John Lister Response

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 domestically have been a regular, if not frequent, occurrence in the Arab world. 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. Iraq itself has had three elections since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003. 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.

Iraq is perhaps the most extreme case. 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. 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. From the beginning, however, the United States proceeded in a confused manner. 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. 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. Then other elements of the U.S. government opposed the “outsiders,” arguing that they lacked legitimacy and would be unable to hold onto power. Whatever the merits of each side’s arguments, the debate led to political paralysis. 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. 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.

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. Constitution in the midst of the Civil War. 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 winner-take-all free for all. Does it mean, though, that there is nothing we (the United States or the West generally) can do? Can, for example, a democratic development take place that contributes to peace and isolates the insurgents?<...