Sunni Quotas and Iraqi Nationalism

Following up on Stefany’s post on the US generated idea of a Sunni quota for the next Iraqi National Assembly, we see that the idea has not traveled far:

“Mr. Powell said that the option of adding seats was not provided for by the law enacted under the American occupation earlier this year, and that the United States was not "participating in any discussion with Iraqi leaders" on changing the law.”

Interesting. By this reading, the US just floated the Sunni quota notion without even discussing it with any “Iraqi leaders,” certainly not a sign of confidence. Note the confusion within the administration gleaned from the following quote, which might illustrate that Powell is, once again, not in the loop:

“A Western diplomat and an administration official said last week that such discussions had begun with some Iraqi leaders, but that they were extremely delicate because it would be up to the Iraqis to make such a decision.”

Very tentative, but this “Western diplomat” claims that there is at least a dialogue, which Powell appeared to deny. The article also noted that the Iraqi Islamic Party, a relatively moderate Sunni group, is withdrawing from the elections and that a purge of Shiite clerics continues:

“The bomb attack on Monday, on the offices of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, followed a series of killings and bombings of Shiite clerics. In a typical example, reported Sunday, a cleric was shot in his car as he approached Baghdad from the south.

Many Iraqis believe the attacks are being waged by former Baathists and Sunni Arabs concerned about the ascendancy of Shiites, who make up about 60 percent of the population but have long been dominated by the Sunni Arab minority of central Iraq. Some Sunni leaders also say Mr. Hakim and other religiously oriented Shiite politicians are too much under the sway of the Shiite theocracy in Iran."

As to Stefany’s query as to whether Sadr could be tamed through inclusion (please see the fourth comment on this post ), I respond with the archetypal myth against inviting monsters over your threshold. The threshold, for many a pre-modern culture, contained some talismanic protection against vampires and bogeyman, though an invitation from the head of the household negates that power. The most severe and overplayed example is that of Hitler and the Reichstag; once Adolf crossed the parliamentary threshold he never looked back, and if the Hitler talk seems wildly inappropriate then check out the mutual hysteria of the current Iraqi President Ghazi Yawar who warns of the rise of an Iraqi Hitler.

So why keep Sadr outside of legitimate parlimentarian politics?
Sadr is strongly suspected of the murder of rival Shiite cleric Ayatollah al-Khoei and implicated in the death of Ayatollah Baqr al-Hakim, a leader of SCIRI.
As to his governmental inspirations and intentions towards the Western world, Sadr famously announced in April of this year: "I am the striking arm for Hizbullah and Hamas in Iraq because the fate of Iraq and Palestine is the same." Charming and not reassuring as to his desires to adhere to commonly perceived democratic norms.

Sadr declared his own Islamic Republic in early Fall of ’03 which was terribly presumptuous, then led two uprisings against the Occupation (which may be selling points for him vis-à-vis his base). Most egregiously, Sadr’s Mahdi Army wiped out Qawilya, a Shiite Gypsy village of several hundred (Shiite Gypsies? Who knew?), a disturbing event that occurred under the noses of the Occupation and received far too little press.

Taking all these strikes against Sadr together, I’d prefer that this radical Islamist thug not be allowed over the parliamentary threshold, but Americans have little say in the matter at this point. Should he or his surrogates be seated, one could suspect a high degree of conflict, probably armed, between Sadr and SCIRI, perhaps over the murder of al-Khoei and Baqr al-Hakim. The current head of the party is his brother, Abdel-Aziz al-Hakim.

