A RIPPLE
OF DEMOCRACY
No
Credit To Washington Or London
15 March 2005 |
A
PDF of this briefing is available here
Posted: 6 September
2005 |
A RIPPLE OF
CHANGE
The US and Britain are claiming credit for recent dramatic events
in the Middle East. George W. Bush said on 5 Mar., ‘In
the last five months, we have witnessed successful elections
in Afghanistan, the Palestinian Territory and Iraq; peaceful
demonstrations on the streets of Beirut; and steps toward democratic
reform in Egypt and Saudi Arabia... freedom is on the march.’
He focused on the role of the Iraqi elections on 30 Jan., and
implicitly took credit for the elections. (White House website
<http://tinyurl.com/585qf>)
Tony Blair, for his part, says that there ‘may only be
a ripple of change at the moment but it is happening throughout
the Middle East.’ As usual, the Prime Minister seeks to
move attention from the damaging issue of the illegal invasion
of Iraq, to the alleged benefits of its occupation: ‘that
is why in the end whatever positions people take on Afghanistan
or Iraq, if you can establish democracy there it is of huge
importance to again providing an example of how countries can
develop.’ (Guardian, 2 Mar. <http://tinyurl.com/5qslb>)
There is little doubt that the Middle East is experiencing ‘a
ripple of change’. There is also little doubt that the
Iraqi elections have played a significant part in these political
shifts. The question is who is responsible for the progress.
THE AYATOLLAH OF DEMOCRACY
The Financial Times notes that the 30 Jan. elections in Iraq,
when more than 8 million Iraqis defied intimidation to vote
for a national assembly, have had considerable impact in the
Middle East: ‘This heroism, of a people who have endured
wars, sanctions and three decades of Saddam Hussein’s
form of fascism, struck a deep chord in the Arab world.’
The question is who was responsible for this outbreak of democracy.
The FT remarks: ‘The triumphalists in Washington who now
claim total vindication for their almost totally bungled strategy
are right to point out that these elections would not have taken
place under Mr Hussein. But they should reflect that the reason
they took place was the insistence of Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani,
who vetoed three schemes by the US-led occupation authorities
to shelve or dilute them. Mr Sistani is the man who has held
the Iraqi ring.’ (FT, 5 Mar., p. 10)
HURRYING UP: SEPT. 2003
At first, the US had what it called an ‘unhurried’
approach to the transfer of power to the Iraqi people. On 23
Sept. 2003, President Bush told the UN General Assembly that
‘self-government for the people of Iraq... must unfold
according to the needs of Iraqis, neither hurried, nor delayed
by the wishes of other parties.’ (White House <http://tinyurl.com/ofi6>)
In other words, political change should ‘unfold’
(and be ‘delayed’) according to the needs of the
US.
At this point, the US plan was that a (US-appointed) constitutional
convention would meet to agree a new constitution, to be confirmed
by a referendum, after which there would be elections of some
description. There were no timetables or deadlines for any of
these processes.
Within days of Bush’s speech, under pressure from France
and others for a swift handover of power, the US finally began
setting a timetable for the process. (Guardian, 27 Sept. 2003
<http://tinyurl.com/3lmol>)
THE SISTANI CHALLENGE
The crucial point made by Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Iraq’s
leading Shia cleric, was that, whatever the timetable, the process
had to be truly democratic.
The ayatollah condemned as ‘fundamentally unacceptable’
US plans to appoint the Iraqis who will begin drafting a new
constitution. He wrote in July 2003: ‘The occupation officials
do not enjoy the authority to appoint the members of a council
that would write the constitution.’ The ayatollah called
for a general election ‘so that every eligible Iraqi can
choose someone to represent him at the constitutional convention
that will write the constitution.’ (Guardian, 2 July 2003
<http://tinyurl.com/6mhjr>)
INDIRECT ELECTIONS: THE NEXT US GAMBIT
Within months, the US had taken another major U-turn, but still
did not accept the principle of direct elections. In mid-Nov.
2003, once again in a mood of panic, Washington announced a
new plan for ‘transferring sovereignty’ to an ‘elected’
Iraqi government. First a provisional legislative assembly was
to be selected by regional “caucus” meetings (by
31 May 2004). Then that assembly would elect a provisional Iraqi
government (by 30 June 2004), and this would immediately have
‘sovereignty’ ‘transferred’ to it by
the US.
Crucially, there was to be indirect selection to the national
assembly. Anton La Guardia, Diplomatic Correspondent for the
Telegraph, noted that ‘The “caucus” process
to select the provisional legislature will be far from democratic.’
(Telegraph, 26 Nov. 2003, p. 18) ‘As the law is being
drafted, the [Iraq Governing] council will set up 15-person
committees in each province that will be responsible for selecting
participants for the caucuses where members of the transitional
assembly will be chosen... vetted by the selection committees.’
