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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: bela_ghoulashi who wrote (40029)	4/20/2004 2:02:17 AM
From: frankw1900	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793939

I'm not sure Warren has it right: Nevertheless, the country may have proven itself ungovernable. The panicked retreat of the new Iraqi police and soldiers from their stations in places like Kufa, in the first moments of what was an unimpressive "uprising", bodes ill for the next regime. They may have been outgunned in some cases. Some weeks ago I read policemen in Basra were complaining the gangsters and extremists had heavier weapons than the police. I don't think it reasonable to expect police to deal with attacks from paramilitary forces if they are only trained and armed to do ordinary police functions. Though politically incorrect, it must be said there are deep cultural reasons why Arabs are unable to field reliable armies. And the provision of a few months' drill along Western lines cannot compensate for this. The mindset remains hit-and-run, as much on the side of the government as on the side of the insurgents. It's true that Arab armies' culture is not like that of western armies. Initiative and responsibility are not handed off to lower ranks. Knowlege is hoarded. "Face" is valued too much. Enlisted men are often abused and regarded as dispensable. (In many of these countries armed forces are deliberately under trained, or provided with poor leadership so they will not be a threat to the government). If the US wants to create an effective, reasonably sized Iraq army then it must find a way to instill Western military doctrine within it. None of the problems mentioned above are impossible to overcome if those in charge of the army are willing to embrace modern concepts and force them all the way down the chain of command. Easier said, than done, but nonetheless possible. Not all the Iraqi police and military units folded under the recent insurgency and so the new forces can't be counted as a total failure. In fact, it would appear they are a partial success. They need to work on their weaknesses and I'm sure the coalition coaches are helping them do so. Warren is giving up too soon with this: We in the West have forgotten that our own democracies, so far as they still function, depend upon strict discipline, rational thought, and chain-of-command, to quickly defeat anyone who refuses to play by democracy' s rules. I am struck in correspondence by the inability of most to grasp that democracy does not just happen. It is instead something unnatural, something rare in human history. It is imposed by will, and is not self-defending. If the French and Spanish and Canadians don't get this, how can we expect Iraqis to learn it from scratch? (Well, perhaps they have the advantage of less nonsense to unlearn.) Many Iraqis, including the provincial judge who indicted Sadr, and many others who are going to the courts rather than using private justice, who are legally letting and bidding on public contracts, using the banking system, voting in municipal elections where they've had the chance, etc., are definitely playing out of the modernity book. The Coalition has had great success in Iraq and this is overshadowed by the resistance of a minority who don't want to give up the old way of robbery and murder. Democracy, Warren says - what he means is modernity, not mob rule - doesn't happen by accident but is imposed by will. He's right, but as he pointed out earlier it is also always imposed by force on those who won't be democratic. "Did Saddam create Fallujah, or did Fallujah create Saddam?" And it's not a chicken-and-egg question, the answer is ultimately that Fallujahs create Saddams. Warren is correct. In Iraq, because of its extreme history of violence and corruption, modernity has to be ruthlessly imposed. This doesn't mean lining up the people and marching them to the polls. It means ruthless application of the law to everyone regardless of station, and thorough policing of the public realm to prevent and punish bribery, influence peddling, and so forth. In the Iraq case it might be aphorized as the "change from unequal pain for everyone to equal pain for everyone." The minority who benefitted from the former state and some of the majority who potentially could have benefitted, will only grudgingly move to the latter. But most of them will, because they don't see others getting the advantage either, and because the previous way things were running ("Fallujah") eventually was unsupportable as the country became the fiefdom and degrading playground of one family and tribe. Such a regime for "equal pain" can only work successfully under democratic forms or it merely becomes a vehicle for further robbery, and the tyranny consequent on the attempt to acquire or keep the monopoly on robbery. Bremer, (who is an expert on terrorism), and the Governing council seem aware of this, designing an interim constitutional arrangement and making regulations and procedures to inhibit the outrageous corruption and power mongering of individuals and tribes as seen under the previous regime. (This has gone mostly unnoticed outside Iraq). Have they done enough? Can they make it stick? Can the Iraqis who take over after June make it stick? Will those who write the new constitution and who form the new elected government stay with such a program? I don't know, I suspect there will be enormous popular demand they do. So many of the problems of the world are insoluble. Bringing civility to Iraq is one more. Iraq looks really difficult. It doesn't look insoluble. Warren hasn't been reading the polls closely. The over riding concern on the minds of Iraqis is security. It's clear what makes them insecure: Terrorists and extortionists of various stripes. The solution is fairly clear, I think: Kill lots of the former and jail lots of the latter. Keep developing the police and armed forces. Stay with the non-corruption program and insist on democratic forms. Can the Iraqis stay with it? What is their alternative, right now?