In response to his post, it should be noted that Morgan has long been overly gullible towards those rare Islamists who mouth the pieties of progressivism, which explains his Hitchensian infatuation with the roguish Ahmed Chalabi. Chalabi, the “Man of Cats” has broken with his Neocon patrons (perhaps not a bad thing) and is cozying up to Moqtada al-Sadr (a bad thing), a metaphoric declension for his earlier ideals. For many Liberal Hawks, the (vanishing) dream of a progressive Iraq originated with Chalabi and Kanan Makiya, who painted an overly optimistic picture of the Iraq he knew when he left in 1968; one that was cosmopolitan, well-educated, tolerant, and above all resilient, so enduring that these noble traits could be quickly revived with Saddam’s removal. I often get the sense that Morgan’s never really broken with that faith, even if Makiya has grown more bitter in his assessments. And herein lies a major problem for Neoconservatives and Liberal Hawks alike. As Anatol Lieven has stated in his “America Right Or Wrong”: “Even genuinely honorable, well informed and sincere American works advocating a democratization strategy for the Middle East often suffer badly from the failure to confront the question of nationalism.(212)” One of the prime features of nationalism is its ability to feed off of a wide range of “resentments, loyalties, identities, hopes and fears,” and both the Neocons and Liberal Hawks have been exceedingly negligent in determining what parties in Iraq can best mobilize to provide such highly combustible fuel. Nationalism, especially in its resentments and fears, is often ugly and volatile, but has proven to be an integral ingredient in the rise of mass politics and socio-economic development throughout history. America’s role in shepherding this emerging Iraqi (Shiite?) nationalism is already extremely conflicted; a widespread American disdain for Arab views of Israel, as well as the fact that nascent nationalisms often define themselves in opposition to the hegemon, which many Iraqis see as America, leaves diminishing space for the US to maneuver.

If not nationalism, then what form of shared national identity can knit together Iraq? Some of the progressive elements in Iraq look quite lovely from the distance of our perspective -- and perhaps they will do better than this analysis expects -- but it appears that the present political terrain of Iraq, with so many Baathi and Sunni insurgents inciting deliberate societal atomization and even civil war, proves a bit rough for these nice, Lockean, multi-cultural organizations. Perhaps Morgan will take the time to name who his chosen horses are in this race and assess their chances of winning. Meanwhile, the news from both the Anbar Province and Baghdad tells of a relentless insurgency that is actually accelerating its gruesome campaign against crumbling Iraqi security forces and the ineffectual interim government.
AK

- posted by AK @ 1:53 PM

 
The "Little American" vs. Shiite Fascism

A recurring topic of this blog is the “Little American” conceit, the myopic belief that American conceptions of freedom, democracy and the free market are universal desires, crossing cultural and religious divides as soon as elections are available to the oppressed or liberated. Admittedly, it is an oversimplification that we here at OTR often throw around for rhetorical spark and smoke, but on occasion one can find the rather solipsistic thinking that fits within the parameters of the caricature. Take the following from the right-wing blogger Wretchard, over at his often polished and eloquent blog The Belmont Club:

“The central issue in Iraq is whether an Arab people can win their freedom in despite [sic] of the worst efforts of tyrannical and terrorist regimes to prevent it. The blasts which ripped through the Shi'ite holy places and the bullets which smashed the skulls of Iraqi election works have also blown aside the fog of propaganda with which the ancien regime sought to hide its campaign of suppression. It is not about 'blood for oil' or 'Jesusland': no; it is about the Iraqi people seeking to choose their future, backed by America on the one hand and the traditional tyrannies of the Middle East aided by their European Allies and the United Nations bureaucracy seeking to prevent it on the other [emphasis added]. That is not to say that traditional geopolitics or human greed have nothing to do with the overall mixture; nor to argue that commercial cupidity and ambition are absent from Iraq. But it is essential to recognize the fundamental issues involved and where the cause of right lies, this day, this hour; until the elections on January 30.

