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Superfluous Israeli advice
13.8.2007
By Shlomo Avineri
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August
13, 2007
It is obvious to everyone today - that is, apart
from the policy wonks at the White House - that the
United States has failed in its policy in Iraq and
that the chances of stabilizing the situation there
are close to zero. This also has to be admitted by
those who justified the war against the tyrant, who
used poison gas on the Kurdish population and in the
war with Iran, and who for years played
cat-and-mouse games with United Nations mechanisms
over the disarming of his regime's non-conventional
weapons.
There are two reasons for the American failure: The
first has to do with the creation of Iraq as a state
by British imperial planners after World War I; the
second stems from the belief of U.S. President
George W. Bush's associates that it is possible to
export democracy to a country like Iraq by means of
occupation and force.
Of all the Arab countries, Iraq has been
exceptionally oppressive since its establishment.
The background to this was provided by the British
decision in 1918 to combine three provinces of the
Ottoman Empire into one state. This union did not
have historical or demographic roots that reflected
the population's consciousness. While the Mosul
province had a Kurdish majority, Sunni Arabs
dominated in Baghdad and the center, and there was a
Shi'ite Arab majority in the south. The British
installed a prince from the Sunni Hashemite dynasty
to rule over this hybrid structure.
The result was that the entire history of Iraq has
consisted of a series of revolts against the Sunni
hegemony by Kurds, Shi'ites and even the small
Assyrian Christian minority. Saddam Hussein's regime
was just the cruelest and most brutal of all the
Sunni hegemonic regimes the British forced on
Mesopotamia. The Americans' mistake lay in adopting
the neo-conservative belief that the moment
oppressive regimes fall, the democratic alternative
arises by itself, in what was assumed to be an
automatic historical development. As the example of
Eastern Europe shows, this is not a deterministic
inevitability.
The transition to democracy has been relatively easy
in Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary, where a
strong civil society with an extensive tradition of
representation and strong institutions had once
existed. In other places - with Russia being the
outstanding example - which have no tradition of
civil society, the transition to democracy has in
fact created disorder and chaos; and President
Vladimir Putin's neo-authoritarian regime has seemed
like the only alternative to the total
disintegration of the state.
The neo-conservatives in Washington have learned
nothing from the lessons of the past 15 years in
Eastern Europe. In a combination of arrogance and
ignorance they believed that Saddam's fall would
herald the rise of a democracy by its own accord, of
course with the help of American spears. What they
did not take into account is the fact that the
sudden introduction of democratic procedures into a
society that lacks the most basic infrastructures
will inevitably lead to chaos. What the ideologues
in Washington forgot is that even if democracy is a
recipe for stability, the processes of
democratization can in fact lead to prolonged
instability.
Six elections in three years, a referendum on a
constitution, constantly evolving and unstable
governments - all of these have given rise to
instability and even a certain sense of nostalgia
for the stability under Saddam. What the United
States has ignored entirely is the fact that in a
fractured society like the one in Iraq, the effect
of making elections a means for determining control
is liable to create serious distortions. The Shi'ite
majority, which suffered from oppression not just
during Saddam's reign but ever since Iraq became a
state, considers elections a means for ensuring its
hegemony. The government of the Shi'ite majority
does not see democracy as majority rule that ensures
the rights of the minority, but rather as granting
unbounded legitimacy to the rule of the majority.
For their part, the Sunnis consider the democratic
process to be a tool for turning them from the
ruling class into an oppressed minority. They are
doing all they can to thwart those chances of
stabilization that are based on the principle of
majority-rule. Only the Kurds, who have in any case
established a quasi-state in their autonomous region
in the North, are prepared to hoe the row that has
allowed them to obtain, in the meantime, what they
want: a more or less secure place under the sun.
Another matter beyond the field of vision of
Washington's democracy engineers is the fact that in
the absence of an existing framework of democratic
political and party activity, every entity that
wants to participate in elections has to establish
an armed militia that can impose its interests.
Thus, democratization without a democratic
infrastructure gives rise to armed militias that
serve as the power base for entities competing for
power. The ability to forge a coalition and the
recognition that real compromisesare needed are
alien to a political culture that emerges in
circumstances like these.
In such a reality, the United States has no chance
of bringing about stability in Iraq, in part because
Iraq no longer exists as a state. The illusion that
sending another 10,000 or 20,000 soldiers to the
region will reap any results is fading with each
passing day. America's problem in Iraq is no longer
Iraq itself but rather the international standing of
the United States. Sooner or later the U.S. will
withdraw from Iraq, without having succeeded in
stabilizing the situation there. The question is how
to realize such a withdrawal without causing further
deterioration in America's international status.
This is where the Israeli aspect comes in. It is
clear that Israel is worried, and rightly so, about
the rise of Sunni fundamentalism in Iraq, which is
linked to Al-Qaida, as well as about the increase in
Iran's power. It is obvious that Tehran's nuclear
program, alongside its support for Hezbollah and
Hamas, are only deepening Israel's concerns. Because
they worry about what will happen if the United
States pulls out of Iraq, quite a few strategic and
diplomatic experts in Israel have encouraged the
U.S. to continue on its current path. It is no
coincidence that some of these Israeli advocates are
close to the American neo-conservatives. But, much
like the latter, these spokesmen do not have an
answer to the question of how a stable democracy can
be established in Iraq when there aren't any
democrats there.
However, Israel must be extremely cautious about
being seen as the spearhead of an attempt to find a
solution through bullying. The same caution applies
to what may be thought of Israel's Jewish friends in
the U.S. Israel has already suffered significant
damage from the accusation that the U.S. went to war
in Iraq in order to protect Israel. It is important
that the view not gain ground that the bloody and
useless U.S. presence in Iraq derives from Israeli
interests.
Israel must be interested in the United States
withdrawing from the battle right now, when its
standing has not suffered any more damage than it
already has: America's global status is without a
doubt one of the foundations of Israel's strategic
power. It will not be built up by Israeli advice
that will not change the American position and will
only exacerbate the hostility to Israel in the Arab
countries and in Western public opinion.
Even if right now it is difficult for Israel to
progress toward peace with the Palestinians, it must
not come across as the driving force behind
Washington's bullying obduracy that is unaware that
it has reached the end of the road in Iraq.
haaretz com
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