http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/meast/08/22/iraq.democracy/index.html

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- Nightmarish political realities in Baghdad are prompting American officials to curb their vision for democracy in Iraq. Instead, the officials now say they are willing to settle for a government that functions and can bring security.

A workable democratic and sovereign government in Iraq was one of the Bush administration's stated goals of the war.

But for the first time, exasperated front-line U.S. generals talk openly of non-democratic governmental alternatives, and while the two top U.S. officials in Iraq still talk about preserving the country's nascent democratic institutions, they say their ambitions aren't as "lofty" as they once had been.

"Democratic institutions are not necessarily the way ahead in the long-term future," said Brig. Gen. John "Mick" Bednarek, part of Task Force Lightning in Diyala province, one of the war's major battlegrounds.

The comments reflect a practicality common among Western diplomats and officials trying to win hearts and minds in the Middle East and other non-Western countries where democracy isn't a tradition.

The failure of Iraq to emerge from widespread instability is a bitter pill for the United States, which optimistically toppled the Saddam Hussein regime more than four years ago. Millions of Iraqis went to the polls to cast ballots, something that generated great promise for the establishment of a democratic system.

But Iraqi institutions, from the infrastructure to the national government, are widely regarded as ineffective in the fifth year of the war.

U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker and Gen. David Petraeus, the top American commander in Iraq, declined to be interviewed for this story, but they issued a joint statement to CNN that reiterated that the country's "fundamental democratic framework is in place" and that "the development of democratic institutions is being encouraged."

And, they said, they are helping Iraqi political leaders find ways "to share power and achieve legislative progress."

But Crocker and Petraeus conceded they are "now engaged in pursuing less lofty and ambitious goals than was the case at the outset."

Maj. Gen. Benjamin Mixon, commander of Task Force Lightning, also reflected a less lofty American goal for Iraq's future.

"I would describe it as leaving an effective government behind that can provide services to its people, and security. It needs to be an effective and functioning government that is really a partner with the United States and the rest of the world in this fight against the terrorists," said Mixon, who will not be perturbed if such goals are reached without democracy.

"Well, see that all over the Middle East," he said, stating that democracy is merely an option, that Iraqis are free to choose or reject.

"But that is the $50,000 question. ... What will this government look like? Will it be a democracy? Will it not?" he asked.

Soldiers, he said, are fighting for security, a goal Mixon described as "core to my mission."

But security is far from complete in Iraq, where the government seems dysfunctional and paralyzed.

Seventeen of the 37 Iraqi Cabinet ministers either boycott or don't attend Cabinet meetings. Parliament, now on a much-criticized month-long summer break, has yet to pass key legislation in the areas of energy resource sharing and the future roles of former members of Hussein's Baath Party. U.S. officials, including President Bush, have said there is frustration with efforts by the government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki to promote political reconciliation.

The government is unable to supply regular electricity and at times running water in the capital. The health care system is run by one Iranian-backed militia and the national police are dominated by another. Death squads terrorize Sunni neighborhoods.

Sectarian cleansing is pushing people into segregated enclaves, protected by Shiite or U.S.-backed Sunni militias, and spurring the flight of thousands to neighboring countries.

Thousands of innocents are dying violently every month in cities and villages across the country.

Iraqi government officials concede things aren't working, but they say that's because the United States doesn't allow Iraq to really control its own destiny.

While the Iraqi government commands its own troops, it cannot send them into battle without U.S. agreement. Iraqi Special Forces answer only to U.S. officers.

"We don't have full sovereignty," said Hadi al-Amri, the chairman of parliament's Defense and Security Committee. "We don't have sovereignty over our troops, we don't have sovereignty over our provinces. We admit it."

And because of the very real prospect of Iranian infiltration, the government doesn't fund or control its own intelligence service. It's paid for and run by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency.

Abdul Qarim al-Enzi, director of the parliamentary ethics committee, asks whether it is "reasonable for a country given sovereignty by the international community to have a chief of intelligence appointed by another country."

One senior U.S. official in Baghdad told CNN that "any country with 160,000 foreigners fighting for it sacrifices some sovereignty."