”The “this day, this hour” link is a little too precious and metonymic of much of the fantasy that still mires right-wing bloggers like Wretchard; the orcs they’ve yet to discover are, in actuality, Shiite nationalist. The Belmont Club, like many of its conservative cousins, is fascinated by military science and the history of warfare, eschewing political and even anthropological analysis of who and what the Iraqi people desire. Bizarrely -- given Wrethard’s belief that Iraqis will choose a future more in line with America than the “traditional tyrannies of the Middle East” -- is that he starts off his post with a somewhat dour assessment by Reuel Marc Gerecht of Iran’s influence over the most dominant Iraqi powers which seems to contradict Wretchard’s central point:

“All of the principal groups through which Iran hopes to exercise influence in Iraq--the Iranian-created Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), the Dawa (or "Islamic Call") party, and the Sadriyyin, followers of Muqtada al Sadr, the young clerical firebrand who has been engaged in a spiritual tug-of-war with the country's traditional clergy--are committed now to the election process. Iran has probably been pouring money into Iraq, to all three of these Shiite groups, which don't share much affection for each other, and in the case of the Dawa and the Sadriyyin, have had distinctly mixed, often hostile, emotions about things Iranian. Both the Dawa and the Sadriyyin have regularly belittled Grand Ayatollah Sistani for his "Persianness" and snarled at clerical Iran's habit of talking down to the Iraqi Shia.Tehran's motivation in giving aid to these parties is to encourage some dependency and, more important, keep the three most provocative Shiite groups in the forefront of Iraqi politics. Some of the Dawa rank and file and the young, streetwise men behind Sadr are, like the Baath Party that made them, explosively violent, easily as tough and potentially as fierce as the Baathists and Sunni militants who are so doggedly trying to shred civil society and unleash sectarian conflict.”

Like other reports linked by Steven, Gerecht asserts that the three largest parties in Iraq are Shiite religious parties with myriad ties to Iran and a militancy that runs from strong (SCIRI with their Badr Brigades) to explosive (Sadr’s Sadriyyin). So where does America come in by assisting these Shiite choices against the Iranian tyranny that is funding the dominant parties? Sadr is perhaps the most Iraqi nationalist of the three with his frequent derisive notation of the “Persians” in the other Shiite parties, but for obvious reasons the US is not about to cuddle up to him (though the Pentagon’s erstwhile favorite Chalabi has already done so!). What parties carry the standard for American style choice that Wretchard seems to believe is set to triumph against regional tyranny? The Iraqi National Accord, led by the repulsive Mukhabarat assasin and American stooge Ayad Allawi? The apparently noble and very tiny blogger/politicians of the IDP ?

Perhaps conservative bloggers like Wretchard are more aware of the strength of Shiite nationalism and dogmatism than they let on, and are not so unsophisticated as to subscribe the “Little American” ideal of spreading our style of democracy regardless of religious difference, yet one seldom finds mention in their publishings of Iraqi conceptions of freedom and democracy that repudiate our own. Take the not atypical case of Hajaj, a conservative Shi’a Iraqi who worked for the coalition as a translator yet voiced misgivings about America’s intentions and “morality”. As reported in the LA Times, Hajaj, while thankful for the money, still expresses a fear of what American style choice really means for him and his countrymen. "The Americans may give us food, and they may give us money," he says. "But they are dangerous for our morality." It is rare to find a conservative blogger noting just what these Shiite conceptions of morality entail and how they might impact America’s efforts to birth a sustainable democracy in Iraq:

“There are things for which Hajaj, the translator, can't forgive the Americans. They are small gestures that seem insignificant, but from Hajaj's deeply conservative Shiite perspective, they come dripping with dire meaning. Take, for example, the day that two Iraqi women walked right past the checkpoints and sandbags to enter coalition headquarters.Hajaj is mortified . . . . "It made us so nervous," Hajaj says. "We knew it was wrong." The women are employed by the coalition to teach American officers about local customs, but to Hajaj, that's irrelevant. Nothing can justify their disappearance into an armed compound full of foreign men.Hajaj pleads with the coalition to call off the sessions. Not only do the lectures shatter the honor of the women, he tells the Americans, but they're also a grave insult to the entire town. "There are so many places, rooms, where they can do their jobs in front of people," he says. "But not behind walls. Not in secret."The Americans ignore his complaints. "Now people suspect the women," Hajaj says, darkly. "They might even shoot them. [emphasis added to note the irony]"

