topside? That seems to me all just show to occupy folks while the civil society we're seeding at grassroots level grows a bit...
Posted by someone 2003-9-5 2:38:51 AM||   2003-9-5 2:38:51 AM|| Front Page Top

#2 First, a provisional government should be created

But created from what? Is there anyone in Iraq right now worthy of handing over the reins to? Is there some dude that can lead Iraq slowly but steadily towards democracy and economic well-being? It seems to me this is what the US is waiting for: for some level-headed guy or group to emerge so that power can be transfered; an Iraqi Karzai.

He hopes the new constitution will not mirror Lebanon’s religious spoils system but will create something more modern and stable.

Exactly. What use is it to hand over power to a regime whose constitution will begin with "And there's no God but Allah..."
Posted by Rafael 2003-9-5 2:39:57 AM||   2003-9-5 2:39:57 AM|| Front Page Top

#3 Rafael -
What use is it to hand over power to a regime whose constitution will begin with "And there's no God but Allah..."
Precisely my point about imposing a framework of principles - which wouldn't know Allah from Jehovah from Buddha. I posted this because I find it insane that we had the stones to win the war and appear not to have the stones to win the peace - a peace that actually means something - something worthy of the lives lost to gain it.

As for who, the "Governing Council" and "Ministers", as Salame suggests. Why not start there? They key is the requirement that whatever they come up with cannot violate the framework principles - maybe that should be given a name, The Iraqi Bill of Rights™ - or TIBOR, for short. We imposed such rules in post-WWII occupations, why not here in the same way? Certainly nothing "special" about Iraq other than they have this religious power heirarchy - which has to be put on a leash anyway or it's all pointless. Who you hand it to doesn't matter except that they can get shit done because they have established constituencies. TIBOR protects each constituency from the others. We back the TIBOR with the same ferocity that we used on Saddam - and make that crystal clear. No more Mr Nice Guy to anyone who fucks with another's TIBOR. That would take Sadr and others out of the picture as soon as they opened their Iranian-scripted mouths - which is long overdue any way you slice it. Hell, is there any other way to do this, other than just pulling out and letting them devolve into an Iranian theocracy based upon demographics or have an all-out civil war?

If we're not gonna do this right, we might as well save lives and money and bring everyone home NOW for a 3-month paid R&R followed by a 3 month ramp-up. Then take out the Black Hats and SyrLeb. Then another 6 month reset, then Saudi Arabia. Then another reset and do Egypt. Then another reset and do Pakistan. Then another reset and do...

Only doing Iraq right will buy you anything other than the ouster of another asshat regime bent on your destruction and providing state coverage and money to the asshat foot soldiers. You will have to repeat this with each regime, otherwise. IMO.
Posted by .com 2003-9-5 3:28:40 AM||   2003-9-5 3:28:40 AM|| Front Page Top

#4 Yeah but there has to be someone who says that this framework of principles is something to strive for and has to be respected, with a baseball bat if necessary. Otherwise you'll have people like Sadr, or another religious nay-sayer of the month, who will denounce such a TIBOR, and who do you think the population will listen to? I'm basically comparing this to Eastern Europe, where upon the collapse of communism, in each case there was somebody already waiting who did in fact form a government, filled ministerial positions etc, and took the country in a new direction. I don't see anyone like that in Iraq. Perhaps it's too early. Maybe the key is in Iraq's pre-Saddam government, but I don't know anything about it other than that Sammy killed a quite few of those people on his inauguration day.
Posted by Rafael 2003-9-5 3:56:49 AM||   2003-9-5 3:56:49 AM|| Front Page Top

#5 Salame is basically right in his conclusion of a Lebanization of Iraq. The first reason why most of the middle eastern countries are not democracies is the lack of gradual reforms leading to democracy, because most of them are in a locked in a continues circle of theocracy. Theocratic and dictatorial regimes block fundamental reforms leading to secularism, a process what need years for the people to get adapted to.

