A Stable Political Order in Post-War Iraq?

nasah
In case you didnot notice, the Parliament attack was an attempt by Musharraf and the Pakistani government to assassinate Vajpayee and others. Where the heck was the UN or the conscience of the international community then? Thats reserved for attacks on Saddam, right?

Vajpayee and the Indian government would be fully justified in attempting to assassinate Musharraf. Godspeed to this realisation on their part and to their success.

You break it you pay for it:

Weighing the Price of Rebuilding Iraq
By THOMAS R. PICKERING and JAMES R. SCHLESINGER


Baghdad has fallen, and the world`s attention is turning to the rebuilding of Iraq. The United States has a vital interest in helping to create a stable, prosperous Iraqi government that renounces weapons of mass destruction (oh that crummy phrase) and support for terrorism, does not threaten its neighbors and respects the rights of its people.

Meeting this goal will require from the United States a multiyear, multibillion dollar commitment.

President Bush should continue and expand his efforts to explain the rationale for postwar American engagement in Iraq and to describe the extent of the required commitment.

Financially, this could amount to about $20 billion annually for several years.

Keeping 75,000 troops in Iraq will cost the United States about $17 billion a year, and reconstruction and humanitarian assistance could cost several billion more.

Some have suggested that Iraq`s oil wealth can defray these costs.

But much of that wealth has in recent years been allocated to the United Nations Oil for Food Program, which has sustained 60 percent of the population, and now oil revenues will again be needed to pay for food.

Although increased oil production could yield more revenue, major increases are years (and many dollars) away.

Moreover, those oil revenues cannot realistically be spent on supporting American troops;

the United States will have to pay for the troops itself. (NYT)
_____________________________________________
it is like a Texas style -- Home Invasion -- where the Criminals are asking the household to defray the `cost` of their burglury-- bravo!

A Roy on -- ``murder of language.``

``Freedom means mass murder now. In the U.S., it means fried potatoes (freedom fries).

Liberation means invasion and occupation.

When you hear the words ``humanitarian aid,`` it’s advisable to look around for induced starvation.

We all know what collateral damage means.

Of course, none of this is new.

When the U.S. invaded South Vietnam and bombed the countryside, killing thousands of people and forcing thousands to flee to cities where they were held in refugee camps, Samuel Huntington called this a process of ``urbanization.``

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An International Norm established by the BUSHY the Ass-ass-in -- the new MAFIOSI BOSS of the world-- and his ENFORCER -- Tony the lapdog is:

ASSASSINATION in PERSUIT of DEMOCRACY -- is a laudable legitimate goal.

If Vajpayee does not like Dictator Musharraf -- NOW he can assassinate Musharraf by remote control -- and it will be legal.

it`s STILL -- an illegal, illegitimate, immoral war.

I believe that all parties will need a great deal more luck to

bring stability AFTER the fall of Baghdad.


Ras

Romar: You write ``One thing I have not been able to figure out``

Just one thing??

Doesn`t Iraq owe something like 80-90 billion dollars to various debtors?

One thing I have not been able to figure out:

If the aim is to have democracy in the Middle East, then why start with Iraq? And why through a war?

Wouldn`t it be better to start with Jordan, UAE, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Egypt etc., i.e countries with whom the USA has very good relations and whose regimes are totally dependent on the USA? Why not call up the goofy looking Jordanian King with the good-looking Palestinian wife, and tell him his free trade agreement ends unless he steps down and holds elections? And no more access to the White House, for a tiny little insignificant country like yours. And why not call King Fahd and say, our soldiers and leaving, and we are not going to protect your monarchy, if you don`t introduce democracy? Why fight a war, spend 100 billion dollars, put the whole world on the edge, to introduce democracy in a country which is now too poor to feed itself, much less be a threat to anyone?