The U.S. government has long cautioned that a fully functioning democracy would be slow to emerge in Iraq. But with key U.S. senators calling for al-Maliki's removal, some senior U.S. military commanders even suggest privately the entire Iraqi government must be removed by "constitutional or non-constitutional" means and replaced with a stable, secure, but not necessarily democratic entity.


.... OK so now they're saying they're gonna try to make Iraq like it was before the war?

8/22/2007 4:22:31 PM

wrong forum buddy

8/22/2007 4:26:52 PM

that's not at all what they're saying.

it's about time they saw the light on this issue. They should've started living in the real world a long time ago--democracy is gonna be tough as shit to do in Iraq...and voting rights are great and all, but they're ultimately nowhere near the top of the list of things that Iraqis NEED.

if anything, get something--ANYTHING--functional in there ASAP, and if they want democracy, they can move towards it with baby steps at some point in the future.

8/22/2007 4:27:14 PM

wtf is wrong with my computer? i keep selecting soap box and the lounge comes up? should i post a thread in tech talk?

8/22/2007 4:27:49 PM

Quote :

"democracy is gonna be tough as shit to do in Iraq"

the administration was being told that from day one.

8/22/2007 4:33:12 PM

that has nothing to do with anything besides historians at this point.

8/22/2007 4:35:14 PM

future credibility stems from proven past credibility, and as far as i'm concerned the admin has none when it comes to Iraq.

8/22/2007 4:39:06 PM

well what exactly do you propose? that he not run for office again? that's taken care of.

do you want him to just throw up his hands and say "Fuck it, I have no idea what's up with Iraq. I'm just gonna sit on my ass and watch to see what happens."



They're finally doing what should've been done years ago, and you're still bitching about it. Shit, whether you like him or not, when he does get something right, just thankfully accept it.

furthermore, this isn't just a Bush move...this is from military commanders, Congress, etc.

8/22/2007 4:44:21 PM

Quote :

"furthermore, this isn't just a Bush move...this is from military commanders, Congress, etc. "

exactly, it looks like people with actual competence and military experience are now voicing their concerns....instead of a bullheaded admin. who was shortsighted and generally ignorant on the subject.

Quote :

"do you want him to just throw up his hands and say "Fuck it, I have no idea what's up with Iraq. I'm just gonna sit on my ass and watch to see what happens.""

"I was wrong", or "I miscalculated" would be nice, instead of making it seem like anyone but their own fault.

Quote :

"They're finally doing what should've been done years ago"

too bad it took 500 billion (and counting) dollars, close to 4000 (and counting) american military lives, and tens of thousands (and counting) civilian lives for them to actually listen.

8/22/2007 4:51:49 PM

ok

but you were still bitching about something when it was finally turned in the right direction. if you wanna bitch about past mistakes, that's fine--but not like this.

It's like they finally stopped fucking it up, and instead of saying "Damn...they finally figured it out!", you're saying "You sure did fuck that up for a long time, and you have no credibility ever again."

if he makes a dumb call, you bitch about the dumb call. If he makes a good call, you bitch because he made a dumb call earlier.

8/22/2007 5:05:38 PM

Quote :

"do you want him to just throw up his hands and say "Fuck it, I have no idea what's up with Iraq. I'm just gonna sit on my ass and watch to see what happens." "

like he has basically done for the past couple of years?

8/22/2007 5:06:40 PM

right, like "the surge", getting a new SECDEF, getting Gen Petraeus in charge of Iraq, etc.

8/22/2007 6:21:46 PM

I don't know, duke. This could end up being a bad thing.

If Iraq goes back to having a tyranny, this war will seem incredibly pointless.

8/22/2007 6:24:13 PM

oh yeah, no doubt.

i'm just saying that democracy is a low priority relative to having a functional, fairly stable, internationally responsible, and relatively benevolent government.

8/22/2007 6:37:12 PM

why are they talking about things the CIA should JUST BE DOING

puppet government FTW

8/22/2007 6:42:04 PM

Well, I'm disappointed because I don't think democracy in Iraq was impossible in the beginning, at least as an intermediate-range goal, although it certainly looks that way now.

