Iraq and Afghanistan

The news from Haiti this morning reports on the continuing sad story of inadequate and irresponsible government combined with inadequate foreign assistance. The drama is playing out among a people who have been suffering through countless years of inadequate nutrition, resource depletion, and an everlasting internal war of all against all. While we worry about the problems of Darfur, it is not clear that we should not be concentrating on those closer to home.

More generally, as we look around the world we note that Somalia has been without government for years, making it a haven for criminals and terrorists, local and international. A new Somali government has been established in Kenya across the border, but it is doubtful that it will be more successful than the last attempt of this kind to actually govern. In Palestine-Israel we see another running sore that the political institutions directly involved have proved manifestly unable to heal.

Along with the multiple problems of Sudan, these crises suggest once again the need for the resuscitation of something like the trusteeship system that was set up for former colonies after World War I. In the form that was adopted then (having one Western state responsible for each trusteeship) it was too much like another form of colonialism. If a new attempt were made today, it would have to be more broadly based. In any event the international community should establish on more than an ad hoc basis an international governance agency that can be called upon to take over and govern parts of the world that are either unable to govern themselves or unable to govern in a responsible manner. Once established, the agency would develop its own management and civil service structure that would be able to handle crisis and development problems anywhere in the world.

Such an agency would need to begin in desperate situations where a society is so broken that the local people and the international community would be likely to accept massive outside intervention. Only after the agency develops a track record in such situations, would it be asked to expand its activities into a wider variety of situations. The development process might begin with the Security Council granting the agency the rights and the resources necessary for governing Haiti for a period of ten years, to be extended as necessary. During this period the agency would establish comprehensive educational and medical services for all. It would establish an effective, modern police force, disarming all others. There would be no army under such a dispensation (compare Costa Rica). It would undertake economic development and land reclamation projects that would make possible a sustainable future. Since agriculture resources will never adequately support Haiti, other forms of economic development would also be undertaken. As national and municipal services and jobs begin to be provided, the international agency would develop a modest level of taxation so that Haitians would not come to see themselves as little more than the uninvolved recipients of an endless stream of foreign goods and services.

To work, a major international commitment of resources and attention must be made. Recent experience suggests that the international community, and especially its lead countries, will be reluctant to make the kind of commitment that the establishment of this agency would entail. Yet the case could be made that in the long run it is more costly to the international community to confront on an ad hoc basis repeated crises in situations such as Haiti than it would be to address them in a more organized and long-term manner.

The last week has brought more information confirming the basic direction of the Iraq insurgency and our chances to overcome it. On both sides, the battle seems more than ever to have settled down to be one between the government and the Americans, assisted by the Shi’a establishment and the Kurds on the one side, and the nationalists, Baathists, and Muslim extremists within the Sunni Arab population on the other.

The Shi’a establishment has long been pushing for the January vote. Now it is starting a campaign to get persons in all communities to vote in large numbers to ensure the legitimacy of the vote. Muqtada al-Sadr’s followers are continuing to hand over their heavier weapons (for a fee) and there is more and more talk of their leader joining the political process. Of course, terrorism continues and the American bombing and clearing operations continue, but these are more and more directed at the Sunni Arab community whose ostensible leaders seem unable to rein in the attacks. Current estimates are that about half of the Sunni Arabs would vote is they had a peaceful opportunity. But whether they will get this level of security by voting day in January is still unclear.

The picture is muddled by the fact that the Allawi government has interfered in the process of vetting former Baath party members to the extent that some Shi’a are saying that he is intent on establishing a new Baath government that will once again dominate the country. This is ominous since to do it he will have to short-circuit the election process and establish another authoritarian state. However, a more favorable view of what he is doing is that he is trying to improve his relation to the insurgent Sunni Arab community by bringing more of their real and potential leaders back into the mainstream.

