Afghanistan, Iraq, and Post-Conflict Governance: Damoclean Democracy? [1 ed.] 9789004184350, 9789004180338

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Afghanistan, Iraq and Post-conflict Governance: Damoclean Democracy?

International Studies in Sociology and Social Anthropology Series Editor

David Sciulli, Texas A&M University Editorial Board

Vincenzo Cicchelli, Cerlis, Paris Descartes-CNRS Benjamin Gregg, University of Texas at Austin Carsten Q. Schneider, Central European University Budapest

VOLUME 113

Afghanistan, Iraq and Post-conflict Governance: Damoclean Democracy? By

Imtiaz Hussain

LEIDEN • BOSTON 2010

Cover illustrations: www.CartoonStock.com This book is printed on acid-free paper. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Afghanistan, Iraq and post-conflict governance : damoclean democracy / by Imtiaz Hussain. p. cm. — (International studies in sociology and social anthropology) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-90-04-18033-8 (hardback : alk. paper) 1. Democratization— Afghanistan. 2. Democratization—Iraq. 3. Democracy—Afghanistan. 4. Democracy—Iraq. 5. Afghanistan—Politics and government—2001– 6. Iraq— Politics and government—2003– 7. Comparative government. I. Hussain, A. Imtiaz, 1953– II. Title. III. Series. JQ1769.A15A34 2010 320.9567—dc22 2009043262

ISSN 0074-8684 ISBN 978 90 04 18033 8 Copyright 2010 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Hotei Publishing, IDC Publishers, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers and VSP. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill NV provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, MA 01923, USA. Fees are subject to change. printed in the netherlands

Dedicated to

Dhanmandi’s Lakeside crowd of the 1970s . . . which understood democracy better than policy-makers . . . and practiced it better than the public!

CONTENTS List of Illustrations ...................................................................... List of Abbreviations .................................................................. Acknowledgements .....................................................................

ix xi xiii

1. Afghanistan & Iraq, Democracy & the United States: Between Rocks and Hard Places .......................................... Introduction: Of Puzzles, Problems, & Predicaments .......... Nature of the Subject ............................................................ Formatting Interpretations .................................................... Significance of Subject .......................................................... Organization ..........................................................................

1 1 8 13 33 41

2. Hyphenating Democracy: Germany, Japan, & the Conflict Thesis ....................................................................... Argument ............................................................................... Theoretical Perspective .......................................................... Democratizing the Defeated: German and Japanese Experiences in Comparative Light ................................... Conclusions ............................................................................

48 66

3. Embracing Democracy: Afghanistan, Iraq, & Prior U.S. Considerations ....................................................................... Introduction ........................................................................... Negotiating Democracy ......................................................... Conclusions ............................................................................

69 69 72 86

4. Blindfolding Democracy: Blueprinting Ballots From Bullets ..................................................................................... Introduction ........................................................................... Building a Blueprint .............................................................. Actors and Actions ................................................................ From Conflict to Cooperation ............................................... Conclusions ............................................................................

93 93 94 98 109 116

45 45 47

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contents

5. Sine qua non democracy: Afghan-Iraq Symmetries & C.P.A. as Oddball .................................................................. Introduction ........................................................................... A Tale of Two Negotiating Tables ....................................... Conclusions ............................................................................

121 121 122 149

6. Ad Hoc Democracy: Troubled Waters Too Deep, Bridges Too Few .................................................................... Introduction ........................................................................... Afghanistan-Iraq Comparisons & Contrasts ......................... Conclusions ............................................................................

151 151 169 182

7. Constitutional Democracy: Afghanistan’s Paper Tiger & Iraq’s Pigeon Clay ................................................................. Introduction ........................................................................... Profiling Constitution-making ............................................... Future Prospects: Towards Functional Statehood ................ Conclusions ............................................................................

185 185 185 217 219

8. Electoral Democracy: Still the Road Less Traveled By ....... Introduction ........................................................................... Elections and Governmental Performances .......................... Post-Election Issues and Contentions .................................... Contexts and Verdicts ............................................................ Conclusions ............................................................................

225 225 225 243 249 256

9. Conclusions: Damoclean Democracy? .................................. A Triple-headed Monstrosity & Mine-filled Exits ................ Negotiations-Democratization Approach .............................. Substantive Similarities and Differences ............................... Theoretical Reprise ...............................................................