There is a reason that the only countries with which the USA has good relations in the Middle East are all kingdoms or Martial Laws: The Arab population hates the USA with a passion. Its not like the hatred between Indians and Pakistanis. It is way beyond that. Pakistan has been able to defend itself against India and is not dominated by it. Hence, there is dislike, but no frustration or humiliation. That is why one rarely sees Pakistanis burning Indian flags or jumping on effegies of Vajpayee. They know they are secure.

Arabs are helpless against Israel and USA. Israelis and Americans run over them as and when they wish. Hence there exists a lot of frustration and humiliation. That is why one sees them jumping on pictures of Bush and Sharon. Because they know that is all they can do. They are very insecure.

Surveys have clearly shown that the two countries the Arabs dislike the most in the whole world are Israel and USA. Top two out of around 190 countries. No. 3 is UK. One can debate whether this dislike is deserved or not. But it is there.

Why in the world, once the dust settles down, would Arabs want Americans running their mohalla, much less their country, in any way? That would be like Arabs wanting Israel liberating them and running their country. Even if it improved their country, they wouldn`t accept it.

I have a couple of friends who lived in Afghanistan, pre-USSR invasion days. The Kabul they describe is no more, and I doubt it will come into existence again for a long time. Afghanistan would be a much better place had the USSR and USA (and other countries which eventually got involved like Pakistan, India, Iran etc.) had not fought their battles there.

I have another friend who lived in Baghdad. I doubt we will see the same pre-first Gulf war Baghdad again. The USA (and soon other countries like Iran, Turkey, future Kurdistan, Israel, etc.) are too deep into it now. It is now the Afghanistan of the Middle East. It doesn`t matter how much oil it has, in comparison to Afghanistan, or how sophisticated its population maybe. It had that oil and that sophistication even when it was being bombed and sanctioned. A huge number of the Iraqi elite (much like the Afghan elite) are outside Iraq now - millions of them. Why would an Iraqi settled in the USA (or even in Jordan) want to return to a poor and unstable Iraq.

The people in Iraq, seem to be at a stage where they need food more than anything else. At the moment, they could probably care less who gives it to them, be it Saddam or Bush. But in the long run, they are Arabs, and Arabs hate Americans, even though Arab kings love America. How in the world can the USA then democraticize a region (assuming that is the real intention) where even the most allied of the US allies, Turkey, has a population out of which 90% of the people oppose this war (In Pakistan, an area which hates US far less than Arabs hate US, according to Herald, the percentage against this war was 98%).

Any stable democracy in the Middle East, will thus be very nationalistic and anti-USA. It will obviously be anti-Israel. Even one that is friendly to the USA, will at the very least, control its oil assets much more closely and will not allow the US the access it currently enjoys. And most of all, stable democracies tend to result in strong countries. Why in the world would the US want the Middle East Arabs to become strong, if it would limit its current oil access, and more importantly make them much stronger threats to Israel?

It just doesn`t add up, with or without Saddam, and with or without Iraqis dancing in the streets. A strong democratic Middle East is the best thing that could happen to the Arabs and to the Muslim world in general, and the worst thing that could happen to the US oil machine and to Israel. Why are govts. and the populations of the USA and Israel (the only two in the world that support this war) so gung-ho about democratizing Iraq. They are far too intelligent to shoot themselves in the foot. So there has to be some other reason.

Had Saddam been pro-US, and as long as he was pro-US, I doubt Iraq would have been invaded. It is impossible for the US to create pro-US countries by invading them. Quite the contrary, in the long term, the people of those countries tend to become even more anti-US. Ask any Afghani today, other than die-hard Northern Alliance members, and they still hate the Russians for invading their land, despite the diplomatic friendliness at the moment. And I bet five years from now, if you ask any Iraqi, they will hate the USA in the same way.

The criteria to use for Iraq`s progress should not be a direct comparison with Afghanistan. Even if the USA and UK siphon of 90% of Iraq`s oil revenues, Iraq will still be much wealthier than Afghanistan. The criteria to use is whether Iraq will reach the same stage it would have reached through local evolution (much like what is happening in Iran and Pakistan - two countries much poorer than Iraq, but much more stable and sophisticated), however messy it may have been, as a result of the US bombs falling on it.

