Post-Abu Ghraib Scandal: Better prospects for Iraq
Nevertheless, "a stain on American honor" as President George W. Bush described the scandal, helped to curb the American arrogance, a widely perceived characteristic of the current administration. From the highest officials in Washington to those laymen abroad, we find more and more, much more modest and even shy Americans.
The live coverage of Congressional hearings where Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, the Chairman of Joint of Chiefs of Staff General Richard Myers and high-ranking officers being interrogated and pushed into a low-profile posture before the Senate’s Armed Services Committee has served the American ideal of promoting democracy than the widely acclaimed imperfect blueprint of "the Greater Middle East Initiative." Even, in those corners of the Middle East where anti-Americanism rampart, the sight of the nullified defense secretary and the highest military official in front of elected senators, because of the responsibility of the misdeeds performed against the enemy, did not escape the eyes of millions and entrenched in their subconscious.
That has been sowing the seeds of the democracy in a much stronger fashion than that of seeking the implementation of the Greater Middle East Initiative through the assistance of the discredited regimes in Egypt and elsewhere. The better prospects brought to Iraq and the Iraqis are due to the U.S. lacking the leverage to push Iraqi leaders in the Governing Council to go along with U.N. Special Envoy Lakhdar Brahimi’s proposals to introduce a "faceless government" to Iraq for the transfer of sovereignty on June 30.
The U.S. lacked the leverage thanks to a considerable extent to mounting criticism from the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal. An International Crisis Group official said, "America has lost so much influence they may have to concede the composition of the government to the Iraqi Governing Council and allow it to make major decisions." This is what seems to be happening. IGC had opposed Brahimi’s proposals which were supported by the American proconsul in Iraq, Paul Bremer.
IGC had been suffering from being discredited, but the responsibility falls upon on Bremer’s shoulders. The American occupationist authorities led by him, arrogantly, denied any transfer of responsibility and authority to the Governing Council, the most representative body Iraq has witnessed in its turbulent history. The composition of the Council, though not a popular elected body, reflects the divides that currently exist in Iraq and most of the Council members are tested dissidents of the former tyrannical Baathist regime of Saddam Hussein.
Sidelining and trying to marginalize and bring them a "government of technocrats" through the machinations of Lakhdar Brahimi covertly supported by Saudis would, most probably plunge, into deeper instability and uncertainty. Now, the GC members, that is the political elements in Iraq, the Americans and Brahimi are on the verge of reaching a consensus over the type of government to be formed to take over the sovereignty from the occupationist authorities at the end of June. The sovereignty issue and the Iraqis running Iraq has become the core issue in Iraq since the overthrow of the Saddam regime.
In the British daily The Guardian, Jonathan Steele writes the following: "It was clear from the earliest days of the occupation, as the late U.N. envoy Sergio Vieira de Mello argued, that sovereignty is the key to security in Iraq, and the occupation itself is the major source of instability. Even among Iraqis who welcomed the invasion, the presence of foreign forces quickly created resentment and suspicion. As long as there was no date for the troops to leave, Iraqis feared the U.S. only wanted long-term military bases, and their oil. Many saw no choice but to resist the U.S., if necessary by force.
U.S. troops also became a magnet for every kind of radical Islamist group, Iraqi and foreign. "We thank the Americans for two things," a Wahhabi sheikh told me with a smile in Baghdad last month. "They liberated us from Saddam so we can operate freely. They also created the conditions for us to resist them in our own country instead of having to go abroad." Thus, the deterioating security situation that hampers the reconstuction of Iraq and carries the danger of its dismemberment can only be addressed effectively with the transfer of sovereignty rights to the right people. The battle of Falluja, where the use of excessive use of force by the Americans, demonstrated the way U.S. troops behave in Iraq is creating more enemies than they eliminate.
The skill of American forces as peacekeepers in relatively benign environments in the Balkans is much better than that of Iraq where they overreact and overkill at the slightest hint of hostilities they confront. If the transition of real power from the Americans to Iraqis can be achieved rapidly and in a correct manner, so as to be handed over to those Iraqis having the capacity of political representation, no matter that it would be an interim government; the security situation can be ameliorated. That is the order of the day.
And, the American officials in Baghdad said that the government would be announced in two weeks. It will be made up of a president with two deputies and a prime minister who would oversee a cabinet of 26 ministers. Ibrahim Jafari of the Shiite religious Dawa Party and Kurdish leader Jalal Talabani are mentioned as leading candidates for the post of prime minister. According to a State Department official, Adnan Pachaci, a former foreign minister and leading Baghdad Sunni personality, is Bush administration’s only candidate for president.
The interim government will be entrusted with planning and overseeing the elections in 2005, handing day-to-day affairs and most importantly, with the volatile security situation. Even that can be salvaged. The perceptive Washington Post columnist David Ignatius, though, after a visit to Iraq, writes that "Overall, Iraq is a mess," he also raises the following points to give room to a measured and cautious optimism for the future of Iraq: "Yet this disarray on the macro level masks local pockets of stability.
Southern Iraq, where I traveled for a week with British troops, is surprisingly calm — thanks to a quiet alliance of tribal sheiks and Shiite religious leaders with the British occupiers. The British have been wise enough to let the Iraqis find their own solutions to problems. The Kurdish north is also relatively calm and stable. Kurdish political leaders know they’ve got a good thing going in their quasi-autonomy from the Arabs to the south. Their troops and clan leaders are maintaining order, and while they may pay lip service to the notion of the Iraqi state, they’re quite happy to be running their own show. The nightmare area is the U.S.-controlled zone in the center of the country.
This was always going to be the toughest piece of the puzzle. Where the Shiite south and Kurdish north are each relatively homogenous, central Iraq is an ethnic, religious and political jumble. But even in the center, temporary pockets of stability have emerged over the past month, as the United States steps back from the brink of all-out urban warfare. Much like the British in the south, the U.S. occupiers now seem ready to accept some Iraqi solutions that are backed by the nation’s traditional power bases, such as the tribes, religious leaders and semi-respectable remnants of the old army.
The Bush administration must make an honest assessment of the ragged, checkerboard reality of postwar Iraq. The transition isn’t going to be smooth or uniform — and it certainly won’t be pretty. But we should all be happier to see the country move back into Iraqi hands." Yes. The prospects for a better Iraq is better in the wake of the Abu Ghraib prisoners abuse scandal.
