The Good, the Bad, the Ugly (Democrats & Iraq)

When it comes to the future of Iraq, there's not just one Democratic Party; there are three.

First, there are the Nancy Pelosi Democrats. These Democrats voted against Paul Bremer's $87 billion plan for the reconstruction of Iraq. The essence of their case is that the Bush administration is too corrupt and incompetent to reconstruct Iraq. If Bush is for it, they're against it.

Their hatred for Bush is so dense, it's hard for them to see through it to the consequences of their vote. But if Pelosi's arguments had carried the day, our troops in Iraq would be reading this morning about the death of the Bremer plan and the ruination of our efforts to rebuild Iraq.

Saddam Hussein would be jubilant in Pelosi's Iraq. He has long argued that America is a decadent country that will buckle at the first sign of trouble. If the Pelosi Democrats had won yesterday's vote, the Saddam Doctrine would be enshrined in every terrorist cave and dictator's palace around the world: kill some Americans and watch the empire buckle.

A few days ago the Pelosi Democrats came up with a fig leaf alternative to the Bremer plan, which would have reduced U.S. control of reconstruction and shifted power to the World Bank. When that plan went nowhere, the Pelosi Democrats were faced with a choice: trust Americans or choke off the funds. They voted to choke off the funds.

And so in Pelosi's Iraq, there would be little money for children's hospitals, jails, clean water and schools. In Pelosi's Iraq, everyone would begin preparing for the post-U.S. power vacuum. The Kurds would rush to independence, the Sunnis would stock up on weapons, and the Shiites would call in Iran to help them in the coming civil war. The dream of an Iraqi constitution would die in its crib.

For the roster of the Pelosi Democrats, look at those who voted against the Bremer plan. Some names are obvious: Dennis Kucinich, Ted Kennedy and Barbara Boxer. But there are some names you wouldn't expect to see on that list: John Kerry and John Edwards. France, Russia and Syria don't oppose the Bremer plan, but the Pelosi Democrats are to the left of Bashar al-Assad.

Next we come to the Evan Bayh Democrats, named after the Indiana senator. These Democrats can see past their dislike of the president. They would appropriate some money for Iraqi reconstruction. But siding with the anti-foreign-aid Republicans, they'd turn the rest of the aid into loans. The Iraqi people have been raped, tortured and left bloodied on the floor. The Bayh Democrats say to them: Here's a credit card. Go buy yourself some treatment, and you can pay us back later.

The Bayh Democrats are centrist but not visionary, and they seem to worry more about adding an extra $10 billion to the deficit than about the future of the Middle East. They may have read memos from the Democratic pollsters on the unpopularity of the $87 billion plan, but they don't seem to have read about the Versailles Treaty and what happens when strong nations impose punitive burdens on proud ones.

Finally we come to the Cantwell Democrats. This group could be named after Joe Biden, Joe Lieberman or Dick Gephardt, but Maria Cantwell, the Washington senator, sits at Scoop Jackson's old desk on the Senate floor. The Cantwell Democrats are dismayed with how the Bush administration has handled the postwar period. They'd like to see the rich pay a bigger share of the reconstruction cost. But they knew Friday's vote wasn't about George Bush. It was about doing what's right for the Iraqi people and what's right, over the long term, for the American people. These Democrats supported the aid package, and were willing to pay a price to give the Iraqis their best shot at a decent future. This week, Gephardt, who has to win over Iowa liberals to have any shot at the White House, is the bravest man in Washington.

Those are the three Democratic visions — the good, the bad and the ugly. Right now the Pelosi wing of the party is dominant, and the Cantwell wing is beleaguered. So this is a party teetering on the brink of full-bore liberal isolationism.

Who is going to pull it back? Probably not Wesley Clark. The Clark Democrats are actually the fourth category in the party: the ones who are too mealy-mouthed to take a stand either way.

Here's another "I can't believe the NYT printed that," from a couple of weeks ago:

Democracy, Closer Every Day By NOAH FELDMAN

Many Americans, not to mention our European allies, may be shaking their heads over President Bush's defiant speech at the United Nations yesterday. With the coalition forces under daily attack and billions being spent to rebuild Iraq, shouldn't Mr. Bush have been more conciliatory in an effort to get other countries to send troops?

Actually, Mr. Bush was right to refuse a rushed transfer of sovereignty to an interim Iraqi government as the price to pay for greater international participation in the postwar effort.

The reconstruction of Iraq is a two-track process: one track for security, one for politics. The problems on the security track will not be overcome simply by bringing in more soldiers, American or otherwise.

Meanwhile, the political track has been going much better than critics admit — but it could be derailed if the coalition fails to help Iraqis achieve security before turning things over to an Iraqi government that can actually rule the country. To depart from our present course probably wouldn't help — and it could do real harm.

First, security. Instability in Iraq is not as broad-based as many fear. Essentially all of Iraq's Shiite Muslims and Kurds, who between them make up 80 percent of the population, were happy to see Saddam Hussein go and have made it clear that they want the coalition to remain long enough to prevent the Baath party from re-emerging.

