What is going on in Iraq?
I've been trying to make heads or tails of Iraq for some time now. I've been aware that men of good will - heck, people who are intelligent and honest and capable of all genders and political stripes - have tried to report what is going on. And they are full of both overlap and contradiction. So much so, that I've come to recognize they're the blind wise men seeing the elephant. So, I'm going to do a bit of "thinking out loud" to try and get a handle. I think that making recommendations of what to do before that handle is grasped is futile at best. Not asking any to agree with this, just laying it out for pondering and comments before I use it as a springboard.
Summary up front: What we've got is not, yet, a civil war. It's a pre-nationalization conflict of word and bullet in which there are a multitude of interests both internal and external with a corresponding multitude of allies and foes. All have as the ultimate goal the organization of the Iraq of the future. That will be guided in large part by the success and results of the upcoming elections of the National Assembly, which has as its declared primary task the creation of a final and formal national constitution to be submitted for national ratification no later than October of 2005.
Iraq is a nation in the process of being redefined. Its problem - and at the same time its hope - is that there are a lot of people strongly interested in what the endstate of Iraq might be.
There are at least 60 definably different organizations, most of which specifically interact with other organizations, trying to establish this situation. It is these organizations' interactions that cause much of the hope and the difficulty in the nation. As such, I'd like to briefly describe them. I'm not, however, going to name any names (or rather, very few names). This is because first I'm aware I don't know them all, and second many change names as needs and desires and splits and reorganizations and... well, some change name almost daily. Instead, I'm going to list the characteristics - the dimensions, really - by which these organizations can be considered.
The first characteristic is internal vs external. That is, some of these organizations are Iraqis hoping to influence their home. Other organizations are backed by nations and groups who desire that the eventual Iraq be of a character they desire. I'll name some just for example, but it's far from exhaustive. There are the US, the UN, Turkey, Iran, Al Qaeda, and the Islamic Brotherhood.
Another characteristic is tribe, while religion is of equal consideration. It's worth noting here that there are some organizations that wish the endstate to be agnostic - devoid of tribal and/or religious influence.
Third broad brush characteristic is method of negotiation, though in part this has another influence. By method I'm using the spectrum of how much negotiation is done with words and how much by bullets.
There is one more characteristic to complete the confusion. Simply, is the primary focus of the organization "for" the above or "against" the above. Worth noting is that being "for" a tribe (for example) does not preclude being "against" using words over bullets or "against" a particular internal or external group.
With that mishmash covered, I'd like to go next to reviewing just what the "next step" is supposed to be. It's important, and keeps being misstated or poorly stated everywhere I look.
The upcoming elections are not electing the government of Iraq. Oh, it'll act in that capacity, but it is better viewed as a constitutional congress - more specifically, the Third Continental Congress (Convened Dec 20, 1776, to draft articles of confederation and prosecute the war of Rebellion). This is a critical point in the various questions as to whether it is wise or acceptable to convene without participation of various regions or bodies. If a group does not have a voice at the table for the constitution, will it consider the result binding? Or will it be the roots of an Iraqi "Shay's Rebellion"?
The ideal goal would be to get all the internal parties to the table without bullets, all having effective if not equal voice in the end document. It isn't going to happen, not least because some voices will not give up their bullets. The second worst end is for a sole voice to dominate the final document, unwilling to hear other voices desires much less willing to accomodate compromises. The worst end is for no convention to occur - or for it to end without issue - resulting in a gradual chaotic balkanization of the region that sucks the lives and wealth of all who dare try to make it better. (FWIW, I would expect that to cause a literal Kurdistan, with the inevitable direct action of Turkey and Iran in attempting to quell it. The thought of Turkey and Iran working in concert bothers me more than a little bit.)
This vaguely described chaos, then, guides what should be the US/UN objectives of the next year. The objective should be to maximize the number of competing voices at the Constitutional Congress, er National Assembly, providing such assistance as necessary to achieve a (hopefully viable) constitution that all will tolerate, albeit with much grumbling from all parties.
This is the reason for the system chosen, though it has flaws. The election system to be used is a (deep breath) closed list, single district, proportional-representation system. That is, every group has a list of people it will put in the National Assembly - preferably in ranked order. Each voter votes for a _list_, with no requirement of voting based on their location. In other words, each list of possible representatives is offered statewide. The 275 available seats are distributed proportionally between the lists based on the number of votes the list received. For example, if the Sadr Shia Supremicists (name made up) received 20% of the votes, then they would get 55 seats.
There are two weaknesses shown in the current circumstances which concern me. The first is the was the lists were selected. Candidate lists were submitted and allowed or rejected. There is some concern that the rejections were made not on published criteria for eligibility but rather for "acceptability standards" - thus preventing true representation. There were 195 applications and 122 parties' lists were accepted and registered. It's known that some vocal groups - amusingly, almost all are "bullets over words" groups - declined to apply. It's also known that some of the current noisemakers in Iraq (both words and bullets) are groups who had their applications denied. The former are good riddance, the latter are possibly of concern. But this weakness is not the most worrisome, not with 122 national slates available.
The second weakness, the one of more concern, is a direct outgrowth of the instability - the gun-toters and insurgents. A reasonable expectation is that areas under excess disruption will be unable to vote. If these areas are predominately one "group" - race, tribe, and any other aspect - then that group's voice will be less likely to be heard. I would like to point out this instant that the 'group' facing disenfranchisement is Sunni, but a large proportion of the insurgents causing this situation is Shiite. Not all, of course, but enough that those seeking proper actions should take pause - punishing the residents of a disrupted region for the actions of those who would NOT be supported in the elections seems wrong to me.
