September 28, 2004

CIA Money for Pro-Washington Iraqi Candidates!

Well, as if getting the Pentagon to fly Chalabi's private army into the area and picking the IGC and the new Prime Minister weren't enough (and of course there are plenty of other examples of us affecting the "choice" of the Iraqi leadership), our dear leader on Pennsylvania Ave. apparently wanted to FUND OUTRIGHT Iraqi candidates he liked through a covert CIA operation. Yeah, another example of Team Bush's firm commitement to democracy in action. But like the attempt by some in the administration to install the Iran-funded Ahmed Chalabi as the new center of power in Baghdad, this plan to shape Iraqi "democracy" has also been abandoned. Time has the details.

Posted by armand at September 28, 2004 11:32 AM | TrackBack | Posted to International Affairs


Comments

We're doing in .Afghanistan, though in a slightly different context. My favorite quote from the Afghanistan article was:

In fact, challengers operate at a disadvantage. Mr. Pedram pointed out that they have not been given resources to visit the country's 34 provinces, while Mr. Karzai is being flown around Afghanistan by the American military. "Mr. Karzai can go with American helicopters and American bodyguards to 10 provinces in one day," he said. "What can we do?"

That's a real fair playing field for a country's first democratic election. But at least our guy will win! Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!!

Posted by: baltar at September 28, 2004 11:42 AM | PERMALINK

Uh-oh. When King Abdullah expresses reservations, this is a signal we definitely need to pay attention to before the Iraqui election. The US needs pragmatic alliances in the ME, and none more so than Jordan which despite it's monarchical governance, has embraced many aspects of cooperation with the West. Armand, you know more about this than I do...any thoughts?

Posted by: binky at September 28, 2004 11:59 AM | PERMALINK

Oh sure, I have thoughts!

One, as a general matter the king is right that elections that take place in these kinds of conditions tend to benefit extremists. It's easiest for extremists to be seen as standing for something in these cases, and being strongly anti-US is the popular approach to politics in Iraq right, so that hardly bodes well, and in high threat situations there is plenty of psych and political psych lit to show that people tend to rely unusually heavily on their emotions in decision-making - another thing likely to benefit extremists.

As to other matters the king mentions, the participation of the Sunnis is a huge concern. As it stands, they've been given little reason to buy into our process, and they've had trouble creating the kinds of organizations that are necessary for their voice to be heard (plus, this being Iraq in 2004, some of the leaders of the groups that have been formed have been killed). I think the democracy lit is pretty clear about saying that for a stable democracy to be created and function you need some support from the ancien regime - and so far the Sunnis really aren't part of the equation. That's a formula for long-term instability.

Other recent bad signs (from the American point of view)? Well, in the recent elections for vice chairmen of the National Council (legislature) the top vote getters were members of SCIRI and the Communists. And there's been a lot of talk that the leadership of the major parties might get together to block elections as such, instead forming an alliance to make sure the big parties get particular allotments of seats (sort of like the inter-party gerrymandering deals here). Why is that a problem? Well, how democratic it is is questionable. That several of the main parties are Islamists should cause concern for some (I suppose the same is true of the Communists). And, again, since there is no major Sunni party ... that seems like a formula to make sure that the recent powers that be are shut out of the system, which would seem likely to further deepen their displeasure and desire to undermine the regime.

So I think the king's opinion that things aren't likely to get better any time soon is completely understandble.

Posted by: Armand at September 28, 2004 01:30 PM | PERMALINK

Thanks for the clarification about the king's comments. Not being an area expert, I wasn't sure if my belief in Abdullah's opinion was justified. From what I have read, he sounds like the kind of leader we both need to ally with and should listen to on regional matters.

Posted by: binky at September 28, 2004 01:35 PM | PERMALINK

Very justified - and I didn't even get into the host of practical problems with the procedures of an election itself in these circumstances. It'll be a mess if it happens in January.

And yeah, for the region the king is the kind of ally we should hope to have (though one could say it is kind of sad that we have to look to monarchies for a region's "good guys" - and of course some of those are just awful).

Posted by: Armand at September 28, 2004 01:44 PM | PERMALINK
Post a comment









Remember personal info?