In short, the US is making a fundamental mistake trying to get Iraq into democracy before turning the people warm for secularism. You can’t establish democracy before you separate politics and religion in the minds of the people.
Posted by Murat 2003-9-5 3:59:00 AM||   2003-9-5 3:59:00 AM|| Front Page Top

#6 And you are right Rafael where to get the person to realize that.
Posted by Murat 2003-9-5 4:01:55 AM||   2003-9-5 4:01:55 AM|| Front Page Top

#7 separate politics and religion in the minds of the people

Mission impossible?? I hope not. I'm trying to think of a precedent and all I can come up with is Algeria. They changed over to democracy, had elections, people elected religious fanatics, ruling government anulled election results, and a good time was had by all ever since.
Posted by Rafael 2003-9-5 4:09:26 AM||   2003-9-5 4:09:26 AM|| Front Page Top

#8 That’s what I meant Rafael, Algeria tried democracy without getting the people secular first and it backfired. I can think of only one example that succeeded, Turkey. But Turkey is also an exceptional case, because Turkey was reset as one smartass concluded above. After WW1 the Ottoman empire was defeated and Turkey was created after a liberation war led by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. Ataturk became president of the newly created Turkey in 1921 and ruled until death in 1938 (in principal one can see 17 years of rule as dictatorial). But because he was the war hero the people did not regard him as a dictator but as a saviour. With a semi-dictator like rule he managed to reform Turkey into secularism first before Turkey went into real democracy. What I want to say is democracy in Iraq can be established when reforms that lead to secularism is implemented before, with or without help of the baseball stick.
Posted by Murat 2003-9-5 4:39:16 AM||   2003-9-5 4:39:16 AM|| Front Page Top

#9 And the smartass says that the troops which blitzed Saddam are the baseball "stick" big enough to enforce the secularism - the TIBOR - which many (no I won't claim to know how many...) Iraqis will appreciate in short order when no tribe or clan or sheikh or cleric can intimidate them. Being freed from having to kow-tow and suck up just might catch on, I think.

It will grow on them just as Ataturk's reforms did in Turkey. 17 years is a long time - and his consistency over that period is what made it real.

Recap:
If we are not going to do this right - and make a lasting difference of a self-sustaining secular democratic model in Iraq, then we should pull out, write off our losses, go home, pull R&R, reset (rinse), and repeat as needed. It will be a tragedy, but that's the only thing that makes sense. Win the peace -- or prepare for a series of hot foreign wars to go on until the assholes realize they can not win.

Only the leverage of a successful peace will make this unnecessary.
Posted by .com 2003-9-5 5:01:46 AM||   2003-9-5 5:01:46 AM|| Front Page Top

#10 Government is organization directed by common goals and desires. Protecting the "volk", common religion, even common ethics. Even Tikriti's using Iraq to line their pockets.

Saddam spent a lot of effort removing non baathist power groups. The only ones left are the religious groups, who would be glad to make a new Iran out of it.

We need to rebuild real political bodies and that is going to take time for them to build their confidence and numbers.
Posted by flash91 2003-9-5 5:16:08 AM||   2003-9-5 5:16:08 AM|| Front Page Top

#11 Pulling out is of course out of the question. But maybe the answer is the EUropeans. They certainly collected enough brownie (chocolate?) points from the Arab world at the UNSC. That is unless, France goes Sharia in a couple of years.
Posted by Rafael 2003-9-5 5:18:19 AM||   2003-9-5 5:18:19 AM|| Front Page Top

#12 Murat:

There is another reading of the Algerian elections: the turnout in the first round of
the elections was around 25%. And the problem
is that the islamists got so many votes of these 25% that they were granted a majority in the chamber even if at second round all the remaining 75% had voted and had voted against the islamists.
So the Islamist "victory" didn't reflect the wish
of the people but that they caught it sleeping. Now it would have been better if the Algerian Army had acted as the Turkish one who gives Islamists a bit of rope, allows them to put the nose around their neck and then oblidgingly pulls the chair. :-)
Posted by JFM  2003-9-5 8:22:04 AM||   2003-9-5 8:22:04 AM|| Front Page Top

#13 JFM,

You are saying Islamists but you mean fundamentalists, Algeria is for 99% Islamic. The core reason of teaching the people secularism is that secularism puts an end to fundamentalism.

A question how can you measure how Islamic a country is and how to measure how fundamentalistic?
Posted by Murat 2003-9-5 8:34:25 AM||   2003-9-5 8:34:25 AM|| Front Page Top

#14 Algeria is 99% Muslim. The Islamist word was a creation of the Saudis in the 60s or 70s("Islamist conference", ie militant islam conference) and made popular by Khomeiny's followers.


If you want to see a muslim, non-islamist country I suggest you look at Turkey when Kemal was in power when it was decided that the law of 7th century Arab nomads just got in the way, that the Turks were not a such inferior people they needed to use Arab glyphs for writing, that Arab-inspired garb was forbidden or that going to Mecca meant the end of a political career.