(Washington Post, 16 Nov. 2003 <http://tinyurl.com/6ytqt>)
SELECTION NOT ELECTION
So, US-appointed politicians would select a committee in each
province which would select a group of politically-acceptable
local worthies, which in turn would select a representative
for the province to go forward to the national assembly. This
highly-filtered body would then be allowed to elect a provisional
government. Democracy, Washington-style.
Kurdish leader Jalal Talabani, member of the Governing Council,
noted that one tribal council head had included more than 20
members of his own family in the local caucus’. (FT, 29
Nov. 2003, p. 9) Democracy, Washington-style.
THE SISTANI CHALLENGE (AGAIN)
Ayatollah al-Sistani once again called for direct elections.
The US refused. ‘The coalition and Iraqi officials insist
that some creative way will be found to appease Mr Sistani without
holding an election, and a committee is now looking at options.’
(FT, 3 Dec. 2003, p. 13) Democracy, Washington-style.
The Shia clerical establishment responded by organising demonstrations,
demanding prompt direct elections, as the US presented its plans
for indirect elections to the UN. 100,000 Shias demonstrated
in Baghdad, and 30,000 demonstrated in Basra, Iraq’s second
city. The crowds shouted ‘yes, yes to elections, no, no
to occupation.’ (AP, 19 Jan. 2004 <http://tinyurl.com/3owr5>)
‘Worst of all for Washington, Sistani has made it clear
that no government which is undemocratically appointed will
have the right to ask American troops to stay.’ (Jonathan
Steele, Guardian, 19 Jan. 2004 <http://tinyurl.com/6h6hd>)
THE AYATOLLAH’S TRIUMPH
Salim Lone, former director of communications for the UN in
Baghdad, remarked on 3 Feb., 2004: ‘The Bush administration’s
resistance to acknowledging any of the disasters of its Iraq
policy seems finally to have been broken by the refusal of Ali
al-Sistani, the powerful Shia grand ayatollah, to back down
from his insistence that only elected bodies can preside over
the restoration of his country’s sovereignty.’ The
ayatollah had forced the US to back down on indirect elections
‘and at the same time, after a year’s steadfast
refusal, to seek a UN role in the country’s political
evolution.’ (Guardian <http://tinyurl.com/4td76>)
The ayatollah’s opposition led finally to the principle
of direct elections being written into UN Security Council Resolution
1546, passed on 8 June 2004. (Available from the Foreign Office
website <http://tinyurl.com/43dlz>)
THE ORIGINAL PLAN: COUP NOT ELECTIONS
President Bush’s ultimatum on 17 March 2003 did not call
for free elections in Iraq. Bush said merely, ‘Saddam
Hussein and his sons must leave Iraq within 48 hours.’
(<http://tinyurl.com/7ob3>) According to the FT, this
was intended to ‘encourag[e] a last minute coup more than
the Iraqi leader’s departure from Baghdad.’ (FT,
19 Mar. 2003, p. 3)
‘Coup fever seems even to have infected Downing Street.
In November 2002, Britain’s top academic Iraqi experts
were summoned to brief Blair... The first thing Blair said to
the academics was: “What do we do after the coup?”
They were dumbfounded.’ (Sunday Times, 11 Jan. 2004, News
Review)
If Saddam and his sons had left Iraq, as demanded, this would
have left the political-military-intelligence-judicial-bureaucratic-police
system created by Saddam Hussein intact. The US-UK plan was
not to hold free and fair elections in Iraq, but to provoke
a coup against Saddam, or, failing that, to hold together the
Iraqi system, maintaining ‘Saddamism without Saddam’.
Plan B was to spare and retain the Iraqi military leadership
as a means of controlling the country. The aim was to make the
Iraqi armed forces ‘come over’ so that it could
be used to ‘police the country after Saddam had gone’,
according to British sources. (Observer, 2 Feb. 2003, p. 1.
There is more documentation on these issues in Regime Unchanged,
Pluto, 2003.)
The plan was not ‘regime change’, but ‘regime
stabilization, leadership change’. Saddam’s system
was to be retained, under US-UK management. Washington and London
feared—and still fear—democracy in Iraq.
The United States had no intention of establishing democracy
in Iraq when it invaded.
Washington has been forced to allow
direct elections to the Iraqi National Assembly—forced
by the majority of Iraqi people, led by Grand Ayatollah Ali
al-Sistani. The alternative was a mass uprising by the Shia
majority which the US would have been incapable of controlling.
The ‘ripple of change’ in the Middle East is actually
the result of a successful challenge to US power, forced on
a reluctant conqueror.
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