The article by Megan Stack, composed over many months, tells of Hajaj loosening up his strict moral code with prolonged contact with the Americans and a paycheck the like of which he’s never earned before; he now shakes hands with an American woman, expresses skepticism about an Islamic Republic and has bought a satellite dish so his children can watch cartoons. But the article ends with Hajaj out of work once the Americans withdraw, leaving no functioning school for him to teach in. He is, alas, perhaps a best case example, owing to his brief, enriching exposure to the Occupation which has now ended. “It's like this, Hajaj says: The Americans have done him good—and done his people harm.” I’d love to know who Hajaj, a fair-weather friend of America, plans to vote for? Maybe we can glean something from the following: "We support Sistani without thinking," (Hajaj) says. "The clerics will call for a fight, and the people will follow—and they should follow. Even if they die, they should follow."
AK

- posted by AK @ 6:42 PM

 
Liberal Vision and the "Little American"

David over Eclectic Refrigerator inquires at to what the “Little American” theory is that we throw back and forth here at Chronicles with such ferocity:

“Over at the Chronicles there have been several discussion to the concept of “the little American” (quotes above). From the context in which this phrase has been used, it seems to be a negative reference to the idea that there is a universal desire for freedom or least to live a life free of oppression. . . . But regardless of the exact definition it seems to imply a strong hint of skepticism and/or cynicism about establishing democracy in the Middle East, which I think has characterized much of the left/liberal/democrats response to War on Terror and the War in Iraq.”

The “Little American” is the anti-anthropological notion that freedom and democracy mean the same things to all people, that they are universal characteristics and that like Americans, oppressed people long for our specific civil rights, constitutional guarantees, and economic arrangements. Comparative difference of democratic systems and unique cultural institutions simply don’t factor in. Using a concept from the philosopher Charles Taylor, our hypergoods, deep down, are really their hypergoods. Little Mohammed in Falluja doesn’t really want to be a good Muslim and fight the Marines like his older brothers; he wants a Nintendo Power Glove. That this extraordinarily myopic concept reverberates throughout the American engagement in Iraq is evident when it was put into tragicomic practice through the thankfully brief tenure of Lt. Gen. (ret.) Jay Garner as proconsul. With Saddam in hiding, his loyalists fleeing into the Sunni triangle to fight another day and Baghdad broken down into anarchy, bombings and looting, Jay Garner gathered leading clerics, sheiks and political figures into a conference hall for a summit to establish a new Iraqi state. Prevailed upon to answer who was in charge, he looked out upon the audience and declared “You are!” An outrageously fatuous response that met with disbelieving laughter. With Saddam gone, the gangrenous, senile Baathi ogre collapsed and a fresh, pink, American style Iraqi was supposed to have popped forth, puffed out its chest, and started bellowing orders to clean up. Surely the Iraqi leaders would just “step up”? The faith in this “metaphysics of the American hommunculi” was so strong that the many long-labored over plans for reconstruction were simply left at home. "The day you start building the war plan is the day you start building the postwar plan," Jay Garner later regretfully admitted to FRONTLINE. "We didn't do that, not in this case." That astounding hubris, that democracy and free markets were the default state of any society, has been quickly whittled down by Garner’s increasingly realpolitik successors. Paul Bremer gave a rather heavy-handed -- though more institutionally and legal-rationally minded -- try at molding Iraqis into “Little Americans” through laissez-faire economic reforms and shock therapy. You can read how these disgraceful and undemocratic attempts went at Baghdad Year Zero.

