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Bush's 'Guided Democracy' in Iraq Lowell Ponte "The challenge playing out across the broader Middle East is more than a military conflict," said President George W. Bush during his nationally-televised speech on Wednesday night. "It is the decisive ideological struggle of our time." If his new policy involving a "surge" of more than 20,000 additional U.S. troops into Iraq fails, warned President Bush, "radical Islamic extremists ... would ... create chaos in the region and use oil revenues to fund their ambitions. "Iran would be emboldened in its pursuit of nuclear weapons. Our enemies would have a safe haven from which to plan and launch attacks on the American people ... For the safety of our people, America must succeed in Iraq," Mr. Bush continued. "Countries like Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan and the gulf states need to understand that an American defeat in Iraq would create a new sanctuary for extremists and a strategic threat to their survival," said President Bush. "These nations have a stake in a successful Iraq that is at peace with its neighbors, and they must step up their support for Iraq's unity government." An Iraq re-made in the image of theocratic Shi'ite Iran next door (the product of Democratic President Jimmy Carter's overthrow of America's and Israel's ally the Shah of Iran) would be a nightmare for oil-rich countries, neighbors such as Saudi Arabia. But the idea of a successful, free and democratic Iraq across its border also terrifies Saudi Arabia, an authoritarian monarchy whose disgruntled citizens have no free speech and no vote in how or by whom they are ruled. When President Bush sent troops into Iraq in 2003, he clearly was playing what at the time I called "Big Casino." Story Continues Below
Amid the popular discontent sweeping the Middle East, it was clear that the "benign" dictatorships of the region were destined to fall. The only uncertainty was their direction of falling, which we might influence. Would they become fanatical, terror-backing Islamist states like Iran, or Western-leaning democratic states like Turkey? Turkey, in harmony with Ataturk's Constitution, is a "guided democracy" like Muslim Pakistan and Muslim Indonesia, where the military behind the scenes makes clear it will prevent an Islamist takeover via the ballot box. Turkey, a member of NATO that conducts joint naval maneuvers with Israel, under Ataturk established women's right to vote before England did. What President Bush proposed Wednesday was his own kind of "guided democracy" for Iraq. His proposed "surge" would raise the number of U.S. troops in and around Baghdad, where "80 percent of Iraq's sectarian violence occurs," to 30,000. Henceforth a contingent of U.S. troops will accompany units of Iraqi soldiers and police. President Bush said that democratically elected Iraqi Shi'ite Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki "has pledged that political or sectarian interference" with "Iraqi and American forces…going into neighborhoods that are home to those fueling the sectarian violence" henceforth "will not be tolerated." "There were too many restrictions on [U.S.] troops," said President Bush. Maliki, politically allied with the radical Shi'ite cleric Moktada al-Sadr who heads the heavily-armed Shi'ite militia the Mahdi Army, weeks ago ordered U.S. troops to remove their roadblocks and checkpoints from Sadr's suburb of Baghdad known as Sadr City. This, presumably, will not happen again. Republican President Bush opposes liberal schemes to redistribute income in the U.S., but on Wednesday he supported redistributing the wealth in Iraq. "To give every Iraqi citizen a stake in the country's economy, Iraq will pass legislation to share oil revenues among all Iraqis," said Mr. Bush. "To show that it is committed to delivering a better life, the Iraqi government will spend 10 billion dollars of its own money on reconstruction and infrastructure projects that will create new jobs." Moreover, said President Bush, "We endorse the Iraqi government's call to finalize an International Compact that will bring new economic assistance in exchange for greater economic reform." Translation: U.S. aid and leverage with allies is now contingent on the Iraqi government reigning in the usual Middle Eastern corruption and giving a bigger slice of political power, government jobs and oil revenues to the 20 percent of Iraqis who are Sunnis. These Sunnis, whose tribal lands have no oil wells, were part of Iraq's privileged ruling tribes when Sunni Saddam Hussein ran the country. But with the new government dominated by those who make up 65 percent of the population, Shi'ites, the Sunnis have become a persecuted and targeted minority that increasingly looks to U.S. troops for protection. Thousands of Sunnis who held positions in Hussein's socialist Ba'athist Party have been excluded from holding Iraqi government jobs because of a de-Ba'athification program akin to the Allies' de-Nazification program in Germany following World War II. Many thousands of Sunnis have fled the country. "To allow more Iraqis to re-enter their nation's political life," said Mr. Bush, "the government will reform de-Ba'athification laws and establish a fair process for considering amendments to Iraq's constitution." But to Shi'ites such as Maliki, who spent decades living under the terror of Saddamite Sunni domination, democracy was supposed to mean self-determination and majority rule. And to the election victor should go the spoils, no? Ask Nancy Pelosi. Why, Maliki must have asked, should the 65 percent Shi'ite majority or the oil-rich Kurds have to share power and revenues with former Sunni persecutors? Why should the Shi'ites disarm the militias that are their protection against a Sunni resurgence of power after the Americans leave? The answer: because President Bush has twisted Prime Minister Maliki's arm to the breaking point and demanded this. "The changes I have outlined tonight are aimed at ensuring the survival of a young democracy," said President Bush. "A democratic Iraq will not be perfect." And a not-really-democratic Iraq will be far more acceptable to surrounding non-democracies. How ironic, Maliki must think, that President Bush's Iraq policy is so unpopular in the long-democratic United States that voters just removed Bush's Republican Party from its ruling majority in both houses of Congress. Yet Bush continues to rule in Iraq. Democracy is a crafty art.
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