But I don't think we have to write it off as going straight back to blatant dictatorship, either. Government types aren't divided right down the middle into "democracy" and "tyranny."

Honestly, I think the thing to do is find a mix of elites from the major groups and put them in control of all the money. Either they'll cooperate to protect their wealth from chaos -- the ideal situation, as it will force them to use consensus and proto-democratic means to create a functioning government.

Or, they'll fight among themselves. In this case, either one (or a few) comes out on top, which doesn't have as much potential to foster democracy but at least creates a working government based on greed rather than sectarian hate (hey, I'll take it)

Or, the plutocrats all manage to destroy each other completely and ruin the country. And if this happens, well, let's hope the people get upset at the wealthy who failed them and go commie, because reds seem peachy in comparison to what we've got now.

---

I'm serious, too. All the brutality, the violence, the perverse shit going on over there now is not normally the kind of thing you associate with regular, good old-fashioned money-grubbing. Sure, life for the poor in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait isn't great, but it isn't constant risk of decapitation or explosion or execution by death squads, either.

8/22/2007 7:15:37 PM

Quote :

"But I don't think we have to write it off as going straight back to blatant dictatorship, either. Government types aren't divided right down the middle into "democracy" and "tyranny.""

exactly

8/22/2007 7:27:32 PM

^^ This kind of arrangement is something that has to blossom. It's not something one can engineer. It's also not necessarily a bloodless process.

The problem is that politicians and voters cannot accept "soft" solutions or "soft" policies. The reasons are

- politicians and voters don't understand how you can achieve goals by being hands off (this really extends to management of all kinds in all areas)
- politicians and voters have ideological axes to grind (why we tried to transform Iraq into a free market, capitalist, melting pot immediately)
- soft solutions can't provide binary feedback, which is the primary type of feedback that controls politician and voter behavior
- politicians and voters cannot accept failure, which proves problematic because soft policies will yield a thousand small failures before achieving a big success.


Also, the military is really not setup to nation build. One of the worst problems is turnover at all positions in the occupation government -- boots on the ground, middle managers, upper management (not just in Iraq, either -- in everything the military does). Since people rotate out so frequently, there is little continuity of policy, knowledge, or communication.

Someone might spend X short amount of time developing the policies, soft knowledge, ties, rapport that can serve as the basis of successful nation building, then all of a sudden, they are rotated out. The person coming in then takes months getting up to speed and may even go off in a completely different direction. Meanwhile, the iraqis who have to interact with us everyday learn than everything we do, say, promise, etc is ephemeral.

Like I said, this is just how the military operates for some goddamn reason. Even in domestic military projects, middle managers shuffle about all the time, creating the same headaches.

As a wild ass guess, I would say that continuity on the order of 3 years for middle management positions and up is required. Obviously, no one is willing to do that. This almost argues (because it ignores the infiltrator problem) for taking in native Iraqis as members of the US military and letting them take up the same occupations positions. They won't mind working those positions indefinitely.

[Edited on August 22, 2007 at 10:30 PM. Reason : hkj]

8/22/2007 10:18:50 PM

Quote :

"But for the first time, exasperated front-line U.S. generals talk openly of non-democratic governmental alternatives, and while the two top U.S. officials in Iraq still talk about preserving the country's nascent democratic institutions, they say their ambitions aren't as "lofty" as they once had been."

And once again, the military is required to show our politicians some common sense..

Quote :

"exactly, it looks like people with actual competence and military experience are now voicing their concerns....instead of a bullheaded admin. who was shortsighted and generally ignorant on the subject."

They're voicing their concerns now because it is not politically costly to the generals' careers to say what they think to a lame duck administration.

Quote :

"Well, I'm disappointed because I don't think democracy in Iraq was impossible in the beginning, at least as an intermediate-range goal, although it certainly looks that way now."