The Ayatollah Sistani quickly shredded Bremer’s best efforts at the Transitional Administrative Law, ended American dreams of shock therapy and urged Shiite religious parties to assert themselves. Which leads us to a very important question that David asks about the reluctance of much of the Left and Liberals to embrace the error prone, American-led democratic project in Iraq:

“I don’t recall in my idealist college days of the late 80’s the left claiming that we should be cautious about ending apartheid, that such a project should be abandoned because we are assuming black South Africans are “little Americans.” I thought the left believed the that the restrictions of apartheid needed to be stripped away so that black South Africans could be free to realize their own destiny. Why is it so different for Iraq or Iran?”

Ah, but America didn’t invade South Africa under the incorrect pretense that it had WMD capable of harming the US (though South Africa did have nuclear weapons!)but quietly succored the apartheid regime. I think the best answer to David’s question, especially vis-à-vis the Bush administration’s rhetoric, comes from Anatol Lieven in his recent “America Right or Wrong: An Anatomy of American Nationalism” (p. 209):

“The absolutist nature of the American Creed, with its ideological faith in Democracy and Freedom, tends to produce etherized, contentless versions of both of these concepts. This tendency is strongly evident in the rhetoric of the Bush administration, with its talk of “freedom loving” people of wherever, as so on. In turn by making democracy look both so universally applicable and so easy, this approach feeds American messianism and militant interventionism. . . . Our contemporary version of democracy has emerged only after long struggle among different races, ethnicities and social groups; and this struggle was often bloody, and not at all democratic in form. As the American historian Eric Foner has recorded, the concept of freedom has meant radically different and even contradictory things to different groups of Americans, and at different times in American history. . . . Yet when it comes to the world outside the United States, “democracy” is all too often treated not as a procedure, but as an end; not as a way of posing a set of questions about the state and society, but as an answer to those questions – and as a quick answer, which, once achieved, will allow the United States to pull out of a country again, leaving behind a stable and reliable U.S. ally. It is in part due to this mind-set that large sections of the U.S. public opinion were convinced to support the Iraq War by the argument that this would bring democracy to Iraq as a prelude to democratizing the Middle East as a whole. In this discourse, the inevitable embitterment of the disempowered Sunni minority, ethnic tensions between Arabs and Kurds, the persistence of Shi’a religious networks as the last civic institutions left by Ba’ath totalitarianism, and the rivalries between these networks – all these perceptions were simply obliterated by the simple mantras of “democracy” and “freedom”.”

In order to avoid the “etherized” and “contentless” versions of Freedom and Democracy that Lieven warns of, or falling prey to mistaken faith in the “Little American” that resides within the heart of all Iraqis, let’s ask what are the dominant political parties poised to win power in the scheduled elections and what is their political platform? According to one leading politician:

“Dr. Shahristani made his comments at a news conference held to formally announce the new coalition, the United Iraqi Alliance. Shiites represent 60 percent of Iraq's population, and the Alliance may be poised to win a dominant share of votes for the National Assembly, which will elect a prime minister and cabinet from within its ranks.The Alliance's ranked list of its top candidates, therefore, could well represent the outlines of the next government. The first name on the list is Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, the leader of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, according to a copy provided by a senior Alliance member.Mr. Hakim lived in Iran for years before the fall of Saddam Hussein, and his prominence on the slate may invite charges - like those made recently by King Abdullah II of Jordan and the interim Iraqi president, Ghazi al-Yawar - that Iran is trying to influence the election.No. 7 is Dr. Shahristani, and No. 10 is Ahmad Chalabi, the former exile once championed by the Bush administration. Candidates proposed by Moktada al-Sadr, the renegade cleric who ignited two uprisings against the American occupation here, are in the top 25.The Alliance has a 23-point platform, Dr. Shahristani said, but he disclosed only one point: a plan to negotiate a date for the withdrawal of American troops. The main elements of the platform, he said, are sovereignty, unity and respect for the Islamic identity of Iraq.”