Today’s paper includes a long op-ed arguing that the United States and the Iraqi government is making a mistake by continuing to try to isolate al-Sadr and Ahmad Chalabi. (It is a Chalabi commission whose function it was to carefully screen former Baathist officials that the government is now by-passing by adopting a faster inclusion process.) The writer points out that Chalabi has managed in a few months to transform his role from that of a leader of an exile organization heavily supported by the United States to a leader of a federation of Shi’a organizations whose members see him both as the man responsible for eliminating Saddam (whether he brought on the American attack with lies is immaterial to them) and the defender of populist Shi’as, such as al-Sadr, and an intermediary with al-Sistani and Iran (where he now has a home). The fact that the Americans and Allawi and many Sunni Arabs hate him is seen as a plus by his supporters. The op-ed writer argues that it is with this Chalabi, not the one who may have misused funds in Jordan and Iraq, or misled the Pentagon, that we must learn to cooperate if we are to be seen as an impartial and supportive party in bringing democracy to Iraq.

This is correct. The United States must get out of the habit of picking favorites and supporting them to the detriment of others if we are to play a positive role in democratization in Iraq or elsewhere. The faster we are able to overcome our prejudices and learn to see situations through local eyes the better.

The front page of today’s Times tells us that there is worry that most Sunni Arabs will not be willing to vote in the January election. Apparently several Sunni Arab political parties want to take part. But their members are too fearful of the insurgency in their area to allow themselves to be seen as supporting the election, standing for election, registering, or even voting. There is also reluctance to vote because of distrust and hatred of the Americans and the new system. But Sunni Arab leaders are quite aware that a boycott will not be to their sectarian advantage. The main issue seems to me to be simply fear, since most Sunni Arabs live in the high violence areas.

This same discussion reports that the Shi’as and Kurds, making up about 80% of the country are expected to vote in large numbers. This encouraging piece of information is combined with the fact that the agreement with the Mahdi Army in Sadr City seems to have held for at least two days. Today, the report is that in Sadr City the Mahdi Army is beginning to hand in its heavy weapons as promised in the agreement. Again there is talk of al-Sadr entering the political arena. These developments and estimates bring us back to the fundamental fact about the insurgency: it is overwhelmingly a reaction of the Sunni Arab population of the Sunni Triangle to the humiliation of having their leader and their system dispossessed. The promised move toward elections, a new constitution and finally parliamentary government will give the other majority sections of the population a weight in the society that they have never had before. As their leaders accept this fact, the insurgency should be even more confined to the triangle than it is today.

But what can be done for the Sunnis who want to vote? Some are said to be encouraged by the recent policy of suppressing the insurgency in Sunni Arab centers of resistance. But for each person encouraged another may be further enraged by the attacks, even more inclined to kill those of his neighbors who would cooperate. Ideally, there should be a formula by which 15% of the country could be temporarily left out of the voting, thereby satisfying the Ayatollah Sistani who demands an early vote and leaving the door open for the Sunni Arabs to come in later. Unfortunately, no one seems to be considering this option.

Today’s paper offers an Op-Ed with a careful look at the training of the new police force in Iraq. It points out that in spite of a great deal of advice, our government has consistently short-changed the effort. because of insufficient funds the final decision was to offer an eight-week training program for new police officers (compared to six months in the United States). This period is further shortened by the need to translate everything that is said into Arabic and then back into English. Even then only 8000 men have completed the course. Most of the new recruits were simply handed a badge. The advisory group sent to Iraq over a year ago to estimate needs suggested that the United States bring in 6000 international police advisors for a population of 25,000,000. Yet one year later, there are only 500 in the country.

The problem is compounded by the fact that the recruits start the training with no idea of how a modern police force should operate. What astounded the recruits most was the concept of “human rights”. In their experience, police are little more than a rag-tag gang of extortionists. ( For this reason, 32,000 of the old police have been “reprogrammed” to meet new requirements.) Another anomaly is that the police are trained for ordinary police duty American style (with, for example, seminars on domestic violence) and then sent out to guard the new government’s offices.

The seriousness of this failure is suggested by the fact that this police force will for many Iraqis be the new face of the government. Its first task should be to change the attitudes of people who see lack of security as the main failing of the new system. The country is beset by what is reported to be a very serious crime problem that goes far beyond that associated with the insurgency (especially revenge killings, kidnapping, and robbery). The force described by this reporter will do nothing to change the popular impression that the Americans and the new government have done nothing for the country.

