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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: calgal who wrote (387714)	4/8/2003 1:13:27 AM
From: calgal	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 769670

April 8, 2003 Can democracy survive in Iraq? Bruce Fein The Bush administration is romanticizing about democracy in post-Saddam Iraq. It is contemplated that both exile and indigenous Iraqis will be entrusted with government power days after Saddam's defeat. It is expected these unelected officeholders will usher in the trappings of democracy and a democratic culture in a land that has witnessed neither in more than 4,000 years. The Bush plan is sheer folly. It will turn our sparkling victory in war to ashes in peace. At present, Iraqis are not fit to govern themselves. Contemporary Americans take democracy for granted because it has been a national fixture for more than 200 years. We wrongly assume that with an enlightened Constitution and good intentions democracy will spontaneously blossom in any corner of the world like flowers that bloom in the spring. That assumption, however, betrays a sophomoric understanding of the taproots of democracy. The American Revolution of 1776 marked no sharp discontinuity from our Colonial past. A democratic culture had earlier taken root with elected local assemblies like the House of Burgesses, the British common law, and general education. Public opposition to oppressive Colonial rule, such as Writs of Assistance and the Stamp Act, were chronic. The Boston Tea Party protested a tea tax. Leaders were highly literate, and were imbued with works of political philosophy that celebrated representative government, a separation of powers, individual rights, and religious freedom. John Locke's "Second Treatise of Civil Government" and Montesquieu's "Spirit of the Laws" were illustrative. William Blackstone's "Commentaries" were legal gospel. American Colonial society was more horizontal or equal than vertical or stratified. No class enjoyed special legal privileges, and the Constitution banned titles of nobility. In addition, America was uniquely blessed with a pantheon of selfless political statesman who cared deeply about making democracy succeed not only for the living but for those yet to be born. Exemplary were George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, John Marshall, Sam Adams, John Adams, James Otis and James Wilson. Despite these auspicious circumstances, the making of our Constitution in 1787 has been styled Miracle at Philadelphia by Catherine Drinker Bowen. Yet it also contained grievous flaws, such as an endorsement of slavery and the exclusion of ladies from political life, which took a civil war and more than a century of protest to repair. Compare contemporary Iraq with 1776 America. Democracy has been denied even a cameo appearance. Kings and military dictators have oppressed the Iraqi people since the nation was artificially constructed from the ruins of the Ottoman Empire approximately 80 years ago. The Iraqi fragmented opposition to Saddam is bereft of any statesman who commands widespread affection and political support. Not even an epigone of Washington, Jefferson, or Madison is in the crowd. Arab culture does not celebrate equality. It does not acclaim freedom of speech and dissent. It does not venerate freedom of religion. It does not acknowledge the right of a woman to chart her own destiny and to equal dignity. It does not sacralize the rule of law and due process. The Arab world in general speaks volumes. Lebanon is a bitterly divided confessional state that harbors Hezbollah and is dominated by Syria. Syria, which sponsors terrorism, tolerates none of the trappings of democracy. Jordan's kingship flirts sporadically with elections and free speech, but only so long as the Hashemite dynasty is not threatened. Egypt features little more political freedom than in the days of the Pharaohs. A crumb of democracy or religious freedom is no more to be found in Saudi Arabia than is an iceberg. The Palestinian Authority's repeated pledges of democratic reforms have been uniformly unfulfilled. This is not to say Arab countries, including Iraq, are incapable of democracy. Kuwait, Bahrain, and Qatar, for instance, show signs of semipopular governments. But the transition from dictators to democrats will be long and arduous. In Iraq, moreover, democracy is chimerical unless the United States governs and trains its people in the arts of democracy for years after Saddam's downfall. As Benjamin Franklin observed at our Constitutional Convention, men will move heaven and earth to obtain money and power. Iraq's lush oil revenues and power vacuum after Saddam will predictably bring forth vicious and unsavory infighting amongst the Iraqi opposition. Those antagonisms will be whetted by the sharp cleavages between Iraq's Kurds, Shi'ites, and Sunnis. To believe Iraq's self-designated post-Saddam leaders would subordinate their personal ambitions to a free and democratic Iraq is to believe in fairy tales. Post-Taliban Afghanistan should be a sobering lesson for the Bush administration. We squinted at phony elections to a loya jirga to reconstitute the country. We praised the loya jirga selection of Hamid Karzai as president. We indulged the fatuous proposition that democracy can be summoned into being. The results have been appalling. Warlords dominate the countryside outside Kabul. Thievery and extortion are commonplace. Young women and girls are losing freedoms. The prospect of free and fair popular elections is illusory. If Iraq is left to the Iraqis immediately after Saddam's surrender, strife and pillage will stalk the land and the nation will fracture into a dozen petty fiefdoms. Bruce Fein is general counsel for the Center for Law and Accountability, a public interest law group headquartered in Virginia. URL:http://www.washingtontimes.com/commentary/20030408-27361528.htm