Soccer Dad

Only a political failure

Interesting, Charles Krauthammer blames the American failure in Iraq on ... the Iraqis. In Can the Iraqis Keep Their Republic? (or here)

Nonetheless, the root problem lies with Iraqis and their political culture.

Our objectives in Iraq were twofold and always simple: depose Saddam and replace his murderous regime with a self-sustaining, democratic government.

The first was relatively easy. But Iraq's first truly democratic government turned out to be hopelessly feeble and fractured, little more than a collection of ministries handed over to various parties, militias and strongmen.

The problem is not, as we endlessly argue about, the number of American troops. Or of Iraqi troops. The problem is the allegiance of the Iraqi troops. Some serve the abstraction called Iraq. But many swear fealty to political parties, religious sects or militia leaders.

Are the Arabs intrinsically incapable of democracy, as the "realists'' imply? True, there are political, historical, even religious reasons why Arabs are less prepared for democracy than, say, East Asians and Latin Americans who successfully democratized over the last several decades. But the problem here is Iraq's particular political culture, raped and ruined by 30 years of Saddam's totalitarianism.

Krauthammer goes on to argue that the United States should encourage the disintegration of the political Shi'ite hegemony in the current government. Only after a new broader based coalition is formed might we start to see the politcal situation stabilizing.

I don't know if I buy Krauthammer's faith in the political process solving many problems in Iraq. I find Daniel Pipes's prescription for a "benevolent strongman" to be more convincing.

Daniel Pipes still subscribes to this notion. (Just as attractive as he found the idea two years ago.) The Pipes approach of focusing on stability before democracy is very appealing. Pipes felt that the first elected president of Iraq, Ayad Allawi, would serve well in the capacity of a benevolent strongman who could stabilize the country and prepare it for democracy.

Interestingly, while pointing to American mistakes in Iraq, neither Krauthammer nor Pipes sounds like he's panicking.

UPDATE: via Memeorandum Don Surber makes an excellent point about expectations past

Consider the "success" in Kosovo. We bombed the hell out of what was once Yugoslovia 8 years ago. Is it a flourishing democracy now? Hell no. It still has problems.

It's also worth remembering that when NATO fought against Serbia to save Kosovo, NATO targeted the civilian in order to force the political leadership to surrender.

Don Surber also asks

I am puzzled. Arabs and Muslims seem quite capable of adapting Western technology. They desire our computers, our nuclear weaponry and even our plastic surgery. But they seem ignorant of what makes these great things possible.

Why is it that they have not seen clear to adopt the foundation for all these great discoveries -- this age of invention -- this unlocking of the secrets of the universe -- is our democracy?

Technorati tags: Iraq, Charles Krauthammer, Daniel Pipes.