THE PENTAGON'S PLAN FOR THE SHIA.
Clerical Error
by Lawrence F. Kaplan
Post date: 05.02.03
Issue date: 05.12.03
Last week, the United States confronted a philosophical dilemma. Responding to televised images of angry Iraqis denouncing the United States, a chorus of Arab diplomats and American pundits warned that democracy in Iraq could lead to, well, theocracy in Iraq. Yet the Bush team seemed unfazed. When asked about the potential for clerical rule in Iraq, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld responded, "That isn't going to happen." His aides compared the hand-wringing in the press to the media gloom during the first week of the war. How could administration officials be so sanguine? Partly because of their assumptions about Iraq's civic life, which they do not believe will lend itself to an Iran-style theocracy. But mostly because of their own plan for Iraq, which they know will not lend itself to an Iran-style theocracy.
According to members of the Bush team, the Shia we saw on TV shouting "Death to America" were actually Potemkin Shia?many of them bought, paid for, and exported by Iran. As such, they hardly reflect the popular will of Iraq's Shia majority. This may seem like a convenient explanation, but there is a kernel of truth to the charge of Iranian interference. Last week's anti-American demonstrations in Najaf and Baghdad were orchestrated by the Tehran-based Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (sciri), an organization that seeks exactly what its title suggests. Indeed, as Pentagon officials were quick to point out, many of the placards the protesters waved were written in Farsi, not Arabic. As for demonstrations in Karbala, administration officials note that they were organized by Sayyid Muqtada Sadr, a self-described "deputy" of Iran-based cleric Kadhem Husseini Haeri, who on April 8 issued a fatwa exhorting his proxies "to seize the first possible opportunity to fill the power vacuum in the administration of Iraqi cities" and to "seize as many positions as possible to impose a fait accompli for any coming government." Lest anyone miss the point, the Iranian government has established a TV station along the Iraqi border, which has been repeating that message.
But hardly anyone at either the State or Defense Departments believes Tehran's message will prevail. "[Iraq's Shia] resent Iran as much as they resent us," says one official, summarizing the Bush team's conventional wisdom. It is probably more accurate to say that Iraq's Shia population, which remains deeply patriotic, is divided between secular and religious factions and that even the religious faction divides its loyalties between competing clerics. The senior-most of whom, Iraq's Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, opposes an Islamic state in Iraq and believes clerics should stay out of politics. But, even if his theocratic rivals gain the upper hand, their power would still be constrained by Iraq's sectarian and ethnic mix and the need to share governing arrangements with Iraq's Kurds and Sunnis.
Those arrangements are even now being drafted by an occupying power that has been repeatedly burned by Islamic extremism. The task of confronting it in Iraq falls to the Pentagon formally, because it is the Defense Department that will preside over Iraq's interim authority, and informally, because the Pentagon has now all but won the battle between it and the State Department over which path to take in the war's aftermath. Of the many disagreements settled in the Defense Department's favor, one in particular has immediate implications for U.S. policy toward the Shia. That is the debate over whether to cede power largely to exile or non-exile Iraqis. State Department officials argued that resident Iraqis should select officials in town meetings who would then serve in the interim authority. This may sound wonderfully democratic, but, in a country where nearly every member of the democratic opposition has either been murdered or driven into exile, it's also a recipe for electing the Shia extremists who made up much of Iraq's homegrown opposition. By contrast, the Pentagon's inclination to empower Iraqi exiles?particularly those affiliated with Ahmed Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress (INC)?virtually precludes that option.
