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De-Baathification came with the invasion of Iraq with initial moral justification and parallel with Nazi Germany. Whether or not we agree with the motives the initial result was to alienate and stigmatize millions who joined the Baath party for reasons of survival. De-Baathification excluded the political expression of many politically aware voters. Now, as if no lessons were learnt, the tide is turning against the Sadrists and their military branch, Al-Mahdi Army, who are by no means all innocent of crimes, but they do have considerable vote count and their exclusion will make consensus even more difficult.

De-Badrification may seem unimaginable to some right now but with the drums of war between the US and Iran beating ever closer, the scenarios for isolating the Badrists are becoming more imaginable. In short, the approach of exclusion, which started with de-Baathification, makes consensus more difficult if not impossible. A better approach is the policy of inclusion.

Guarding Iraq’s borders is a major task for bringing stability. Since 2003, the eastern (Iranian) border was guarded mainly by pro-Iranian infiltrated border guard . A policy of inclusion and wise management for ex-Baathists is the deployment along the Iranian border. Sadrists or Al Mahdi Army could be deployed to the north, along the Syrian border, and Badrist along the Saudi-Arabian border. New ethnically pure border towns and high salaries could add incentive. I am aware of neighbor sensitivity to such proposal, and of the existence of communities with similar ethnicities on the other side, but guarding the border is a sovereign duty and should not be dictated by neighbors’ desires.

In an indirect reference to the fable of Faust, Alan Greenspan says in his new book about the US Republicans and their recent election loss in Congress, they “swapped principle for power” and “ended up with neither” so “They deserved to lose.” Here is a moral angle on four turning points since the invasion of Iraq, where the Republican administration compromised moral principles for gaining power over a situation, but soon appears that the situation is getting out of control, so they ended up with neither moral correctness nor better control. The message to the Democratic contenders; don’t make Faustian decisions in Iraq.

I call these turning points the two double whammies of democracy in Iraq, the first occurred soon after the occupation in 2003 and is well publicized, the second happened at the December 2005 elections. The first double whammy is the disbanding of the regular army and de-Baathification.

Disbanding the Iraqi army has obvious military and political consequences, but from a moral angle the highly touted secular intentions of the US were betrayed by disbanding the regular army, which is the only powerful institution built on secular principles and capable of standing up to religious extremism. Morality could have been served better if the US’s action matched its words; the empowerment of religious extremism was the inevitable consequence. Action speaks louder than words, indeed.

De-Baathification condemned the idea of Baath and all those who belonged to it at “All levels of government.” Millions of Iraqis who sympathized with Pan-Arabism Baathist ideology were targeted. There was moral justification for this action, which took its analogy from Nazi Germany. Later, the same proponent who made the analogy said it “became de-Sunnification, not de-Baathification… The idea was sound, the implementation was wrong.” The same statement could have been said about Baathism in the first place, it looks like double standards. The de-Baathification committee is the judge and jury in deciding both the identity and punishment of its victims, this is untenable in any democracy. The US sanctioned de-Baathification and in doing so it disenfranchised so many, which is immoral, and made it impossible to achieve meaningful political consensus.

The turning points of the second double whammy happened with the Dec. 2005 elections and are not well publicized, perhaps because they involve electoral irregularities that benefited key US allies.

Article 140 of the new constitution stipulates that the fate of the oil-rich province of Kirkuk must be determined by referendum by the end of 2007. The Kurds, who are the staunchest supporters of US presence in the region, swelled the population of Kirkuk by nearly 500,000 between 2003 and 2005, and then during the Dec. 2005 elections there were 228,000 extra votes on top of expected total, or nearly 40% surplus!

The last and perhaps the most serious turning point is the election process in southern Iraq. In terms of percentage swings between the January and December 2005 elections, the pro-US factions gained only about 25%. But this came against a backdrop of deteriorating governance and allegations of fraud and coercion. The committee of the US-backed International Mission stopped short of investigating fraud: Ayad Allawi’s party was puzzled when it noted “It is strange that the International Mission should consider its mandate or duty limited to post voting evaluation as the report indicates.. (when) the most serious violations occurred before and during voting” (my translation). These statements should not be ignored or be treated as the whining of an election looser, the first is a statement of fact, the second is common sense; ballot fraud which was reported in Iraqi media occurs before voting takes place. It seems that the US overlooked electoral transgressions in the hope of gaining power or control over its allies, but the empowered allies responded with power greed as shown by the current lack of willingness to share power in order to achieve consensus.

