Politics, Progress and Hope in Iraq

[Snowden]

The New Politics of Iraq
Progress in Baghdad belies pessimism in Washington.

Saturday, October 15, 2005 12:01 a.m.

Millions of Iraqis will risk their lives today to endorse their new constitution, but it's a measure of American defeatism that the vote is already being dismissed in many quarters as a mirage on the road to inevitable civil war. On the contrary, we'd say the vote is further evidence that the Iraq mission still has every chance of succeeding.

The expected approval is certainly a triumph for Iraqi political leaders, who have been underestimated by everyone, including too often by the Bush Administration. Going back to the Governing Council, most Iraqi politicians have displayed both wisdom and a spirit of compromise. Yes, there have been feuds and acts of brinksmanship along the way. Name a government where there aren't such public spectacles, and you'll find a dictatorship.

Whatever its flaws, the new constitution is by far the most liberal in the Arab world. Parts of the draft initially displeased leaders of the Sunni minority, but Iraqi Shiite and Kurdish leaders bent over backward to win them over. Their compromise this week brought major Sunni endorsements, and the charter may now pass even in Sunni-majority provinces.

More broadly, today's referendum builds on the political progress of January's stunning parliamentary elections. Some 15 million Iraqis have registered to vote, a million more than in January. Most of those new voters are Sunnis who now see that their January boycott was a mistake because it left them with too little representation in Baghdad.
Assuming the constitution is approved, Iraqis will elect a new and permanent parliament in December. And because of different proportional voting rules, Sunnis are all but guaranteed a larger presence in the new legislature. The new body will also include a mix of Kurds and secular and religious Shiites that will make dominance by any one ethnic or sectarian group unlikely.
All of which confirms that the best way to bring Sunnis into the process was not to appease ex-Baathist or insurgent leaders, as some in the U.N. and U.S. wanted to do. The better move was to keep the democratic process moving and show the majority of Sunnis who don't want civil war that they have a stake in a new government. In retrospect, the tragedy is that the coalition waited a year after the fall of Saddam Hussein to begin this process.
The same goes for the long delay in building Iraqi security forces, whose improvement is another reason for optimism. In his interview with General David Petraeus, Robert Pollock provides more details on their readiness. But the salient point is that nearly 40 Iraqi battalions are now able to take the lead in anti-terrorist operations.
This does not mean they are the U.S. First Marine Division; no one else in the world is either. But Iraqi forces have taken the lead in clearing out and then staying to hold Tal Afar, a former terror stronghold near Syria. They have also fought alongside Americans in the recent offensive through the Euphrates River valley that is this war's Ho Chi Minh trail as an enemy infiltration route.
Yes, there are cases of desertion and infiltration, and an officer corps with battle experience will take time to develop. But the truth is that thousands of Iraqis are fighting and dying for their country, suffering about double the number of killed-in-action as coalition forces in the last 13 months. They are not sitting in the rear as American soldiers do the dirty work.
Their progress has meant that U.S. Iraq commander General George Casey felt he needed to seek only 2,000 more coalition troops to provide security for today's referendum, compared with 12,000 more in January. In short, after the early coalition mistake of training only Iraqi police and a "border" army, the operational and training plans that began in 2004 are beginning to pay off.

Beyond today's vote, the December elections are crucial in that they will produce a new (and non-interim) Iraqi government. Based on the record so far, the Iraqi factions and their leaders will find a way to form coalitions and move ahead. However, one risk is that Washington may so fear Iranian influence that it will clumsily seek to undermine the Shiite religious parties, or to promote its favorite candidate, former interim prime minister Ayad Allawi. We have nothing against Mr. Allawi, who has stayed loyal to the political process despite his drubbing in the January polls. But the last thing new Iraq leaders need is the perception that their election was tainted.

The other big danger is that U.S. media and political pessimism will further erode American public support for the war. The attitude among some can only be described as defeatist. When General Casey and other Defense officials testified recently before the Senate Armed Services Committee, their measured reports were drowned out by criticism and gloom.
In response to one such riff from Senator Hillary Clinton, General Casey put it this way: "Your comments on the insurgency, on the levels of violence, I recognize that that is what it appears, but that is what the terrorists and insurgents are trying to convey. They're trying to convey that they are winning, and they're doing it by murdering innocent Iraqis. . . . "And it's a tough situation. But that's what a terror campaign is all about. And this is about political will. And as I said in my opening statement, they are attacking ours and the will of the Iraqi people. They're not winning in Iraq, and they will only win here if we lose our will."

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