Thus the main internal threat comes from Sunni Arabs, who have long held power despite being only about 15 percent of the population. Yet even if many of these Sunnis want the coalition out, only a few seem so far to be willing to take up arms — otherwise we would be seeing thousands of incidents each week rather than a handful. Perhaps the greatest concern is the possibility that some attacks have been initiated by terrorists controlled by Iran or Al Qaeda who have infiltrated Iraq's essentially unguarded borders.

Still, the answer to this threat isn't bringing in foreign troops or putting more Americans on the ground, but creating an effective Iraqi security force — fast. Only Iraqi police officers and soldiers, knowledgeable about local conditions and populations, and with access to high-quality local intelligence, stand a chance of breaking Sunni resistance cells and identifying foreign agents.

The call by Democrats (and, lately, many Republicans) to internationalize the coalition forces is well taken in terms of saving money and patching up diplomatic relations. But Indian and French troops would have no better luck combating terrorists than the Americans.

As for French and German suggestions that we speed up the transfer of sovereignty to an Iraqi interim government, it would be just as unlikely to aid security. The violence is not coming from people who would be sympathetic to any such interim government. Worse, unless the police and military have been truly reconstituted, an interim body would be a travesty of a sovereign government. Actual control is the indispensable hallmark of sovereignty. Nothing could be worse for the future of democracy in Iraq than the creation of a puppet government unable to keep the peace.

To see the path to a legitimate, functional Iraqi government one must consider the remarkable and unexpected progress being made on the political track. Since the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime in May, the Iraqis participating in organized politics have shown a maturity and unity of purpose that prewar critics would scarcely have credited.

The two most important Kurdish parties, the Kurdistan Democratic Party and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, have subordinated their historical rivalry and have acted in concert, casting a steadying light over the rest of the political scene and often taking the lead in coordinating policy among the Iraqi Governing Council. Far from insisting on secession and Kurdish independence, as many in the region expected, the Kurdish leaders are sticking to the vision of a federal Iraq, and urging their sometimes impatient community not to falter when they are so close to achieving long-awaited freedom from autocratic Arab rule.

More important to the future of democracy in Muslim Iraq, the senior Shiite religious leaders, and the political parties loosely associated with them, have consistently eschewed divisive rhetoric in favor of calls for Sunni-Shiite unity. Most have repeatedly asserted their desire for democratic government respectful of Islamic values, rather than government by mullahs on the failed Iranian model.

As a result, they have been largely successful in marginalizing younger radicals like the rejectionist Moktada al-Sadr. When Mr. Sadr organized an anti-coalition protest in the holy city of Najaf in July, he was forced to bus in supporters from Baghdad, three dusty hours away. (Wisely, the coalition has declined to arrest Mr. Sadr; his hopes for a living martyrdom denied, he increasingly looks more like a small-time annoyance than the catalyst of a popular movement.)

The emergence of democratic attitudes among religiously committed Shiites was underscored on Saturday in Detroit when Ibrahim Jafari, leader of the Islamist Dawa Party and the most recent Iraqi Governing Council member to hold its rotating presidency, addressed the second annual Iraqi-American Conference.

The largely Christian audience of Iraqi-Americans spent the morning worrying about the dangers of a constitution declaring Islam the official religion of Iraq, but then treated Dr. Jafari to a standing ovation after he made the case for a pluralistic, tolerant Iraq in which all citizens — Muslim and non-Muslim, men and women — would have full rights of citizenship.

The same proud insistence on the compatibility of Islamic values and a democratic Iraq was sounded last week in Bahrain by 40 Iraqi Shiites at a program on constitutional values sponsored by the American Bar Association. Skeptical of arguments for a strong separation of religion and state, these representatives nonetheless took as a given that a country as religiously diverse as Iraq must ensure religious freedom — mandated, they said, by the Koran — and equality for all citizens.

The next step is for the Iraqi Governing Council's constitutional preparatory committee to complete its canvass of the country and to propose a system for naming representatives to an Iraqi constitutional convention. The committee needs to find a workable solution — short of a general election, which would be logistically impossible right now — to choose a legitimate representative body.

It is considering several proposals, including a national "yes or no" referendum on a complete slate nominated by the council. The details need to be worked out, but there is no question that a solution will be reached and that the constitutional convention, once named, will draft a constitution for ratification by the Iraqi people.

It is difficult to imagine elections being held under a new constitution before next fall. The constitutional convention will have to resolve complex questions of the boundaries of the provinces in a federal Iraq, as well as finding the right form of government to manage Iraq's distinctive ethno-religious mix. But the French and Germans should take note: getting quick but wrong answers to these questions would be much worse than taking some time to get the right answers.

And, of course, even a flawless electoral system would be useless if the elected government were unable to keep the peace and the lights on.

That is why solving the security problems — by rebuilding the Iraqi police and army — must for now be the coalition's highest priority. It will cost a great deal of money, and create a risk that the reconstituted Iraqi armed forces might some day make their own grab for power — something the military has done repeatedly in Iraq's history. But this gamble must be taken, because if the security situation is not brought under control, it could destroy the political track.

If the Iraqis, with international help, can keep the peace, they will achieve democracy. Otherwise, America's pragmatic and moral duty to help Iraq become a free nation will be almost impossible to fulfill.

Noah Feldman, author of ``After Jihad: America and the Struggle for Islamic Democracy,´´ is professor of law at New York University and was a constitutional adviser to the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq.

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