Posted on 01/18/2004 3:35:51 PM PST by optimistically_conservative
NAJAF, Iraq - As the United States considers changing its plan to bring stable government to Iraq (news - web sites), its quandary grows more acute: stick with proposals for an unelected assembly and risk a revolt by the Shiite majority, or cave to a Shiite ayatollah's demand for a direct vote and possibly alienate Kurdish and Sunni minorities.
A wrong move could ignite the already combustible political climate in a nation of competing ethnic and cultural groups, all eager to promote their conflicting agendas after more than three decades of totalitarian rule.
Caught in the middle are 130,000 American troops who have suffered 500 dead since the Iraq war began March 20. At stake is the future of Iraq and President Bush (news - web sites)'s administration.
The dilemma centers on the June 30 deadline for the formal end of the occupation and establishment of a sovereign Iraqi government. American forces will stay in Iraq but in fewer numbers. They will gradually hand security responsibilities to the Iraqis, thereby reducing the risk of American casualties as Bush campaigns for re-election.
Threatening that timetable is the demand of Ayatollah Ali al-Husseini al-Sistani, Iraq's most prominent Shiite leader, for direct elections to a legislature that will select a new government.
The American plan calls for legislators to be chosen in 18 regional caucuses, which Shiites fear could be manipulated to promote U.S.-favored candidates.
Al-Sistani also wants the elected legislature to have a voice in whether coalition troops stay in Iraq beyond the transfer of power. He says an interim constitution should be subject to the approval of an elected assembly.
U.S. administrator L. Paul Bremer maintains there is no time to organize an election given the ongoing insurgency and absence of voter rolls. Bremer has suggested the plan could be refined to accommodate Shiite demands but has also insisted that the June 30 deadline is not negotiable.
Seeking a way out of the impasse, the Bush administration is turning to the United Nations (news - web sites), which was deeply divided over the war and refused to authorize it. Bremer and the current president of the U.S.-appointed Iraqi Governing Council, Adnan Pachachi, plan to meet Monday in New York with U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan (news - web sites) to discuss what role the world body can play in Iraq — before and after the transfer of sovereignty.
"Of course, the involvement of the U.N. will undoubtedly give greater international legitimacy to the process," Pachachi said last week. Iraq wants the United Nations to help write a constitution, compile a voters' list and conduct a census, he said.
Pachachi and Bremer will be looking to Annan to confirm through a "visible and clear" statement what he has already stated in letters to the Governing Council — that no credible elections can be held before July 1 — according to an official from the Coalition Provisional Authority.
"There isn't going to be a new plan," said the official, who declined to be named. "Shiites have a profound fear of being deprived again of a meaningful voice and are worried that they may lose in the caucuses system. But we will do everything we can to improve the plan."
Although Shiites are believed to comprise about 60 percent of Iraq's 25 million people, they have been suppressed for generations by the minority Sunnis. With the overthrow of Saddam's Sunni-dominated regime last April, Shiites hope to translate their superior numbers into political power.
Unlike the Sunnis, the Shiites have generally refrained from attacking U.S. forces. That goodwill could disappear and even be replaced by open hostility if al-Sistani is ignored.
"I think al-Sistani should be taken very, very seriously," said Juan R. Cole, an expert on Iraqi Shiites from the University of Michigan. "To ignore him will be a big mistake."
Clerics wield enormous influence in the Shiite community. As a sign of clerical power, al-Sistani's lieutenants got up to 30,000 people to march in support of his demands Thursday in the southern city of Basra. A day later, al-Sistani's representative in the holy city of Karbala threatened protests and possibly "confrontations" with the occupying forces if the ayatollah's demands are rejected.
"Only through elections can there be a genuine transfer of power," Sadr al-Deen al-Qoubanji of the Shiite Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq told worshippers Friday in this Shiite holy city, where the Iranian-born al-Sustani has lived for 50 years.
Balancing the interests of Iraq's diverse communities has bedeviled rulers since the country was carved out of the wreckage of the Ottoman Empire after World War I.
Clashes between Shiites and Sunnis are not uncommon. In December, a Sunni mosque was bombed in Baghdad, killing three people. On Jan. 9, a car bomb killed five people outside a Shiite mosque in Baqouba, a mixed Sunni-Shiite city in a mostly Sunni region.
Already, the country's Sunni community resents what it considers American bias toward the Shiites. That perception makes it difficult to lure significant numbers of Sunnis away from the insurgency, centered in the "Sunni Triangle" north and west of Baghdad.
In the north, many Sunnis fear domination by ethnic Kurds, who form an estimated 20 percent of the Iraqi population. Armed Kurdish militias fought alongside U.S. troops during the war and are the most pro-American group in Iraq.
The goal of the Kurds is to maintain and expand the autonomy they've enjoyed in the north since the 1991 Gulf War (news - web sites). Kurdish politicians would like to expand their control of the oil-rich area around Kirkuk, historically a Kurdish city but one under Saddam's control until the collapse of his regime.
See this from an Iraqi blog:
4th Infantry Division 24 Hour Activity + late CJTF7 post: 4ID Soldiers Find Weapons Cache
Why just one vote? If that office holder dies, there is no one representing that province at all! Why do you think the US Senate has two senators for each state? That way when one senator retires or dies, the other senator become the senior senator while the new senator learns the ropes.
The same point could have been made about the Japanese after WWII. One of the smartest things that MacArthur did was to give their women the vote, and its one of the bright things we're doing in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Can you imagine what would happen to those fat cat Saudi princes after we give their women the vote!!!
Bull. Sistani has no "profound fear"; he wants to make a power grab, pure and simple, and install a theocratic dictatorshiop. That's why he wants a "pure democracy," rather than a federalist system.
The same point could have been made about the Japanese after WWII.
I think the Japanese were much more receptive to democratization than the Iraqis are or will be. And ironically, to a considerably greater degree than the Iraqis, the Japanese wanted to emulate things American, Besides, they were the vanquished and had no choice. And we did not have to contend much with world opinion as we do now. Also, the Republicans were not a fifth column trying to undermine the Truman administration and hurry its departure from Japan. And we did not have terrorists to contend with in Japan. Establishing democracy in Iraq is much more difficult than it was in Japan.
The Japanese were a society that was cut off from a lot of the Western world. They also believed they were morally superior to the rest of the world's peoples, and were entitled to do what they did.
...they were the vanquished and had no choice.
I'll grant you this, for sure. If we totally humiliated the Arabs, they might be easier to govern. But Arab governments have already humiliated most of their people. We might find them easier to work with, once we get a few more tyrannies deposed. Also consider the fact that we did not remove the Japanese emperor, whereas seeing Saddam Huisein getting probed for lice might be a sufficient amount of humiliation for the Iraqis who followed him.
...the Republicans were not a fifth column trying to undermine the Truman administration and hurry its departure from Japan.
The Rats are not going to be able to undermine us. Their opposition will only serve to bury them politically.
Establishing democracy in Iraq is much more difficult than it was in Japan.
One of the key differences is the ethnic singularity of the Japanese, versus the three ethnic groups we have to deal with in Iraq. Breaking Iraq up would make our job much easier. Certainly, the Kurds would be somewhat cooperative, possibly even the Shiites, especially after we subdue Iran, leaving only the Sunnis to have to pound down further.
I disagree. Theres much to be said for some degree of continuity in government. That's why the US Senate has staggered terms. I'm not sure it is possible for roles to always be clearly defined. There are always unforseen situations that don't fit into pre-existing categories.
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