I doubt it. Iraq will just be an oil rich wealthier version of Afghanistan, with every neighbor jumping in, supporting his own faction, trying to gain influence. Saddam is just one Arab, and in the long term would have been an insignificant one. Sooner or later, a well fed non-sanctioned Iraqi populace would have removed him through a revolution (a la Iran), a military coup (a la Pakistan), urban uprisings (a la Indonesia), etc.). Destroying a whole country and sanctioning it into oblivion in his name, under the banner of democracy, is wrong. Specially when US troops are in Saudi Arabia, protecting non-democratic kings and when the US itself installed a king in Kuwait, after liberating it.

Even if we give 100% benefit of the doubt to the US, Iraq is still in for a terrible road ahead. Perhaps the USA should have first successfully given an good example of nation-building in Afghanistan, before starting its next venture.

Re: SameerJB #5

``The Iraqi population is highly educated and given the oil reserves, all Iraq needs is a sensible, democratic government and Iraq will outshine everybody in the region in short period of 10-15 years.``

You seem optimistic!! If only that was so. But America is not going to let that happen, yeah sure it harps on about ``democracy`` and ``political stability`` but I doubt whether Bush has such noble plans in mind. Once this war is over, Bush and his friends are going to have a field day, because Iraq is the honeypot which America needs now that it is running into slightly muddy waters with other ``oil`` nations such as Saudi and Venezuela. Therefore, Iraq will essentially become an American colony. who would have thought eh?

The situation in post-war Iraq seems to be fraught with problems. Ethnic problems are one issue, then there is the issue of terrororiality, the issue of regional stability, domestic law and order situation and the bureaucratic infrastructure, which governs Iraq. The one advantage that Iraq does have over Afghanistan is that Iraq does have, in contrast to Afghanistan, an institutional bureaucracy. Leaving aside the time limits of American committment to Iraq, the real problem is that the Americans have no idea how to rule Iraq.

This war was supposedely fought with the aim of replacing Saddam Hussein`s rule/regime with another regime in Iraq. If this was really the state aim, then the Americans should have created a replacement regime, for Saddam Hussein`s inevitable fall, and had this regime ready to installed even before the first shot was fired in anger. The fact that the Americans are now, in midst of a war, trying to create a regime to replace the one already in Baghdad, suggests that this war was ill planned and the peace that will follow, will be an ad hoc peace with all its dire consequences, and with no clearly defined political objectives. What is happening is that clear, well defined political aims are non-existent and what is existent is the policies of gradual incrementalism. The United States has no long term plans for Iraq and it is more interested in the daily mechanics of this war than its aftermath. Just like Afghanistan, the United States will win this war, but lose the peace because its political rhetoric will not be an adequate subsitute for a viable policy in the post-war Iraq.

I have to concur with Temperoal. What will follow will be instability and not stability and any hopes on a western educated Iraqi elite ruling Iraq will be misplaced just as the hope of a western biased and western educated class govering Afghanistan ended up being a bad joke. The question is not whether a western educated or based or biased elite can rule/govern a post-Saddam Hussein Iraq. The question is whether such a group/class of people will have the long term support of the United States or not!

It is still too early to predict what will happen, but one thing is certain. Thing will not go ``according to plan`` and given the political impatience of the Americans, the American committment in Iraq is going to be defined by the electoral interests of the Bush administration and that spells disaster for all concerned!

Ciao

The author sounds like he almost hopes for instability.