The problem is that democracy is not something you can "give". It is something that citizens have to fight for and be willing to die for on their own account. It took our own country 15 years to finally get a democracy that would work. Inside that timeframe, we had two states at war with each other, a general lack of authority, the Continental dollar became worthless, and a full-scale rebellion in Massachusetts (Daniel Shays would be painted as an al-Qaeda-style terrorist if alive today). And it was only that rebellion that got all the elites to realize "this is not working". Democracies are not easy, they take lots of time and effort. To expect to overthrow a dictator and have a functioning democracy within 2-3 years without no problems was pollyanna-ish.

[Edited on August 22, 2007 at 10:50 PM. Reason : /]

8/22/2007 10:37:47 PM

awesome thread

the last 4 posts have been great

hopefully our forces and the iraq government/citizenry can get some stuff done while the 2 parties are preoccupied with the song and dance show

[Edited on August 22, 2007 at 10:45 PM. Reason : +]

8/22/2007 10:45:25 PM

Quote :

"the administration was being told that from day one. that has nothing to do with anything besides historians at this point."

I think his point is that this is too little, too late. Fine, we can't do anything about the past. What's done is done. But that doesn't change the fact that countless people were right and that our decision-makers should have listened to them. Now we have a nation that is almost guaranteed to come apart at the seams, with no apparent way to fix it. Whether or not Iraq collapses back into a dictatorship or something else takes hold is beyond me, and I can't pretend to even make an educated guess.

And you think that our leaders are somehow excused from all of this just because they NOW admit that they fucked up?

Quote :

"They're voicing their concerns now because it is not politically costly to the generals' careers to say what they think to a lame duck administration."

If these generals believed in even half of all the pro-America, pro-freedom/liberty propaganda that gets thrown around daily, they would have voiced their objections despite the risk to their jobs. It's their JOB to protect America from threats, even if that means protecting America from itself. Or more specifically, its crooked leaders. But hell, I'm sure any opposition was swiftly removed and replaced with yes-men and ass-kissers.

8/22/2007 10:59:07 PM

man, if only we had done this like 4 and a half years ago

8/22/2007 11:28:08 PM

Quote :

"The problem is that democracy is not something you can "give". It is something that citizens have to fight for and be willing to die for on their own account"

well a lot of them are willing to die for seemingly dumber reasons, so theres still hope

8/23/2007 12:25:50 AM

Quote :

"Like I said, this is just how the military operates for some goddamn reason."

they want to create versatile, well-rounded, plug & play personnel. for example, as an aviator, it will actually badly hurt my chances of promotion if I just keep on getting flying jobs. They WANT you to rotate out and do something totally different every few years. The only place they usually want focused specialists is in the lower enlisted ranks, where you're focused on your one specific job. Once you start moving up in rank and getting more and more responsibility over more and more stuff, you need to know more than, say, how to fly your jet...or how to shoot your rifle...or how to speak Arabic, etc.

in addition, this sort of structure works well when shit starts hitting fans, bodies start hitting the ground, and plans start flying out of windows.

finally, it's just not realistic (or operationally sound) to keep someone deployed in a combat zone for years on end. they have to rotate units in and out to avoid reducing people to an infantile state, to meet training objectives, to service/replace equipment, and to spread the combat experience out.

Quote :

"They're voicing their concerns now because it is not politically costly to the generals' careers to say what they think to a lame duck administration"

I find it hard to believe that these viewpoints weren't voiced a while back. Their job is to advise, not cheerlead. They may have been ignored or stifled, but I simply can't believe that this is some novel idea that the brains behind the operation have never conceived up until this point.

Quote :

"I think his point is that this is too little, too late. Fine, we can't do anything about the past. What's done is done. But that doesn't change the fact that countless people were right and that our decision-makers should have listened to them. Now we have a nation that is almost guaranteed to come apart at the seams, with no apparent way to fix it. Whether or not Iraq collapses back into a dictatorship or something else takes hold is beyond me, and I can't pretend to even make an educated guess. And you think that our leaders are somehow excused from all of this just because they NOW admit that they fucked up?"

Absolutely not; I'm not excusing anything. I'm just saying:

if he makes a dumb call, you bitch about the dumb call. If he makes a good call, you bitch because he made a dumb call earlier.


