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Guest
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John
Thomson
John
R. Thomson has lived and worked in the Middle East for more
than three decades, having based in Beirut, Cairo and Riyadh.
His frequent writing partner, Dr. Hussain Hindawi. currently
serves as Chair of Iraq’s Independent Electoral Council.
Iraq's
Plight of Progress
Ending despotism...
[John
Thomson] 2/28/05
Sunday, January
30, 2005 was a critical date for Iraq, the United States,
the Middle East and the entire freedom-loving world. Not only
does it mark Iraq’s first democratic elections in generations,
but the event, no matter the results, represents a significant
victory for the Bush administration and a blast of fresh governing
air for the entire Arab and Islamic world.
As important,
the election of a National Assembly represents a smashing defeat
for terrorism in general and Al-Qaeda in particular. Despite
the massed mischief of Baathist ex-members of Saddam Hussein’s
hated regime, Syria, Iran and anti-democratic jihadists from
Muslim community’s worldwide, large numbers of Iraqis
will vote in an open election for the first time in most of
their lives.
Abu Musab
al-Zarqawi, the Jordanian exile designated by Osama bin Laden
to head Al-Qaeda in Iraq, has spoken for all who wish freedom
and the free market no good in the country. Declaring “all-out
war” against democracy, he has openly called for civil
war, a cry not well-received by the overwhelming majority of
Iraqis, Sunni and Shia alike. Oddly, his objective of defeating
the democratic process seems to be shared by Bush antagonists
worldwide, including not a few in the United States.
Given continued
resolve by George W. Bush and the freely elected leaders who
will take office in Baghdad, however, the doomsday seers and
the terrorists in the field will lose. Much like Afghanistan,
where the negative nabobs said we were stumbling into a quagmire – only
to see free elections, marked by universal suffrage, followed
by relative peace – Iraq is on a difficult but determined
path to creating an open society. Veterans of Vietnam, Laos,
Cambodia and other hotspots of the 1960s and 70s who have studied
the situation on the ground in Iraq and earlier in Afghanistan,
see little to justify claims of strong similarities between
the two sets of regional conflict. As one who has covered both,
I concur.
This is not
to say there will not be a host of challenges, post January
30.
- Al-Zarqawi
and his ilk, foreign and domestic, will continue their efforts
to undermine the democratic process in Baghdad.
- The National
Assembly will have long and heated debates as it works to
select by two-thirds majority a President and two Vice Presidents
and, later, fashion a constitution acceptable to all Iraqis.
- The Syrian
and Iranian regimes will continue supporting efforts to destabilize
Iraqi society, covertly supported by Saudi interests.
- At the
same time, in the most pernicious challenge of all, Iran’s
power-happy mullahs will seek to control the governing process
in Baghdad.
There is
little doubt the Shia will gain significant, effectively controlling,
power in the elections. Equally, within the Shia group of elected
assembly men and women, the United Iraqi Alliance [UIA] formed
under the guidance of Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, will
be the single strongest Shia force. Al-Sistani, born in Iran,
is nevertheless strongly opposed to Tehran’s mullahcracy,
on the grounds that clerics should not be directly involved
in political activities, rather serving as guides and advisors
to those actively participating in politics.
The danger
comes from two political groups within the UIA, respectively
led by Ahmed Chalabi and Abdel Aziz al-Hakim. Both individuals
have strong ties to Tehran, and both receive aid and advice
from their mullah-mates. Although they have had significant
differences in the past, a governing alliance of convenience
brokered by Iran is a disturbing possibility. Working within
the loose UIA structure, the two could take advantage of Grand
Ayatollah Al-Sistani’s shunning of direct political activity,
effectively to push him to the sidelines.
Ahmed Chalabi’s
perfidy is by now well-known. Having left Iraq more than 40
years ago, the artful Chalabi went on to a checkered career.
Convicted of embezzling hundreds of millions of dollars from
his family-owned Petra Bank in Amman, Jordan, he later received
a reported $100 million or more into his London-based Iraqi
National Council coffers from the U.S. Department of Defense,
for highly questionable information about the Saddam regime
and its opposition. At the same time he was counseling the
Defense Department, Chalabi was a frequent flyer to Tehran
where he informed senior government officials about U.S. plans
vis-à-vis Iraq and received misinformation to transmit
back to his Washington clients.
Abdel Aziz
al-Hakim was the first exiled Shia cleric to return to Iraq
after Saddam’s fall, arriving in the town of Kut in mid-April
of 2003. He had lived in Tehran for 23 years and understudied
his brother who formed the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution
in Iraq [SCIRI]. Unlike brother Muhammad Bakr, Abdel Aziz never
attained the rank of ayatollah, and instead concentrated on
developing and leading SCIRI’s militant wing, the Badr
Brigades. SCIRI was financially supported by Tehran for nearly
20 years, with the Badr Brigades trained by Iran’s infamous
Revolutionary Guard.
Abdel Aziz
al-Hakim has repeatedly said he supports a secular government;
however, three factors suggest that he could actually be seeking
direct political power. As a member of Iraq’s Interim
Governing Council, he proposed that Islam’s restrictive
Sharia Law be adopted as the basis for family and civil law.