I think David's questions about liberal reservations should further inquire as to what the concepts of “Freedom” and “Democracy” mean for these dominant Shiite political parties (Hmmm, sovereignty, unity AND respect for Islamic identity? What could THAT mean?), and whether they are worthy of liberal support. Maybe the very name of SCIRI will tell us something about what they’re after as political goods: the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq. Say it to yourself a few times. I don’t know about David, but I’m not interested in supporting parties with pronounced Shiite theocratic tendencies, and the secular opposition doesn’t look too strong at this point. Personally, the Iraqi bloggers/politicians of the newly formed Iraqi Pro-Democracy Party look like swell fellows with some decent points on their platform, and if you think they are what they claim to be then you can make a donation. I fear though, that they may not be much larger than the dozen candidates they’re fielding. It’s extremely important to note that in contrast of the Bush view of America as an ally helping to rebuild Iraq and promote democracy and freedom, the main Shiite parties seem to want us to leave; it is THE CENTRAL point of their platform, something Spencer Ackerman’s been screaming about for two weeks.

There are so many preconditions to a viable Iraqi democracy that it’s hard to know where to start. Is Iraq really a viable nation that can settle what Lieven calls the “inevitable embitterment” of its disempowered minorities in a just manner, or a colonial holdover which needs to sort out ethnic and religious boundaries before its present citizens can live in peace . . . . as neighboring nations? If the US does pull out, which it may have to if given a democratically mandated request, then I fear David is right, that a civil war could very likely erupt . . . . if it hasn’t already. Really, how much political control can the U.S. exercise over this process, and as pro-democracy liberals or leftists appalled by the atrocities committed by the US already, how much support should we give to a project that not only shouldn’t be managed by the obviously incompetent US, but may well be unmanageable by any foreign force?

Finally, I’d politely question David’s post on the cost of democracy, Iraqi deaths since “liberation,” and the provided link to the alleged deaths of only 15,000 Iraqis of which I’m a bit dubious. If you hit that link and click: “» Iraq casualties as of April 15, 2003,” you’ll note that, “Below is the latest information on the casualties of this war. Note, the casualty numbers are likely higher than those shown because only confirmed deaths are included.” The figures cited are U.S. government figures. In counterpoint, if you pick up Bob Woodward’s “Plan of Attack” at any bookstore or library and turn to page 407, you’ll find General Tommy Franks who led the war effort, claiming in front of the NSC that 30,000 estimated casualties were inflicted on Iraqi forces in the first two weeks of the war. On page 408, Woodward questions the President about figures Woodward heard from U.S. Generals that put the casualty rate at 60,000. Hardly scientific, but ponder for a moment if these figures are near accurate. Or, check out the methodology of the Johns Hopkins study published in the British medical journal The Lancet, which claims more than 98,000 Iraqis have died since “liberation”. Again, this is not an endorsement of this study -- I’m in no position to really ascertain -- but suppose they are correct or in the realm of the realistic? What would this say about the U.S. engagement en toto?

The NYT post on Shahristani cited above notes that Moqtada al-Sadr is considered an acceptable democratic partner for the Shiite parties, a man who vowed to be the Iraqi arm of Hamas and Hizbollah! In 1991, President George H.W. Bush encouraged the Shiites to rebel and then spun around and virtually authorized Saddam to crush the rebellion, a sickening act of betrayal that former U.S. ambassador Peter Galbraith believes may have cost more than 300,000 lives. Does America share culpability for allowing this very preventable crime to occur and how does this foul duplicity, plus the Occupation’s crushing of two Sadrite uprisings with AC-130 gunships, affect our relations with a Shiite led democracy? Given the obvious presence of anti-American rage throughout Iraq, some of it quite justified, what sort of democratic forms will it take? It is quite laudable to endorse the long term project of building democratic institutions, but if democracy is a cure all for Islamic Radicalism and Terror, then what went so horribly wrong in democratic Lebanon? What happens when Iraqi, democratically supported, anti-Americanism clashes with America’s War on Terror? The tensions between naive notions of universal freedom and democracy and the rise of Shiite nationalism are so obvious that even Defense panjandrum Paul Wolfowitz is giving nervous voice to them in this revealing interview :

