Saturday, November 29, 2003

Iraq War: Problems on the Way to Iraqi Democracy

Sunday's Washington Post has an analysis of the current problems facing the proposed US transition plan in Iraq (or exit strategy, bug-out plan, whichever you prefer). It's co-authored by Walter Pincus, one of the Post's best reporters.

Faced with opposition to the current proposals from Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, Iraq's most influential Shi'a cleric, Viceroy Jerry Bremer is now forced to reconsider. And it turns out, the proposed plan looks like something Tom DeLay might have designed for Texas. The plans for the initial elections were heavily weighted to favor the current members of the Iraqi Governing Council, hand-picked by the US:

<< One way or another, key council members are vying either to shape the transition or ensure the council remains intact and a powerful body, as the U.S. plan envisions. Because many of the 24 council members probably would not fare well in open elections, they pressured Bremer to establish an indirect three-step system to select a new national assembly, which in turn would pick a prime minister and cabinet, a process so complex that many Iraqis and U.S. experts doubt it will work.

<< A former U.S. adviser to Bremer described the plan as "an insane selection system of caucuses, like the Iowa caucus selecting those who will vote in New Hampshire."

<< The U.S. plan effectively gives the Governing Council a kind of remote control because it will have the deciding vote in local caucuses that will pick a national assembly.

<< "The Governing Council has a veto, and that's a bad system," said Judith Yaphe, a former CIA analyst at the National Defense University. "It's also such a complicated formula that it seems almost guaranteed to keep power in the hands of the few, and that would not be a good thing for Iraqis to have as the first taste of elections. If they get a bad taste they may not want to do it again.">>


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