One of the most discouraging reports I have seen lately comes from a New York Times reporter in Baghdad discussing the problems that reporters have of getting out and seeing what is going on. Most reporters have simply left. Those who remain go out very seldom and then to the few areas that seem relatively safe. Even then they are finding it increasingly difficult to get Iraqis to talk with them. Even those who they had formerly developed relations with now avoid being seen with an American. Until this trend of reporter access reverses, it will be hard for our optimism to brighten very much.

Another report discusses the problem of finding out just who Zarqawi is. Apparently it is not at all clear that he is or ever was a follower of Ussama bin Ladin. His objectives seem to be the same as bin Ladin, but his methods are quite different. Ussama would never be seen cutting off someone's head. Many doubt that Zarqawi was ever a backer or tool of Saddam. Another group of authorities are convinced that Zarqawi is actually a competitor of bin Ladin's. The two are thought to be competing for the same pool of "soldiers".

Friedman in today's Op-Ed makes a further a different attempt to approach the "enemy definition" problem. He points out that the Iraqi insurgency seems to be able to recruit an unending stream of people willing to become suicide bombers. He relates this to the development of extremist Islamic thinking, believing that the secular tendencies of the earlier Saddam regime had begun to change toward the end for tactical reasons and that now what we are facing is a revitalized and fanatical Islam. However, Friedman should be reminded that for many years the most successful recruiters for suicide missions were the Tamil Tigers of Sri Lanka, and they were not religious at all. Nationalism and hatred of "the other" can evidently produce enough fanaticism for suicide. Still, Friedman's broader concern is a good one. The Palestinian suicide bombers are different. They are better known, the names often being released, and their objectives are clearer. Their reasons seem to involve a strong mixture of religion and nationalism. In Iraq, who the bombers are is much more secret and their goals cloudier. It is encouraging to realize that unlike the Israeli-Palestine problem, which for Americans is unsolvable because of internal American politics, it should be possible over time to reduce nationalist reasons for taking part in suicide bombings in Iraq. When the Americans leave, the queue should shorten.

The election in Afghanistan seems to have been a resounding success. The promised attacks by the Taliban were few and far between. This would indicate that they are weaker than we would have thought and/or that the security forces (American, NATO, and Afghan) are more effective than observers would have expected. All this is promising. The opposition claims that they were cheated, that the ink did not work and so on. In nearly every “third-world” election I have been involved in these claims have been made. There is usually something in them, but not much. The counting will take a long time. If the combined opposition gets near to 50%, then the criticisms should be looked at carefully. But if not, probably not. One must understand that in a society such as the Afghan people generally do what they are told. Even if the election is ostensibly free and secret, voters will fear that they will be found out if they go against the local consensus. For most local leaders, on the other hand, power relations and the possibility of future favors reach back to Kabul and Karzai. He has the power now; he will probably have it in the future; it is safer to have one’s people vote for him. It is also true that most of the other candidates had a very difficult time getting known. Some voters evidently did not even know what Karzai looked, let alone any other candidate (they voted by picture as well as written name). One can assume that in Kabul itself the more educated and individualized population will have voted with more understanding.

Many Afghans appear to have voted for Karzai because of the relative peace they have enjoyed since he came to power. Beyond security, they see real improvement in a number of areas (education, transportation etc.) It is nothing like what they want and expect, but compared with what they had before they welcome it. This again leaves a positive feeling for what has been accomplished there — and contrasts rather dramatically with the reactions reported in Iraq to the Americans and the interim government.

As to the future, it is well to remember that in spite of repeated assurances in the papers that this was the first election in Afghanistan, there were earlier elections in the 1960s. Over two million voters participated in one; not too bad a turnout in a country with less than half its present population. That “democratic system” and its king (Zahir Shah, now back in Kabul in an anomalous role) were soon overthrown, leading to a spiral down into violence, local communism and then Soviet invasion. I also remember going to two elections in Zimbabwe. Both led to large turnouts. In the first the people overwhelmingly voted in an anti-insurgency leader. The second had an even larger turnout and voted in the insurgent leader, Mugabe, with an even larger majority. Over the next twenty years Mugabe succeeded in eroding democratic rights of all kinds to the point that it would be hard to imagine a fair election that would reverse the process. One Swallow does not make a spring.