Posted by JFM  2003-9-5 9:32:21 AM||   2003-9-5 9:32:21 AM|| Front Page Top

#15 JFM

You have ever heard of synonyms? Islamic and Muslim are synonyms. At the same time muslim and non-islamist does not exist my friend. Thank you for the flattering words since I am Turkish.
Posted by Murat 2003-9-5 9:54:42 AM||   2003-9-5 9:54:42 AM|| Front Page Top

#16 .com wrote:

"No more Mr Nice Guy to anyone who fucks with another's TIBOR."

I say "Hear! Hear!"

Rafael wrote:

"Otherwise you'll have people like Sadr, or another religious nay-sayer of the month, who will denounce such a TIBOR, and who do you think the population will listen to?"

I don't like the sound of that. Everyone should ignore that Sadr guy.

then .com wrote:

"And the smartass says that the troops which blitzed Saddam are the baseball "stick" big enough to enforce the secularism - the TIBOR - which many (no I won't claim to know how many...) Iraqis will appreciate in short order when no tribe or clan or sheikh or cleric can intimidate them."

Now you've completely lost me. What is this about troops enforcing secularism with my big "baseball" stick?
Posted by Tibor 2003-9-5 10:35:57 AM||   2003-9-5 10:35:57 AM|| Front Page Top

#17 Islamic could be a synonym to Muslim (except that I am not sure the word existed in the 60s) but Islamist (the word I used) definitely isn't: Islamist like Communist, Socialist and so on refers to a political movement: the replacement of both native laws and local traditions by Shariah and a theocratical government.

To give you an example of the distinction: I have seen a number of Afghans who were ardent
muslims but still rejected Shariah ("This is Arab and we are better Muslims than them") and definitely rejected theocracy (they told that Mullahs had ever been the lowest of the lowest in Pashtun society and that it was really difficult for a Mullah to find a father accepting to marry his daughter to him). You can call thse Afghans Islamic but definitely not Islamist.
Posted by JFM  2003-9-5 10:45:05 AM||   2003-9-5 10:45:05 AM|| Front Page Top

#18 JFM

The words Islam and Muslim are used hundreds of years, anyway I don’t want to discuss on words and the wrongly use of it.

For the meaning of the word Shariah, the shariah is the way of accepting the laws of the Quran in a twisted fundamentalistic interpreted way. To make things worse every fundamentalist sectarian can interpret the shariah from his own point of view, compare it with the mormons.

So, to be short a country can be very devoted Muslim/Islamic without being fundamentalist. For instance Turkey is one of the most or probably the most moderate Islamic country on earth while Iran is the most fundamentalist country of the world. Do you think that Iran for that fact is more Islamic than Turkey? How to measure that? If you measure by the number of Mosques in the country, well than Turkey must be twice more devote Muslim, while there are more mosques in Turkey (around 80.000) than in Iran and Saudia Arabia combined. Yet it is the only secular Islamic country, surprised?
Posted by Murat 2003-9-5 11:17:18 AM||   2003-9-5 11:17:18 AM|| Front Page Top

#19 I would be interested in hearing how Murat thinks an islamic country should move through secularism to democracy.

My only experience with a culture that "moved" from religeous domination to secularism was Quebec during the 1960's, but they were already democratic. The Catholic church had tremendous cultural and social strength in the community, and within a couple of years that influence simply faded away. People simply stopped paying heed to the parish priest in everyday life and yet the role of the church is still an important part of individual faith.
Posted by john  2003-9-5 12:18:42 PM||   2003-9-5 12:18:42 PM|| Front Page Top

#20 Murat,
I am interested in the role of tribes in Turkish Society. I don't think that integration of these family association into government is necessarily a bad thing. My understanding of Secular means without religion, but not necessarily without tribalism.
Stripping away all vestige of exhisting society didn't work in Sun Yat Sen's China nor did it work for the Soviet supported communist government in Afghanistan.
What parts of tribal society can be kept in a sucessful social framework?
Posted by Super Hose  2003-9-5 12:22:08 PM||   2003-9-5 12:22:08 PM|| Front Page Top

#21 i saw this artile too.

I liked it.

I agree with dot com's comments.