Mr. Islam:
I have consistently opposed the American invasion of Iraq and still do, primarily because it has set a very bad precedent. For the same reason, I had also opposed the NATO bombing of Kosovo, and Afghanistan even though I hated the leaders of all three: Milosvich, Taliban and Saddam.
Has anyone failed to notice that they are now talking less and less about Saddam`s links with Al Qaida or even the weapons of mass destruction? Now, it is only about improving the lives of the long-suffering Iraqis. Hypocrites! Whose lives are going to be ``improved`` next?
Having said all this, I must say that I, for one, am relieved that the resistance to the coalition forces has been less than anticipated and the civilian casualties have been much lower than would have been the case if the Republican Guard, Fedayeen and other militia had engaged in the anticipated urban warfare.
As regards the post-war scenario, all bets are off. There are too many uncertainties to see the future clearly? Are Iraqis going to offer significant resistance and engage in a guerrila war against the Americans? Will the splinter groups of Iraqi opposition with their own ``dhayee eent kee masjids`` able to overcome their differences and able to cooperate with each other at least during the interim period? Will the Kurds eschew their aspirations and will the shiites and sunnis be able to live in amity? Will Turkey accept a degree of autonomy for the Iraqi Kurds? I think that the Iranian ayatollahs are too pragmatic to start creating trouble and give Americans an excuse to come after them, having already been declared a part of the axis of evil? What lessons will be drawn by Saudis, Egyptians, Syrians and other Arabs and their rulers from the massive display of the U.S military power and, more importantly, the will to use that power to attain America`s geopolitical and commercial interests? Closer to home, what lessons will India and, more importantly, Pakistan draw from this outcome?
The Americans will now be facing a real challenge now. There is no doubt that they will stay there for at least a couple of years? But will they let a genuine democracy develop in Iraq, knowing fully well that demoratic governments in the Arab world will definitely be anti-Israeli, if not anti-U.S? If the past is any indicator of future, the answer to that question has to be in the negative.

nazarhayatkhan#27
``Islam was a normal reformist, liberal and a secular religion right upto the First World War. Its two great empires - Ottoman and Mughal were secular and liberal. (barring freak phenomenons like Mahmud Ghaznavi & Aurangzeb``
Wrong! There were many secular muslim rulers but Islam was, and is, not a liberal or secular religion. Any religion that divides the world into two hostile camps of dar-ul-harb and dar-ul-islam, uses hateful terms like Kafir for non-believers, justifies violent jihad in the name of religion, imposes death penalty on anyone renouncing Islam and nothing but incentives for those renouncing other religions in favour of Islam and, in general, requires its rulers to treat their muslim and non-muslim subjects differently cannot even pretend to be secular, unless the meaning of that word is distorted beyond recognition.

Baghdad sheh`r wich saddam day butt nuN
loki maraN juttiaN hoooooooooo
alif amrika, saddam di laa`nat
Iraq wich Bush naiN lahi hoooooo

Sultan Bahu

People are throwing shoes at the statue of Saddam in Bushabad, who had recently won rederendum with 99+ vote. Mush beware with only 97 percent of support.

No more air raids on Bushabad from now onward. British are in tottal control of Blaira. Ironically, Bushabad was last time militarily won by any non-Muslim was Hilaku of Mongolia and Mongolia is supporting Iraqi Liberation war, giving very insightful advice to alliance of the willings from their experience some 8-9 centuries ago..

Going a little off the track but this Iraq war has brought out some interesting historical observations to me:

(a) Islam was a normal reformist, liberal and a secular religion right upto the First World War. Its two great empires - Ottoman and Mughal were secular and liberal. (barring freak phenomenons like Mahmud Ghaznavi & Aurangzeb)

(b) The radicalization of Islam began by the Saudi Arabia after it came into existance with fall of the Ottomans. There was an understanding between the Royal family and Muttawas that the family rules with iron fist while clergy with lot of peerks minds the religion. It suited both.

(c) The serious damage began when saudi Arabia hit oil and it began to spread it radical version to other Muslim countries through the charities.

(d) Iraq all along remained a secular and liberal country with a dictatorship and an Arab flavour.

(e) Emotional Pakistanies keep harping on a fantasy of an Islamic Ummah which never existed. The Arabs only talk about their Arab nationalism which transcends all religious differences.

Have I added to the confusion or this sounds right?