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Politics : Attack Iraq? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: calgal who wrote (7315)	7/29/2003 1:01:06 AM
From: calgal	Respond to of 8683

Democracy seen as regional ideal By David R. Sands THE WASHINGTON TIMES The drive to establish a democratic government in Iraq is being watched closely by governments and reformers around the region, the Bush administration's lead spokesman on human rights said yesterday. Lorne Craner, assistant secretary of state for human rights, democracy and labor, said a successful democracy in one of the Arab world's largest and most influential countries would have a profound effect on the course of events throughout the Middle East. "There's an intense interest throughout the region in what is going on in Iraq," said Mr. Craner, who briefed reporters at the State Department after a weeklong trip to Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Kuwait. "There is an intense desire that we get it right in Iraq," he said. Smaller Arab states have opened up politically, and some of the world's largest Islamic countries, including Indonesia and Bangladesh, are democracies. But Mr. Craner said the people he has met note that Iraq holds a special place as a potential model in a region that has seen economic and political stagnation. "People can argue that Kuwait only has 300,000 people or that Morocco is not really a Middle Eastern state," said Mr. Craner. "But when you have a country smack-dab in the middle of the region, with its religious and ethnic mix, it is very difficult to anyone else in the Middle East to say democracy is not doable there." He said that even in Kuwait, which recently held groundbreaking parliamentary elections, all the talk was about the difficult political and economic reconstruction project under way across the border in Iraq. Backers of the U.S.-led campaign to oust Saddam Hussein argued that the establishment of democratic self-rule in Iraq could have wide-ranging implications for the region, and pose a challenge to autocratic regimes in countries such as Iran and Saudi Arabia. Mr. Craner said lectures by U.S. officials or examples from Eastern Europe or South Africa were far less powerful as an encouragement to regional reformers than a major Arabic state successfully embracing liberal democratic rule. In Saudi Arabia, the human rights chief said, he observed "baby steps" toward political liberalization and human rights under Crown Prince Abdullah, the country's de facto ruler. The State Department's annual human rights review criticized Saudi authorities for a lack of political, religious and press freedoms. Mr. Craner said encouraging signs included the formation of a journalists union and the presentation of a reform petition to the crown prince from a group of leading Saudi intellectuals and academics. "It's nowhere near where we'd like to see things, but I saw a lot more [signs of change] than I would have seen two years ago," he said.

To: calgal who wrote (7315)	7/30/2003 10:48:02 AM
From: calgal	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 8683

The Coalition Grows Senators urge "internationalizing" the Iraq force. It's already happening. Wednesday, July 30, 2003 12:01 a.m. EDT URL:http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110003816 Members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee lectured Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz Tuesday about the need for greater "internationalization" of Iraqi peacekeeping and reconstruction. They're a little behind the curve. Eight time zones to the east efforts to accomplish just that were already well under way. By September the non-American contingent in Iraq is expected to rise to about 20,000, with Poland commanding a 9,000-man force in charge of a massive swath of central Iraq including the cities of Karbala and Najaf. The Polish soldiers will number about 2,300 and as early as Labor Day will replace the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force that has operated so well in the Shiite heartland. Another 1,800 will come from Ukraine. Other contributors include Spain (1,300 men), Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, Lithuania, the Dominican Republic, Honduras and El Salvador. Denmark has already contributed several hundred personnel, as has the Czech Republic. The Netherlands will send more than 1,000 troops. Italy is contributing 800 soldiers and policemen who will also fill in for the departing Marines. In all, 30 governments have agreed to contribute to military and police operations. Last week the Japanese Parliament authorized the deployment of non-combat personnel. Discussions are under way with Turkey and Egypt to contribute forces, and other Muslim nations haven't yet ruled out the possibility. In the short run, this help won't dramatically reduce the need for American soldiers, who currently number about 150,000 in Iraq. But it certainly does lay the groundwork for further burden sharing, and it gives lie to the claim that the U.S. is making no effort to internationalize the reconstruction effort. What the Bush Administration is not doing is precisely what it shouldn't be doing--internationalizing the effort with countries not committed to seeing it succeed. We're talking primarily about France and Germany, whose interest in Iraq barely extended beyond oil and arms contracts, and which never thought the Iraqi people were worth their trouble. In theory, it would be great to have some of their combined 550,000-man NATO-compatible forces at our disposal but not at the cost of giving them or the United Nations substantial say over the future of Iraq. Given the French and U.N. fondness for Saddam Hussein, we couldn't expect them to endorse de-Baathification or human-rights tribunals. Yet both policies are essential to convincing Iraqis that the days of tyranny are over. The Iraqi people also remember who wanted to oust Saddam, and who didn't. The beauty of U.N. Resolution 1483 is that it gives the U.S. and Britain, as "occupying" powers, total authority and flexibility to rebuild the country. Unlike, say, Bosnia, there is no confusing division of authority between the military and civilian administrators. Centcom Commander John Abizaid and Coalition Provisional Authority chief L. Paul Bremer both report to the same man: Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. And after a shaky start, both military and civilian operations are finally learning the ropes, rounding up more Baathist holdouts and speeding progress toward an Iraqi-led government. Introducing other power centers into a country where early reconstruction efforts were hamstrung by indecision and bureaucracy would be precisely the wrong thing to do. America's most important allies in Iraqi peacekeeping and reconstruction will of course be the Iraqi people themselves. Here too progress is being made. Despite early missteps such as disbanding the Free Iraqi Forces of the Iraqi National Congress, the coalition has begun recruiting a 14,000-man Iraqi security force. More Iraqi policemen are patrolling the streets every day. It is their presence, not that of a few more Europeans, that will really convince Iraqis that the war was about liberation, not neo-colonialism. We understand the sacrifices Operation Iraqi Freedom has asked of many American families and the pressure Senators must be feeling from some of their constituents. But the demands of Foreign Relations Committee members for precise timetables and bringing in the U.N. sound, well, parochial--or partisan. Just as the goal of the conflict was larger than merely removing Saddam Hussein, the goal now must be larger than getting U.S. troops out of harm's way as early as possible. It should be building a democratic Iraq that will be an example to the region, and to which despotism will not return. In that the U.S. can no doubt benefit from foreign assistance, but not from multilateralism for its own sake.