Missed opportunities in Iraq
By Madeleine K. Albright
One yearns to believe Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld when he says that "just having elections in Iraq is an enormous success and a victory." The sad truth is that it is not.
In the democratic symphony, elections are but a single note. An election that produces more of the same, or possibly even worse, will mean neither success nor victory.
Not everything in Iraq is bleak. The majority of the country is relatively peaceful. Millions of Iraqis are enthusiastic about finally having the right to vote. Thousands have braved threats to help organize and monitor the balloting. The elections should be honest. Though voting in some areas will be too dangerous, the winners will still have more legitimacy than any Iraqi government in history. They will have a mandate to write a constitution and prepare for the election of a permanent government at year's end.
Despite this, the elections Sunday may prove to be yet another "turning point" that leaves us right where we started. We have been promised breakthroughs before: the battle of Baghdad, the death of Saddam Hussein's sons, the capture of the dictator himself, the end of "the occupation," the creation of an interim Iraqi government, the attack on Fallujah and now, election day. And yet, the security situation steadily deteriorates. The elections, though cause for pride, seem unlikely to change what needs changing. Will it slow the Sunni-led insurgency? Will it soften Iraqi attitudes toward the United States? Will it prompt other countries to offer more help? In each case, the answer is doubtful.
No plan for success
It has long been obvious that the Bush administration lacks a viable plan for success in Iraq. The hardest political job — drafting a constitution acceptable to all factions — has not even begun. The "coalition," never robust, is shrinking. We have no military strategy that makes sense; civilian leaders have placed U.S. armed forces in an almost impossible position. America is by far the world's most powerful country, and yet the fate of its Iraq policy depends almost entirely on the goodwill of Iraq's most influential religious leader, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, a Shiite Muslim cleric with a heart condition.
If the elections do not mark a decisive change, the administration may conclude that it has no more cards to play. In which case, it could well declare "mission accomplished" nonetheless and begin laying the groundwork for folding its hand.
What are the signs? Twenty months after the president declared an end to major combat operations, Rumsfeld has dispatched a four-star Army general to reassess the security situation. The administration has consistently rejected the advice of Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., to increase U.S. force levels to equal the mission. Because we lack sufficient power, each time the insurgency is attacked, it appears to gain strength. Intelligence experts worry that the conflict is spawning a new generation of international terrorists and that a flawed election could trigger civil war.
The breathtaking cost of the Iraqi conflict is draining the U.S. Treasury, jeopardizing the president's costly initiatives to reform the tax code and remake the Social Security system. Administration officials, such as Rumsfeld, have been quick to downplay the bad news and equate elections with victory and success. But if those accomplishments are already in hand, why must more Americans die?
Further, the elections will allow the president to argue that Iraqis have taken control of their own destiny, and that what they do with it is their own affair. The leading candidates in the election have pledged to work for the withdrawal of U.S. troops. If the United States starts to pull back, no Iraqi politician will dare ask it to stay.
The administration will not simply cut and run. A decent interval will be observed. The White House will need time to recondition public expectations. If it is Machiavellian enough, it will find a way to blame anti-war critics for emboldening the enemy such that phased withdrawal became the only option. The administration will blame allies for not doing more, the United Nations for inadequate election planning, Iran and Syria for fueling the violence and Iraqi security forces for refusing to kill other Iraqis. It will blame everyone except itself. And it will leave behind a deadly, unpredictable, combustible mess.
I hope I am wrong.
How to turn things around
As grim as the situation is, the United States should stay focused on how to achieve success in Iraq, not simply declare it. We owe that to our armed forces and to the Iraqis who believed in us. The bad guys in Iraq are truly bad and cannot be allowed to win. But to have any chance of turning things around, the administration must do what it has steadfastly refused to do — admit mistakes; emphasize a political instead of a military strategy; do what it takes to secure the cooperation of Iraq's neighbors; hold senior officials accountable for the abuses at Abu Ghraib prison and other blunders; and launch, finally, an economic reconstruction program that puts paychecks in Iraqi wallets and food in Iraqi stomachs.
The United States will not be in Iraq forever, though it may seem that way to our military families. It is reasonable to begin thinking about strategies for withdrawal. But it is critical that any plan be designed and carried out with ingredients missing from the administration's Iraq policy thus far — honesty, foresight, competence and an accurate assessment of how Iraqis will respond. Perhaps then we will truly be able to talk about "enormous success" in Iraq.
Madeleine K. Albright was secretary of State during President Clinton's second term in office.
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