Virtually, because ample civic space has nonetheless been reserved for Shia leaders with an anti-American bent. Or so it appears. In truth, the Americans behind the curtain have already taken steps to limit these leaders' room to maneuver. "The bottom line," explains a senior State Department official, "is we control the purse strings, the appointments, and anything else of political value [in postwar Iraq]. Not just anyone is going to get access to this." As evidence of their ability to co-opt, members of the Bush team point to the participation, despite earlier threats of a boycott, of hitherto anti-American firebrands in a U.S.-sponsored meeting of leading Iraqis in Baghdad this week. Moreover, attendees at future political conferences as well as the membership of a soon-to-be-organized Iraqi coordinating council will be vetted by American officials and "stacked" with friendly voices, particularly those belonging to the INC. Updating the Nixon Doctrine for Iraq, Pentagon officials intend the organization to fight political battles that Washington would rather not?marginalizing anti-American clerics and politicians without visible U.S. involvement. (Alas, this will do nothing to diminish the not entirely inaccurate perception of the INC as a U.S. proxy.)
Nor will Shia extremists have an opportunity to seize power through the ballot box, at least not any time soon. Members of the Bush team claim that, prior to any referendum, a constitution must be drawn up, an assembly convened, judicial reform enacted?all under the auspices of liberal Iraqis with close ties to the United States. Further, that constitution will include clauses designed to impede the rise of illiberal forces?among these, the diffusion of national power along federal lines, detailed arrangements for sharing that power in Baghdad, perhaps a ban on "totalitarian" political parties, and a commitment to regular elections. Those elections, moreover, will be held on a "rolling" basis, beginning at the municipal level and proceeding only slowly toward the Iraqi center. In the meantime, American officials hope an influx of financial and humanitarian assistance will diminish Shia resentments in Iraq's south. And, when elections do come, administration officials predict that a more discrete and narrowly tailored influx of aid will give liberal forces an advantage. Indeed, as American troops in Baghdad and Kut pry selfappointed Iraqis from power, Special Forces and CIA officers have already fanned out across Iraq's south to bolster and create moderate Shia voices. Covert assistance may even be channeled to Shia clerics, possibly including Sistani himself.
True, all this hardly amounts to democracy at its purest. But neither is it without precedent. In many respects, too much has been made of the parallels between postwar Germany and Iraq. But the comparison holds in at least one sense. In Germany, as in Iraq, the United States went to war to oust one totalitarian foe and remained to thwart another. Nor did Germany's postwar architects shy away from resorting to vaguely antidemocratic means to achieve democratic ends. Hence the provision in its constitution that authorized the constitutional court to outlaw anti-democratic parties, proscribing both Nazis and Communists alike. Hence, too, the millions of dollars in covert aid that Washington delivered to voices of political moderation in Germany and throughout Western Europe during the decade after World War II. Like their predecessors six decades before, Pentagon officials remain keenly aware that Iraq's first national election could be its last and see no contradiction in taking similar measures to ensure that it is not.
But that is where the similarities between Germany and Iraq end. In the former case, a U.S. military government remained in place for years, not months. In the case of Iraq, however, the Defense Department, eager to avoid the taint of imperialism (and the burdens of peacekeeping), hopes to draw down American forces within six months and to pull them back to remote Iraqi bases even sooner. That means the task of securing the peace will probably fall to a NATO force tentatively comprising Americans, Brits, and Poles (yes, Poles). The point of the exercise will be to diminish the U.S. "footprint" in Iraq while at the same time keeping the United Nations out of the country.
There is a contradiction here. The Bush team has calculated that the danger of being seen as an occupier outweighs the danger of being seen as a cheapskate, and the demonstrations and shootings last week only bolstered this conviction. But, as even Washington's proconsul in Iraq, Jay Garner, concedes, "Before we begin the reconstruction successfully, we have to have security." Indeed, it is precisely the absence of security that Shia extremists have exploited in Iraq's south, filling a vacuum of our own making. Those problems won't disappear in six months; nor will the INC forces or the three NATO brigades envisioned for Iraq's next phase be sufficient to fill the vacuum.
To be sure, Washington will supervise from afar. But, by the time the grand experiment in reconciling Shia Islam and democracy actually commences, a sizable U.S. presence will be nowhere to be found. Both the demonstrators shouting "End the occupation" and the Iraqis hoping to quell them might want to brush up on their Polish.
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