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A Central Pillar of Iraq Policy Crumbling
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Bush's administration has insisted that political progress would quell the insurgency. But the reverse may be true, U.S. analysts say.

By Tyler Marshall and Louise Roug
Times Staff Writers

October 9 2005

WASHINGTON; Senior U.S. officials have begun to question a key presumption of American strategy in Iraq: that establishing democracy there can erode and ultimately eradicate the insurgency gripping the country.

The complete article can be viewed at:
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/wo...ll=la-tot-promo

It is belatedly becoming clear that the political process we imposed on Iraq, intended to introduce democracy, has instead produce desecularization, dissension, and division of the Iraqi body politic. As Robert Malley is quoted at the end of the piece: "Success in Iraq 'is not about democracy or non-democracy; it's about reaching consensus on a political pact that all parties agree to.'" In other words, it's about power and how it is distributed and administers, not about an electoral process calculated to ratify the deal the Kurds and some Sh`iites have cut with each other over the heads of Arab Sunnis. The elections are about a political pact all parties manifestly do not agree to. Few in Iraq or among Iraq's Arab neighbors will agree either. Iran is pleased.

We did regime removal, not regime change (we did not replace the regime we overthrew). We then destroyed the Iraqi state. Not content with that, we devised an electoral and constitution-building process to replace it that encouraged confessional, ethnic, and regional rivalries and emphasized them and confederalism over the rebuilding of a consensual Iraqi national identity. We should not be surprised by the result. Attempting a belated makeover, as the president has, by arguing that Iraq is all about frustrating Osama Binladen and other Salafis' ambition of establishing a new Islamic Caliphate does not make it prettier. (And, if that's what it's about, it is an Islamic version of the thirty years' war between Catholics and Protestants. The Islamic world wisely sat that one out. Perhaps we should learn from their example.)

Our generals now openly contradict their political masters by stating flatly that there is no military solution in Iraq; it is an increasingly complex political problem requiring political solutions. But the political process we have devised exacerbates divisions and compounds the problem rather than mitigating it. Our presence and the ideas (laudable in the abstract but misguided in the Iraqi context) we advocate are the problem. The President's answer is to ignore the political problems we are creating and to do more of the same militarily. There is no reason to expect this to do anything but make things worse, including with respect to the danger of anti-American terrorism. That is why an increasing number of people suggest that part of the solution is to abjure any ambition for bases or other military advantage in Iraq and to make it clear that we are leaving, emphasizing the imperative that Iraqis and their neighbors (who have the most at stake in this regard) progressively accept responsibility for stabilizing the country. It will require the US to reach out to Iran and Syria rather than to confront them, as we are now doing. To do this is not easy and will likely necessitate, as Ray Close argues, making Iraq a partisan issue in the context of the 2006 elections as well as in 2008.