In a Washington Post article published on August 30, 2007, David Ignatius examines the intrigue behind Washington’s decision to pull covert financial support from moderate, secular Iraqis during the January 2005 elections. Ignatius suggested only ethical motivation: Condoleezza Rice agreed at the time with Nancy Pelosi that the US could not celebrate Iraqi democracy while secretly manipulating it. While I am not suggesting that the Democrats are complicit with the republicans, I find the ethical explanation did not stand the test of time with the December elections. As in many cases, the truth is probably in between, or perhaps the right hand of the US government did not know what the left hand was doing.

Some say politics is amoral and I am not defending the integrity of Iraqi elections for only moral reasons. Free and fair elections have diverse outcomes but the process is repeatable while fraud is not; its benefits are opportunistic. Those who commit fraud know this and realize that they may not get a second chance at achieving undeserved gains, this is why they cling to power and insist on making strategic decisions while they can. And this is why tolerating fraud is destabilizing Iraq.

حينما يفقد الكلام معانيه يصبح الكلام تحصيل حاصل، وفي السياسة العراقية يصبح الكلام مجرد أداة للتمويه عما يجري تحت العباءة من اتفاقات مشبوهة . وما يجري من إتهامات بالفساد للقاضي راضي حمزة الراضي رئيس هيئة النزاهة هو في سياق التمويه عن ممارسات الفساد الواسعة النطاق، وهي معروفة عند القاصي والداني على حد سواء.

أن القاضي راضي هو رائد وبطل من أبطال الحرب ضد الفساد وقد تعززت مصداقيته من خلال اتهامات ناقديه، وهو بذلك قد أصبح مستهدفا من قبل المنتفعين.

ونحن في مطلع شهر رمضان الكريم ندعو الباري عز وجل أن يحفظ سلامته وينصر كل من أراد وحدة وسلامة بلدنا العراق.

صرح الدكتور حامد البياتي سفير العراق الحالي لدى الأمم المتحدة لصحيفة الاتحاد بأن المنظمة الدولية ليست بديلا عن القوات الأمريكية،، ولكنه طالب بتعاون أكثر ايجابية بين المنظمات غير الحكومية العالمية والأمم المتحدة لوضع إحصائيات بشأن أعداد اللاجئين والنازحين العراقيين. وبما أن هذاالموقف يمس مادة النداء لاجراء التعداد السكاني والانتخابات تحت إشراف الأمم المتحدة والذي ينادي به موقعنا هذا فقد وجب عليناالرد للتوضيح.

إن المقولة بأن المنظمة الدولية ليست بديلا عن القوات الأميركية ليست ذات قيمة وتفسر بأنها من باب تبرير الاحتلال. ونحن ندعو من خلال ندائنا الى استبدال دور الاحتلال في العمليةالسياسية بإنتداب الأمم المتحدة، وفي هذا السياق فإن المنظمة الدولية هي فعلا البديل لدورالاحتلال. أما الدعوة لوضع الاحصائيات بالتعاون مع جهات غير حكومية بشأن أعداد اللاجئين فما هي إلا تمويه لصرف النظر عما يجب عمله بإلحاح لمساعدة جميع العراقيين، وهو إجراء التعداد السكاني باشراف الأمم المتحدة واصدار بطاقات غير قابلة للتزوير.

رغم الكلام المنوه نجد في تصريح الدكتور البياتي رفضا رسميا لمادة ندائنا ونتوجه الى جميع القوى الداعية الى الشفافية والرافضة للإحتلال الى مساندتنا في مسعانا.

An article titled To The Incoming President: On Iraq by Flynt Leverett appeared on The American Prospect on May 20, 2007. It starts by blasting George W. Bush who recklessly repudiated the Roosevelt bargain (an agreement between Roosevelt and King Saud in 1946 which shaped the US policy in the Middle East for nearly 60 years), Bill Clinton for his early version of the axis of evil and for defining the US policy for Iraq as a regime change, and the neo-conservatives who present themselves as a wing of the Democratic Party. He goes on to predict the certain failure of the US to force a compromise between the Kurds, Sunnis and Shias of Iraq. Then he compares three Iraq policy alternatives of the Democratic presidential candidates: Phased Withdrawal along the lines of the Baker-Hamilton report, which is endorsed by the front runners, Withdraw and Contain of John Edwards, and Biden’s Soft Partition. Despite of its shortcomings, the article shows a deep perception of Middle East politics, I recommend it to any Iraqi interested in US politics.