My point is that while it may or may not be "too little, too late", there's no point in sitting here feeling sorry for ourselves over past mistakes. You don't have to excuse anything--but it's bullshit to respond with "Whatever--we've done nothing but fuck the dog for the last 4 years" when we actually make a smart move. Learning from your mistakes is one thing, but what we have here is saying "to hell with the future" for the sake of dwelling on the past.

8/23/2007 1:36:22 AM

Quote :

"they want to create versatile, well-rounded, plug & play personnel. for example, as an aviator, it will actually badly hurt my chances of promotion if I just keep on getting flying jobs."

Oh, I know the rationalization. It's just doesn't apply to many of the tasks that we want to do, such as nation building or stateside project administration. That what is stupefying. Outside of battle, quick rotations is terrible management. Any organization that had so much turnover and so little continuity would fail and go out of business very quickly.

All the reasons that you have mentioned just highlight how the military is not setup to do the job, which is the point. Some of the other posters who see this as an evil politician vs wise military thing don't really understand the limits on what the military can do.

[Edited on August 23, 2007 at 2:14 AM. Reason : asd]

8/23/2007 2:11:23 AM

yeah, i would tend to agree. we're nation destroyers who are trying to do the reverse. it's not completely without precedent, but you're right--it certainly isn't what we're geared for.

the military has--organizationally and doctrinally--shifted a step or two in the counterinsurgency direction (as opposed to conventional warfare), but it's unrealistic and unwise, in my opinion, to do anything that would really soften our conventional combat capability for the sake of nation-building ability.

also, aside from the turnover thing, i don't really know what would characterize a "nation-building military."

8/23/2007 9:01:30 AM

the respectful exchange in this thread is refreshing. carry on.

8/23/2007 9:07:02 AM

Quote :

"I find it hard to believe that these viewpoints weren't voiced a while back. Their job is to advise, not cheerlead. They may have been ignored or stifled, but I simply can't believe that this is some novel idea that the brains behind the operation have never conceived up until this point."

I think they were voiced, in private. I know of only one general that voiced his concerns publicly, Army General Shinseki, who told Congress in early 2003 how many troops he thought would be needed to secure Iraq. Wolfowitz and Rumsfeld publicly dismissed his estimate and he retired not long after. Rumsfeld was widely known to believe our military was stuck in a Cold War mentality on war and believed they didn't realize warfare had changed and that objectives could be carried out with less men and more technological prowess. If there is a good point to this war, it is that Rumsfeld's view of modern warfare has been partially discredited, and won't carry as much weight when we fight a war against a country that actually has a functioning military and will fight back.

Senate Transcript from Wikipedia:

Quote :

"SEN. LEVIN: General Shinseki, could you give us some idea as to the magnitude of the Army's force requirement for an occupation of Iraq following a successful completion of the war? GEN. SHINSEKI: In specific numbers, I would have to rely on combatant commanders' exact requirements. But I think -- SEN. LEVIN: How about a range? GEN. SHINSEKI: I would say that what's been mobilized to this point -- something on the order of several hundred thousand soldiers are probably, you know, a figure that would be required. We're talking about post-hostilities control over a piece of geography that's fairly significant, with the kinds of ethnic tensions that could lead to other problems. And so it takes a significant ground- force presence to maintain a safe and secure environment, to ensure that people are fed, that water is distributed, all the normal responsibilities that go along with administering a situation like this."

Wolfowitz's Response:

Quote :

"DEP. SEC. WOLFOWITZ: There has been a good deal of comment - some of it quite outlandish - about what our postwar requirements might be in Iraq. Some of the higher end predictions we have been hearing recently, such as the notion that it will take several hundred thousand U.S. troops to provide stability in post-Saddam Iraq, are wildly off the mark. It is hard to conceive that it would take more forces to provide stability in post-Saddam Iraq than it would take to conduct the war itself and to secure the surrender of Saddam's security forces and his army - hard to imagine."

[Edited on August 23, 2007 at 10:24 AM. Reason : /]

8/23/2007 10:21:47 AM