I think Im about to feint.
Posted by liberalhawk 2003-9-5 12:32:14 PM||   2003-9-5 12:32:14 PM|| Front Page Top

#22 Ghassan Salame was appointed to the UN by Syria. He takes his marching orders from Bashir Assad. We can still analyze his ideas on their merits, but we should understand that embedded in his proposals may be booby traps that he has set for us. The reason he can set such traps is because we are still learning about Iraq, whereas he has spent his whole life doing so. Do you really think that Assad would deliberately push for anything that would make our life easier?
Posted by Zhang Fei  2003-9-5 2:01:56 PM||   2003-9-5 2:01:56 PM|| Front Page Top

#23 Super Hose,

The roles of tribes in the Turkish society? Fortunately we don’t have many ‘tribes’ in our society, there are however some Kurdish and Arabic tribes living in the southeastern parts of Turkey, they live in a kind of hierarchic society in which they obey their tribal leaders who are usualy big landlords. These landlords often have lot of money and are owners of companies with criminal practices. Some of them are involved in drug trafficing etc.

Your understanding of secularism is quite wrong, secularism means separation of Church and state, in other words keeping religion out of politics. The US are for instance secular, while Iran is not (Clerics reign). It is very difficult to base a nationhood on tribal societies (Africa, Liberia), I have no idea how to establish that Super Hose if that is what you mean by succesful social framework.
Posted by Murat 2003-9-5 2:38:05 PM||   2003-9-5 2:38:05 PM|| Front Page Top

#24 Most things a person in Iraq needs can and should be dealt with by local politicians. Iraqi's should see the face of the politicians and understand democracy at that level before a national government is truly set up.

Creating a national government in Iraq before there is some kind of democracy at the local levels would be creating a government doomed to failure. I think Bremer sees this as well.
Posted by Yank 2003-9-5 3:08:11 PM||   2003-9-5 3:08:11 PM|| Front Page Top

#25 Super Hose

Turks are NOT Arabs. Their only point in common is religion (and I think they follow different branches of Islam). For the rest they come from Central Asia not from Arabia, their language is not a Semitic one and AFAIK they have had a strong state (ie not a conglomerate of tribes) since _at least_ the fall of Constantinopolis.

Now a question to Murat: how did the Turks become muslims? Did they convert voluntarily? Perhaps I am influenced by Arab's woeful military performance in XXth century but I don't imagine them defeating the Turks.
Posted by JFM  2003-9-5 3:45:16 PM||   2003-9-5 3:45:16 PM|| Front Page Top

#26 The answer re the Turkish conversion to Islam - it happened in the course of the tenth century in Central Asia and was voluntary, before the various Turkish tribes descended on the Middle East, conquering all of it, basically, by the end of the twelfth century. .
Posted by buwaya  2003-9-5 5:38:39 PM||   2003-9-5 5:38:39 PM|| Front Page Top

#27 Murat,

I did not mean to imply that there were tribes in Turkey. I got only a small taste of Turkey during my travelling days. I stopped in Izmir twice for a couple of weeks total. I enjoyed it very much and felt welcome there.

Let me try to ask this a different way. Here is the back drop for my question. I assume that you have a better understanding of the general culture in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan than I do. I understand that tribal life is an important part of the cultural fabric in these countries to the extent that loyalty of tribal elders has always been important to the political sucess of rulers in those three countries.

I read a history of Afghanistan that pointed out that the Russian backed government was unwise to try to supress all elements of Afghan culture. The Taliban did the same, but Sadaam carefully played tribes against each other and used tribal support to his advantage.

Hamid Karzai's governemtn has its basis in the loya jurga whcih is consistent with their tribal culture in the same way that Lenin incorporated the Dema (culturally familiar to Russians) into the Soviet culture.

Here is my question for you:
Should the Coalion be trying to encourage the Iraqi's to build a form of democracy that is culturally familiar to them rather than zeroing out their system and trying to build a western system from scratch? Are there elements of the Ottoman system that Turkey built its current governemtn on sucessfully that would be recognizable to the Iraqis? In your opinion would the coalition be better off using Turkish consultants to assist in nation building rather than trying to Yankify the place?

I ask this because I read a good book called Somalia on 5 Dollars a Day by an officer in teh 10th mountain during the semi-sucessful portion of the Somali relief effort. The 10th mountain effort was sucessful by strengthening the existing tribal structure that had been surplanted by the war-lords.
Posted by Super Hose  2003-9-5 8:40:51 PM||   2003-9-5 8:40:51 PM|| Front Page Top

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