“We are not trying to control these countries so we can exploit their resources. We're trying to enable these countries to stand on their own feet and our experience says that when they do so, we're better off. It's back to the absurdity of saying we're trying to impose our ideas on other people when we want to help them become democracies. There's more legitimacy to the question of whether we are really prepared to live with what they produce when they become democratic. There's an uncertainty about the democratic process and there's always a danger that bad people will get elected. [Emphasis added]”

Which leads me to ask, before I urge liberals or leftist to endorse an “etherized” or “contentless” versions of democracy and freedom for Iraq, what does Paul Wolfowitz know about the Iranian elections that gave rise to the Ayatollah Khomeini? Mere elections do not a democracy make after all. Or for that matter, given the “whether we are really prepared to live with what they produce” crack, what does the Pentagon’s most reluctant neoconservative know about Mohammed Mossadegh?
AK

- posted by AK @ 1:02 PM

 
9/11 and Globaloney

Thomas Friedman’s column in the NYTimes covers some key critiques of Bush’s horrendous fiscal polices in his usual pop-pithy manner:

“The very reason Mr. Bush had the luxury of launching a war of necessity in Afghanistan and a war of choice in Iraq, without a second thought, was because of the surpluses built up by the previous administration and Congress. Since then, the Bush team has been slashing taxes in the middle of two wars, weakening the dollar and amassing a huge debt burden - on the implicit assumption that nothing will go wrong in the future.
But what if there is another 9/11 or war of necessity? We're cooked. The tax revenue won't be there, so the only option will be more borrowing and a weaker dollar. But what happens if the Chinese and other foreigners, who now hold over 40 percent of our Treasury securities, decide they don't want to hold these depreciating dollars anymore, let alone buy more?”

These are all quite accurate and scary -- kudos to any commentator of his class that can bring more light to bear on the gross negligence of the Bushies -- but Friedman seems to forget his own history of serving up big, fatty slices of globaloney a few years ago when his “The Lexus and the Olive Tree” ripped off Benjamin Barber’s much more scholarly and prescient 1995, “Jihad vs. McWorld”:

“It is now clear to me that we have followed the dot-com bubble with the 9/11 bubble. Both bubbles made us stupid. The first was financed by reckless investors, and the second by a reckless administration and Congress. In the first case, the public was misled by Wall Street stock analysts, who told them the old rules didn't apply - that elephants can fly.”

It wasn’t just “reckless investors”, but as Thomas Frank describes in his “One Market Under God,” the easy co-option of a whole intellectual class into the fast, glib charms of the dot.com bomb. . . . . including easy pushovers like Friedman. Made us stupid, huh? Telecosm anyone?
AK

- posted by AK @ 10:17 AM

 
Sadr Marches On
Spencer Ackerman’s blog worries that Moqtada al-Sadr, having already risen up twice against the US-led occupation, is now making major plays for more power within the Shiite ticket set to assume power in January:

“But already, Grand Ayatollah Sistani offered Sadr numerical parity with Da'wa and near-parity with SCIRI . Clearly Sadr wants to be the largest faction within the list and won't think twice about calling his rivals "Iranians" to achieve dominance. Given that Sadr can potentially block a cardinal tactical objective of Sistani's--Shia unity--it's not beyond the realm of possibility that he can get what he wants.”

