We'll see what you say in a few months.
You really aren’t getting the time frame here, are you. The next few months will show nothing at all about the problems of developing a democracy in Iraq. For what it’s worth, I expect the current (non-democratic) government to write a perfectly lovely constitution that will make everybody here deliriously happy.
The problems with developing a democracy start, not surprisingly, when democracy starts, which is what I’ve said all along. Appointing people to write a document is easy. Building an actual democratic structure around that document is a whole lot harder. The time to start paying close attention is when political parties begin to form, and when ambitious individuals begin positioning themselves for runs at power. The parties are particularly important, since the grounds on which they differentiate will determine the pattern of political discourse. If parties differentiate according to ethnic and sectarian lines, expect major trouble.
It will be interesting, but don’t expect to see much evidence for or against successful democratic development in the next few months. The questions during that period will revolve around the current government's ability to develop a functioning security apparatus and bring oil production to the point where they have at least some revenue.
If you actually read my prewar posts (I have), you will find two major predictions. The first - which many here dismissed as blatant negativity at the time - was that Americans would be targeted by extensive terrorist attacks and intifadeh-style violence. I did not, ever, say that US forces would be defeated by such violence, but that the attacks would cost a lot of lives, provide a major drag on reconstruction efforts, and adversely affect the political will to undertake future operations that might be far more necessary than the Iraq war was.
The second prediction was that it would be a lot harder to produce a functioning democratic government in Iraq than most people her thought. I still stand by that,m though of course it's way too early to tell. |