Leverett came down squarely in favor of soft partitioning, which means to accept the post-Saddam realities and shift to a regionalist approach to a decentralized Iraq with strongly autonomous regions. He sees that national reconciliation runs counter to the predominant regionalist trend and cites the use of sectarian forces to police areas of the wrong sect as failure of Iraqization and proof that the only way to police the different areas is on openly sectarian basis. The idea of policing communities by groups of the same ethnicity might seem new to some but it shouldn’t: in its recent history and before the invasion, Iraq used police of mostly the same sect or ethnicity in different communities, the real surprise is in expecting security successes from policing dominated by the wrong militias and bent on revenge as is happening now. In my humble opinion, justifying soft partitioning on the need for ethnic policing makes no sense.

Leverett emphasized the need to offer incentives to neighboring countries in order to play a positive role in the stability of Iraq and to elicit cooperation on a regional deal for soft partitionning, an attitude I find hard to accept since it clearly formalizes the role of other countries in the internal affairs of Iraq. I observe that the regional deal belies the US inability to seal the boarder and counts on the long-term goodwill of countries that may not be worthy of trust. What is even more surprising is how the US places the guarding of the boarder at low priority; for example, as is the case of most Iraqi police force, the eastern boarder police was run by pro-Iranian militias since 2003, and only recently was partially replaced by Polish troops. It is hard work to seal the long boarder, I know, and the US may not want its troops to be in direct contact with the Iranians, but with a centralist government it would be possible to guard the eastern boarders with Sunni troops and the western with Shias as it should be the case. This point should not have been overseen; if the boarders were properly guarded then the need for dependence on the goodwill of antagonistic neighbors would not arise.

Many political analysts, including Leverett, approach political situations by explaining scenarios and possible outcomes. The scenario method is sensible if important details are not missed, which is not the case in some outstanding failures of predicting outcomes in Iraq. I would like to pose one question to the advocates of partitioning: In a partitioned south, which troops will guard the eastern boarder? Consider the risks of this scenario!

All three policies miss important details but what sets Soft Partition apart is the imposition of a US permanent solution based on a temporary Iraqi situation. Civil wars are not new, look at the US history. Phased Withdrawal and Withdraw and Contain are neutral towards partitioning as observed by Leverett himself, only Soft Partition has a patronizing attitude and takes the will of the Iraqi people for granted.

The scenario and outcome approach presumes a certain degree of stability on the ground, but the “reality” of Iraqi public opinion regarding partitioning is fluid and does not depend on reliable census and elections. A better approach to the chaotic situation is to recognize the temporary nature of the strife and to focus on managing change without US interference in the political process. Specifically, to let the UN conduct a population census as soon as possible and supervise the elections for at least three terms in order to let the Iraqi people choose centralist or partitioning style over time. The role of the US in Iraq should only be temporary to assist in guarding the boarders, to provide air cover and generally to support the role of the UN in the recovery.

The full length 97 minutes award winning documentary was directed by James Longley, I saw a screening in Cinema Du Parc in Montreal on June 11, 2007. After the screening, the gentleman who sat next to me in the theatre thought it was optimistic because he saw shots of highly attended elections in Kurdistan. I had the chance of commenting during the discussion period and noted that shots of the same elections showed one of the polls supervisors was instructing a voter to vote specifically for the Kurdish list, many of those who were present at the screening obviously noticed the same. The shot was repeated and I noticed another shot where the Kurdish police picked up a man in Arabic dress from the crowded voters’ line and sent him away before he got to the polls. I was uncharacteristically pessimistic, I could only imagine the process in other, more contested, parts of Iraq. We need more openness: video cameras on-line in every election booth in Iraq of the future.