Let’s toy with that possibility for a moment, that the radical cleric who wants to be the “Iraqi arm of Hamas and Hizbollah” could be either a major or determinant player in the nascent Iraqi legislature, a body that is set to draft the new national constitution. Such a grim occurrence bears more than a passing whiff of Khomenei-ism, and is worthy of some alarm, especially given Sadr’s track record. (Note though, that this is specifically Iraqi nationalist form of Shi’ite militancy, as Sadr has had some success at castigating Sistani and SCIRI as “Iranians.”) Certainly, whoever in the Bush administration who is actually running this grand adventure (Rice, Rumsfeld, Negroponte?) of counter-insurgency and simultaneous state building is aware of this danger, however remote? One wonders what the possible solutions could be from a Bushie standpoint . . . . perhaps an attempt to boost the only secular party with even a remote chance -- the vile stooge Allawi’s Iraqi National Accord, but then they’re very ambivalent about holding the elections in January, siding, initially, with a collection of Sunni and Kurdish parties fearful of Shiite dominance in the next elections. With Chalabi disgraced and Allawi’s INA looking increasingly divided, what is the other, viable party of Toadies? Or is the solution to nullify Sadr before he can attain such democratic legitimation? How much faith does the Bush administration have in a Shiite ticket that would welcome one of America’s worst enemies into the electoral fold? The firm date for the elections is looking increasingly problematic, and not just for the marginalized Sunnis. Uncle Sam might have a degree or three of difficulty too.
AK

- posted by AK @ 8:01 PM

 
Hints of Much Needed UN Reform

An UN panel composed of a curious assortment of statesman had put forth proposals for reforming the august and sclerotic international body, proposals that many here at OTR will, most likely, champion.:

“The United Nations on Tuesday proposed the most sweeping changes in its history, recommending the overhaul of its top decision-making group, the Security Council, and holding out the possibility that it could grant legitimacy to pre-emptive military strikes. . . . In its most attention-getting recommendation, the panel called for an expansion of the Security Council to 24 members from 15.”

[It’s a fantasy but wouldn’t it be nice to annul or suspend Security Council membership for a wayward nation or three?]

“The panel was very critical of the Human Rights Commission, a body that has often brought the United Nations into disrepute by incorporating some of the worst rights violators like Cuba, Libya and Sudan into its membership. The commission, which is based in Geneva, "suffers from a credibility deficit that casts doubt on the overall reputation of the United Nations," the report said. The official who briefed reporters added that too often the chief motivation for countries to join was to deflect attention from deplorable rights conditions at home.”

[Excellent and kudos for stating the frickin’ truth for once. The three violators mentioned are a deep embarrassment for the UN.]

“It said that if the arguments for "anticipatory self-defense" in such cases were good ones, they should be put to the Security Council, which would have the power to authorize military action under guidelines including the seriousness of the threat, the proportionality of the response, the exhaustion of all alternatives and the balance of consequences.”

[An good effort to de-claw those states that, in the grip of messianic nationalism, attempt far-off preventative wars under the guise of pre-emption. Take for instance Colin Powell’s February ’03 UN address which collapsed within days of his making it and has caused the departing Secretary of State some deserved regret and humiliation.]

“The panel also urged a more aggressive approach to interventions when states fail in their primary responsibility to protect their own citizens. "There is a collective international responsibility to protect, exercisable by the Security Council authorizing military intervention as a last resort in the event of genocide and other large-scale killing, ethnic cleansing or serious violations of international humanitarian law which sovereign governments have proved powerless or unwilling to prevent," the report said.”

[For an OTR take on this please, which many of applaud, see articles by AK on Darfur Sudan and SAG on the structure of the UN]The panel was headed by Anand Panyarachun, a former prime minister of Thailand, and included Brent Scowcroft, the United States national security adviser under the first President Bush; Yevgeny Primakov, a former prime minister of Russia; Qian Qichen, a former foreign minister of China; and Amr Moussa of Egypt, secretary general of the League of Arab States.

[Curious what Kissinger’s disciple and Condi Rice’s mentor has cooked up with Russian shock therapy villain, Primakov. Let's hope the sum of their work exceeds their troublesome parts. I'm sure there's a cool Latin saying for that which I'm missing.]
AK

- posted by AK @ 11:48 AM