To summarize - what we've got is not, yet, a civil war. It's a pre-nationalization conflict of word and bullet in which there are a multitude of interests both internal and external with a corresponding multitude of allies and foes. All have as the ultimate goal the organization of the Iraq of the future. That will be guided in large part by the success and results of the upcoming elections of the National Assembly, which has as its declared primary task the creation of a final and formal national constitution.
Summary up front: What we've got is not, yet, a civil war. It's a pre-nationalization conflict of word and bullet in which there are a multitude of interests both internal and external with a corresponding multitude of allies and foes. All have as the ultimate goal the organization of the Iraq of the future. That will be guided in large part by the success and results of the upcoming elections of the National Assembly, which has as its declared primary task the creation of a final and formal national constitution to be submitted for national ratification no later than October of 2005.
Iraq is a nation in the process of being redefined. Its problem - and at the same time its hope - is that there are a lot of people strongly interested in what the endstate of Iraq might be.
There are at least 60 definably different organizations, most of which specifically interact with other organizations, trying to establish this situation. It is these organizations' interactions that cause much of the hope and the difficulty in the nation. As such, I'd like to briefly describe them. I'm not, however, going to name any names (or rather, very few names). This is because first I'm aware I don't know them all, and second many change names as needs and desires and splits and reorganizations and... well, some change name almost daily. Instead, I'm going to list the characteristics - the dimensions, really - by which these organizations can be considered.
The first characteristic is internal vs external. That is, some of these organizations are Iraqis hoping to influence their home. Other organizations are backed by nations and groups who desire that the eventual Iraq be of a character they desire. I'll name some just for example, but it's far from exhaustive. There are the US, the UN, Turkey, Iran, Al Qaeda, and the Islamic Brotherhood.
Another characteristic is tribe, while religion is of equal consideration. It's worth noting here that there are some organizations that wish the endstate to be agnostic - devoid of tribal and/or religious influence.
Third broad brush characteristic is method of negotiation, though in part this has another influence. By method I'm using the spectrum of how much negotiation is done with words and how much by bullets.
There is one more characteristic to complete the confusion. Simply, is the primary focus of the organization "for" the above or "against" the above. Worth noting is that being "for" a tribe (for example) does not preclude being "against" using words over bullets or "against" a particular internal or external group.
With that mishmash covered, I'd like to go next to reviewing just what the "next step" is supposed to be. It's important, and keeps being misstated or poorly stated everywhere I look.
The upcoming elections are not electing the government of Iraq. Oh, it'll act in that capacity, but it is better viewed as a constitutional congress - more specifically, the Third Continental Congress (Convened Dec 20, 1776, to draft articles of confederation and prosecute the war of Rebellion). This is a critical point in the various questions as to whether it is wise or acceptable to convene without participation of various regions or bodies. If a group does not have a voice at the table for the constitution, will it consider the result binding? Or will it be the roots of an Iraqi "Shay's Rebellion"?
The ideal goal would be to get all the internal parties to the table without bullets, all having effective if not equal voice in the end document. It isn't going to happen, not least because some voices will not give up their bullets. The second worst end is for a sole voice to dominate the final document, unwilling to hear other voices desires much less willing to accomodate compromises. The worst end is for no convention to occur - or for it to end without issue - resulting in a gradual chaotic balkanization of the region that sucks the lives and wealth of all who dare try to make it better. (FWIW, I would expect that to cause a literal Kurdistan, with the inevitable direct action of Turkey and Iran in attempting to quell it. The thought of Turkey and Iran working in concert bothers me more than a little bit.)
This vaguely described chaos, then, guides what should be the US/UN objectives of the next year. The objective should be to maximize the number of competing voices at the Constitutional Congress, er National Assembly, providing such assistance as necessary to achieve a (hopefully viable) constitution that all will tolerate, albeit with much grumbling from all parties.
This is the reason for the system chosen, though it has flaws. The election system to be used is a (deep breath) closed list, single district, proportional-representation system. That is, every group has a list of people it will put in the National Assembly - preferably in ranked order. Each voter votes for a _list_, with no requirement of voting based on their location. In other words, each list of possible representatives is offered statewide. The 275 available seats are distributed proportionally between the lists based on the number of votes the list received. For example, if the Sadr Shia Supremicists (name made up) received 20% of the votes, then they would get 55 seats.
There are two weaknesses shown in the current circumstances which concern me. The first is the was the lists were selected. Candidate lists were submitted and allowed or rejected. There is some concern that the rejections were made not on published criteria for eligibility but rather for "acceptability standards" - thus preventing true representation. There were 195 applications and 122 parties' lists were accepted and registered. It's known that some vocal groups - amusingly, almost all are "bullets over words" groups - declined to apply. It's also known that some of the current noisemakers in Iraq (both words and bullets) are groups who had their applications denied. The former are good riddance, the latter are possibly of concern. But this weakness is not the most worrisome, not with 122 national slates available.
The second weakness, the one of more concern, is a direct outgrowth of the instability - the gun-toters and insurgents. A reasonable expectation is that areas under excess disruption will be unable to vote. If these areas are predominately one "group" - race, tribe, and any other aspect - then that group's voice will be less likely to be heard. I would like to point out this instant that the 'group' facing disenfranchisement is Sunni, but a large proportion of the insurgents causing this situation is Shiite. Not all, of course, but enough that those seeking proper actions should take pause - punishing the residents of a disrupted region for the actions of those who would NOT be supported in the elections seems wrong to me.
To summarize - what we've got is not, yet, a civil war. It's a pre-nationalization conflict of word and bullet in which there are a multitude of interests both internal and external with a corresponding multitude of allies and foes. All have as the ultimate goal the organization of the Iraq of the future. That will be guided in large part by the success and results of the upcoming elections of the National Assembly, which has as its declared primary task the creation of a final and formal national constitution.
posted by Kirk at 10:26 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home