The images of hooded policemen in Iraq are plenty, which is strange enough but what is stranger is the tolerance of the media to this phenomenon; it has become normal, acceptable and understandable to excuse the same policemen for hiding their faces while on duty: why of course because they want to avoid retaliation.. Yet it became naive and politically incorrect to ask why should there be retaliation if their cause was really just !
A hooded policeman is an oxymoron in any language; it is a slur on those who tolerate it and a sure sign of bad intent on those who practice it, but why do I bring this subject now? Because lately, there seems to be serious questions about what will happen next to Al-Maliki’s government, including the risky, hooded policeman’s tactic of changing the government unlawfully. After nearly 50 years of coups in Iraq, we came to expect change of old tactics and respect of the law. It is far safer to let the UN run Census and Elections in Iraq (UNCEI), the short term result are the same change of government, but in the long term it is more likely to lead to stability.

Iraq roots are much deeper than the demolishing forces… It uses the same fire that burns it as an energy to emerge stronger and more resilient…. Those weeping people are waiting for the moment when they can put it all together and build a new Iraq….. At the worst time all what is ahead is something better, much better. Am I optimistic?… May be… What inspires me is the Iraqi history which tells me that we will never perish… We will be back a, united nation that looks to the future… for the future. http://www.sotaliraq.com/iraq-news.php?id=50759

Back in the 1950’s a relative of mine who worked for the Iraqi foreign ministry chose a destination for his next assignment at the Iraqi Embassy in Kabul, I asked him why did he chose Afghanistan when he could have chosen more fun destinations like in Europe? He said because Afghanistan has a society and geography very similar to Iraq’s and whatever happens in one is likely to happen in the other. Iraq and Afghanistan are models and bellwether of each other. That was simple and meaningful enough for my ten year-old mind at the time. Models are powerful analogies capable of conveying much information by transforming complex but familiar ideas to the unfamiliar situation. But such political models by their very nature can be deceptive and simplistic because they emphasize the similarities and neglect the differences.
Before the Iraq invasion there were at least two possible scenarios for democracy in the future of Iraq: The Turkish and the Israeli models. In the Turkish model, democracy relied on a strong secular army to watch over government policies and to prevent non-democratic extremes and strongly non-secular Islamist take-overs. Since one of the first actions of occupation was to dissolve the secular Iraqi army, the Turkish model was evidently abandoned in favor of the Israeli model.
Israel is the Hebrew state; its democracy is unique in reflecting its overwhelming religious character. Jewish religious extremism is accommodated, tolerated and shares political power. Mechanisms for controlling extremism is not widely used or well developed, e.g. the government stand against widespread illegal settlement is invariably a hot political issue. Iraq, on the other hand, has always had a diverse religious and ethnic society with an eye for controlling extremism. The historical survival of so many faiths and ethnicities is unparalleled, clearly Iraq did not have the melting pot or ethnic cleansing on a wide scale in the past, for example the percentage of indigenous Jewish population of Baghdad at the turn of the twentieth century was 30-40%. The continuous survival of generations of Iraqi Jews over three millennia was not accomplished by tolerating and accommodating extremism. The Israeli model of democracy lacks the mechanisms necessary to control extremism from its own people.
The question now is: What will happen next in Iraq? Lets narrow the scope to possible scenarios in the south of Iraq. Separation, loose federation and chaos are still possibilities but history has a habit of repeating itself, and Iraq’s Sunnis and Shia’s stayed together for a very long time. During the first Gulf War, Saddam was counting on the support of the Arab minority in Iran, his hopes did not materialize and Iran’s Arabs largely ignored his incentives and eventually turned against him. I believe this scenario is the mirror model of what will happen in Iraq; most of Iraq’s Shia will eventually stand against separation and loose federation, but there are two elements of uncertainties: First the high level of violence leads to the polarization of attitudes and emotionalism which translates to uncertainty of the outcome. Second, the last parliamentary elections created a situation where coercion, extremism and possible fraud are tolerated (for more discussion see The Trouble with Dictatorship post in this blog, www.montrealiraqi.com ). This kind of tolerance undermines democracy and sends the wrong message; that you can get away with bullying the voters and cheating the process. This not only encourages inter sectarian strife but foments intra sectarian violence and allows the more extreme factions to dominate over the moderates. Conversely, tightening of the democratic rules with the U.N. oversight over the process reduces the chance of violence, allows the peaceful emergence of consensus and saves lives. This is the ultimate motivation behind the Petition to the U.N., a step such as the proposed is more urgent, more meaningful and more achievable than the numerous calls for U.S. military withdrawal in a hurry. Please sign the petition.