In addition, the continually circulated rumors that he will
agree to serve as President if elected are considered by many
to be more than a spontaneous campaign. Finally, Al-Hakim’s
evident working alliance with Chalabi suggests he is seeking
at the least to amass the necessary votes in the National Assembly
to control the Presidential selection process, if not be elected
to the post himself.
So much for
the possible pitfalls: has it all been worth it? Is the path
to peace and progress all that important? Have there been any
significant developments to justify the enormous cost in American
blood and treasure? The answers, resoundingly, are yes.
The most
cruel and combative regime in the entire Middle East has been
eliminated, freeing 28 million Iraqis and ending palpable threats
to six neighboring countries. With Afghanistan, two Muslim
dominated countries are being added to the still short list
of democratic Muslim states [Turkey, Malaysia and Indonesia,
with Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Morocco, Tunisia, Pakistan and
Bangladesh in various stages of development]. Pakistan, as
a leading example, has moved from a semi-democratic, semi-jihadist
condition, first to neutrality and more recently to virtual
alliance with the U.S. in the war on terrorism.
The sons
of Libya’s Muammar Ghadafi and Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak
have foresworn further interest in succeeding their fathers,
although both had spent 10 or more years preparing themselves
to lead their nations. Libya has ended its programs to develop
weapons of mass destruction and handed accumulated materials
and equipment over to the United States.
Saudi Arabia,
long a condoner of extremist excesses, will this year hold
the country’s first genuine elections in 70 years, when
half the members of newly formed municipal councils will be
chosen by male voters. Moreover, the government professes to
have stopped aiding radical mosques and madrassahs around the
world, and the Ministry of Education has made radical excisions
in the texts used in Saudi schools.
Even Iran
and North Korea, two of the most despotic regimes in the world,
have been remarkably quiescent for the last year and more.
Of course,
much remains to be done. Iraq-based terrorists must be eliminated,
and their openly supportive governments in Damascus and Tehran
pressured to change … or be changed. This need not require
military invasion; rather, strong diplomatic pressure on the
widely unpopular regimes, plus expressed sympathy for dissident
elements could make for major adjustments in both countries.
Syria should
be pressed to withdraw the credentials of the renegade Iraqi
embassy in Damascus, which issues visas and passports for virtually
any would be Muslim/Arab terrorist. The UN pressure on Syria
to withdraw its troops from neighboring Lebanon, which it has
occupied for 29 years, should be increased with a demand that
free elections be held within 90 days of troop departure. Even
before Syrian troop withdrawal, U.S. and/or IAEA inspectors
should be allowed free access to the Beka’a Valley, long
a hothouse for Hezbollah and Hamas guerillas and currently
a suspected resting place for Saddam’s WMD.
Iran should
be pressed to expel the known Al-Qaeda and Talaban terrorists
currently receiving safe haven, as well as allow full and free
access to all its nuclear development sites. The Gulf sheikhdom
of Qatar, where at the government’s invitation the U.S.
has invested billions to establish its largest Middle East
base, should be pressed to rein in the foul-mouthed, state-owned
Al-Jazeera television station, which for years has served as
a virulent pro-terrorist propaganda center.
Not to be
left unmentioned, Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak, after 24 years
in power, must be persuaded to carry through on his promise
to establish a viable process for electing his successor. And
the state-controlled media should be forcefully encouraged
to desist from years of anti-American and anti-Israeli billingsgate,
as small recompense for more than $50 billion in American aid
since the 1979 Camp David accords that resulted in establishment
of Egyptian-Israeli diplomatic relations.
In the end,
much continues to depend on Iraq. Historically with Egypt one
of the two major Arab centers of power and learning, all eyes
will be fixed on developments within the Fertile Crescent,
and virtually all Iraqis know it.
- Falah
Hassan al-Naquib, interim Interior Minister and a Sunni leader,
has said, “The elections are critical for Iraq and
all Sunnis who want a stable country"
- Samir
Samaidaie, Iraqi Ambassador to the United Nations and a Kurd
leader, has said, “The elections are an event of historic
proportions for all the Middle East, as well as Iraq”.
- Ali al-Sistani,
Grand Ayatollah and religious leader of Iraq’s dominant
Shia community, has repeatedly promised significant Sunni
representation in the National Assembly, whether or not the
Baathist thugs and their jihadist allies succeed in frightening
Iraqi Sunnis from voting.
Notwithstanding
the risks, the dooms dayers, nay sayers and Bush haters, the
odds heavily favor the continued evolution of Iraq from Saddam’s
sadistic satrapy to a free market and democratic society. Fully
80% of Iraqis know that they are witnessing their best chance
for freedom and self-expression, as do a solid majority of
citizens in Japan, China, India, Pakistan and the former Soviet
bloc, not to exclude the United States. Granted much of old
Europe continues to oppose U.S. activities in the war on terror:
it is no small feat that nations representing nearly 75% of
the world’s population support the determined removal
of the threat of terrorism and regimes providing support to
this century’s great scourge.
The tide
of history is turning against dictators and terrorists, in
favor of the free market and democracy. Despots and crackpots
from Bashar al-Assad in Damascus to Hugo Chavez in Caracas
take note. tOR
This
piece first appeared at In
The National Interest
copyright
2005 In The National Interest
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