Exporting Democracy: What Have We Learned from Iraq?
Lister, John
BAGHDAD: Although there are arguably many different kinds of democracies in the world, an Arab one has yet to be established. Iraq is not the first attempt; elections organized largely...
...JOHN LISTER is a former U.S...
...But they could make a major start toward reconciliation by reaching out across sectarian lines by the very reason of their mandate...
...Not only that, the United States officially committed itself to the establishment of a democratic Iraq and put forward the need to overthrow Saddam's dictatorship as the official causus Belli, admittedly long after the invasion had taken place and after two other justifications were found unsupported by the facts...
...Constitution in the midst of the Civil War...
...They would form, he admitted, a parallel and competing structure to the moribund local governmental structures now in place...
...Most Iraqis believe the United States has grown tired of Iraq and is looking for a way to end its involvement there, leading many to fear that the country will accelerate its descent into chaos once the United States pulls out...
...None of the parties has accepted a purely political solution, although none of the players has completely rejected it...
...Everyone knows who they are," he said, "you just have to ask people in the streets...
...But it could help to deal with the aftermath and limit the damage to the fragile texture of sectarian peace...
...Given this, Iraqis, perhaps understandably, see democracy as leading inevitably to a transfer of more or less absolute power to the Shiite majority, leaving other communities vulnerable to their ability to harness the power of the state...
...It is often said that trying to build democracy under the current conditions in Iraq is an impossibility, tantamount to trying to draft the U.S...
...But in no case have these elections, even when relatively successful, led to or even appreciably advanced the growth of democratic systems in these countries...
...56 DISSENT / Spring 2007...
...For it to do so, however, we need a radical rethinking of our approach to bringing democracy to Iraq...
...Efforts at rebuilding the country faltered and then virtually collapsed as the insurgency became more powerful and more able to disrupt, often lethally, the daily lives of average Iraqis...
...government opposed the "outsiders," arguing that they lacked legitimacy and would be unable to hold onto power...
...Iraq is perhaps the most extreme case...
...This rethinking has to be based on humility...
...Additionally, Iraqis are not persuaded that the United States is really prepared to accept the likely result of a truly democratic Iraq: a Shiite government dominated by the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq with correspondingly close ties to Iran...
...A more-or-less tacit decision was made to hand over power to a group of Iraqi exiles who were closely identified with support for the war in the first place...
...From the beginning, however, the United States proceeded in a confused manner...
...Does it mean, though, that there is nothing we (the United States or the West generally) can do...
...Whatever the merits of each side's arguments, the debate led to political paralysis...
...One only need think back to elections that by any reasonable standard were fair: the Palestinian parliamentary elections in 1995 (in addition to subnational elections, for trade union or student body organizations, that do take place regularly), Yemeni elections for both Parliament and the president, and a series of elections in Lebanon...
...A Shiite cleric proposed to me an Iraqi "solution" to the problems of sectarian violence...
...Today more than three hundred Iraqis die every day as a result of sectarian violence, and large swaths of Baghdad receive only four to five hours of power per day, far less than under Saddam...
...Can, for example, a democratic development take place that contributes to peace and isolates the insurgents...
...This experiment in developing democracy out of traditional Iraqi structures is based on systems Iraqis are familiar with and makes possible the learning of democratic behavior in a way that derives from that tradition...
...Support for this undertaking has to be sustained, even if we don't always like a particular government...
...This idea is not new, even in Iraq...
...It could not prevent a car's being driven from a Sunni area to a Shiite one and detonated...
...Second, the United States and all those who sincerely want to see democracy take root here DISSENT / Spring 2007 55 have to show how democracy provides answers to concrete problems...
...diplomat in Yemen, Tel Aviv/Gaza, Nicosia, Berlin, and Baghdad, where he currently does NGO democracy work...
...And, by doing that, it would contribute to security and help restore a human face to the other communities...
...These people would not be elected and as such not "representative" in the way we think of it...
...In other words, instead of starting at the top with national elections, which have to deal with almost insoluble national questions (federalism, oil resources, constitutional reform), we could try the opposite approach of working locally with such committees and with the local committees of the parties that are strong in the area...
...BUT BEYOND having to deal with the broad national issues, we have failed to show how democracy can solve local problems here in a peaceful manner...
...Iraq itself has had three elections since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003...
...Democracy is an abstraction to average Iraqis, who tend to think in terms of how power can be exercised rather than perceive the limits on that exercise inherent to any democratic system...
...It is clear that normal scenarios for establishing democracy in post-conflict environments such as Bosnia and Serbia do not apply to Iraq for the simple reason that we are still in the midst of a conflict...
...So far, not very democratic...
...It will not be pure democracy, in the way we understand it, for years to come...
...This man, who has reached out to Sunni colleagues who live in districts neighboring his in southeastern Baghdad, told me that he tries regularly to organize neighborhoods by finding "respected persons" in each one...
...Then other elements of the U.S...
...Over time, one could envision these persons being elected by their communities as part of a grassroots movement to bring democracy...
...The views expressed here are solely his own...
...Whereas elections in Yemen, Lebanon, and Palestine occurred with relatively little outside help, Iraq enjoyed the full backing and support of the world's dominant power, the United States...
...The PUK (a major Kurdish party) started but then largely abandoned efforts to reform its party internally, beginning with elections for the smallest party units...
...THAT DOES NOT mean that all is lost or that democracy has no chance of taking root here...
...This cleric suggested organizing these persons into local committees that could be convened to carry out talks whenever problems between communities took place...
...Every question that has to be argued in Iraq today is cast immediately as an existential question in which the vital interests of each community are pitted against one another in a winnertake-all free for all...
...Trying to organize such committees and supporting them would not solve every problem...
...These individuals are generally the heads of tribes or important clans and are traditionally looked to whenever intercommunal problems arise...
...elections organized largely domestically have been a regular, if not frequent, occurrence in the Arab world...
...As many have written, the supporters of the war were reluctant to plan too much for the aftermath, for fear of provoking opposition to it...
...But it does offer hope...
...A democratic Iraq will require decades, not years...
Vol. 54 • April 2007 • No. 2
