Bremer is right to refute these two primary damnations often made against him. However, that is not enough. Not only does he need a much more thorough and documented rebuttal, but even more importantly, he needs to highlight the amazing framework he created for the future of Iraq.
This could be a book as influential to capitalism and economics as has been written since The Wealth of Nations.
Let me explain. When Bremer arrived on the scene, Iraq was the closest thing to a “tabula rasa”, a blank slate, as far as government was concerned. It was reduced to a state not unlike Japan at the end of World War II, when General Douglas MacArthur was in the same role as Bremer found himself.
So what Bremer and his organization of young, energetic experts, not dominated by preconceived notions and old ideas, did, was create the closest thing to textbook perfection of the best of the economic systems that exist on Earth. Learned pragmatism based on known models.
But even more, unlike other economic systems for banking, monetary policy and currency, insurance, stock markets, etc., which evolved through trial and error elsewhere, gathering much baggage along the way, Bremer’s creation was pristine: textbook examples of what *should* be.
On top of that, he personally was responsible for much of the debt relief, the hundreds of billions of dollars of debt piled up by Saddam, that ended up with Iraq now having an excellent credit rating—essential for international economic success.
Already we are seeing the Iraqi Dinar becoming one of the best currencies in the Middle East. The future growth of the Iraqi economy may even be faster than post-war Japan’s, making them an economic powerhouse in the region.
But it was not perfect. I can level two criticisms at Bremer, though he might not be entirely to blame, and not for what was done, but for what wasn’t done.
The first is that he did not abolish the French-style legal system of Iraq, and replace it with the far more efficient and business friendly Common Law legal system. This will slow down their recovery to some extent, and will leave them weaker than if they had the better system of law.
The second is that he did not advance the idea of a Middle East Common Market, modeled after the EU. A confederacy of nations that have embraced democracy and transparency. Had he done so, it would have contributed much to the momentum of democracy in the region.
He may be forgiven for both of these errors, given that they are acts of omission, not commission, and without the understanding of the importance of both, it just represents lost opportunities.
But five, ten or twenty years from now, when we look at Iraq, hopefully as a strong, free, democratic, wealthy and powerful nation, J. Paul Bremer will be remembered like General MacArthur is in Japan.
In other words they had accomplished more in the time they spent there than the Democrats could ever hope to in New Orleans.