261 261 262 267 274

Bibliography ................................................................................ Index ...........................................................................................

279 295

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Tables 1.1 Democratization Waves and Reverse Waves ..................... 1.2 Approaches to Managing Ethnic Differences ................... 1.3 Correlating Themes and Publications with Democratic Waves .................................................................................. 1.4 Correlating Themes and Publications with Conflict & Democracy ......................................................................... 2.1 U.S. & Conflict-Driven Democracy ................................... 2.2 Democracy-Related Lessons .............................................. 3.1 Prior U.S. Considerations in Comparative Context ......... 3.2 Prior U.S. Considerations & Implications ......................... 4.1 Pre-Planning in Comparative Profile ................................ 4.2 Actors, objectives, thresholds ............................................. 4.3 Democratization and Islam in Afghanistan and Iraq ....... 4.4 Actors, Preferences, & Predilections .................................. 4.5 Transborder Ethnic Overlaps ............................................ 5.1 Afghani-Iraqi Parallels & Convergences for Starters ........ 5.2 Different Structures from Negotiation Parallels ................ 5.3 Problems & Products ......................................................... 5.4 Issues at Bonn .................................................................... 5.5 Groups & Issue Configuration ........................................... 5.6 Iraq Government Council & Cabinet Membership ......... 5.7 Bonn Framework, Iraq’s Adaptation ................................. 5.8 Bonn Issues Compared for Afghanistan and Iraq ............ 6.1 Interim Administration and Pitfalls ................................... 6.2 Similarities and Differences ............................................... 6.3 Reflections from and Implications of Afghani-Iraqi Similarities & Differences ................................................... 7.1 Constitutional Profile: Afghanistan and Iraq Compared ........................................................................... 7.2 Nature of Government Designed: Afghanistan-Iraq Comparisons ....................................................................... 7.3 Rights, Freedoms, and Representation: Afghanistan-Iraq Comparisons ....................................................................... 7.4 Role of Islam: Afghanistan-Iraq Comparisons .................

15 23 27 31 49 64 74 87 95 100 110 114 116 124 125 126 129 130 140 146 148 152 170 183 186 190 194 197

x 7.5 7.6 7.7 7.8 7.9 7.10 7.11 7.12 7.13 7.14 8.1 8.2 8.3 8.4 8.5 8.6 8.7 8.8 9.1 9.2 9.3 9.4 9.5

list of illustrations Religion-Politics Balance: Afghanistan-Iraq Comparisons ..................................................................... Role of Women: Afghanistan-Iraq Comparisons ........... Balancing Ethnic Desires: Afghanistan-Iraq Comparisons ..................................................................... Evolving Nature of Politics: Afghanistan-Iraq Comparisons ..................................................................... Treatment of Warlords/Militias: Afghanistan-Iraq Comparisons ..................................................................... Role of Exilees: Afghanistan-Iraq Comparisons ............ Role of Security Climate Obtaining: Afghanistan-Iraq Comparisons ..................................................................... Role of the United States: Afghanistan-Iraq Comparisons ..................................................................... Future Prospects Toward Functional Statehood: Afghanistan-Iraq Comparisons ........................................ Summarizing Findings: Afghani Paper Tiger & Iraqi Pigeon Clay ...................................................................... Election Results ................................................................ Electoral Logistics ............................................................ Parties and Identities ........................................................ Iraqi Coalition Government and Opposition ................. Portfolio Allocations ......................................................... Post-Election Contentious Issues: Afghanistan-Iraq Comparisons ..................................................................... Contexts in Perspectives ................................................... Summarizing Conclusions ............................................... Stages of Negotiations and Democratization Counterparts .................................................................... Similarities & Differences in Afghani-Iraqi Democratization ............................................................... Endogenous/Exogenous-Internal/External Cross-flows ........................................................................ Consociationalist Features & Afghani-Iraqi Arbitration ........................................................................ Strengths & Weaknesses of Wave and Conflict Theses ...............................................................................

199 202 205 208 210 212 213 215 218 220 226 227 234 236 238 243 249 256 262 268 270 271 274

Figure 5.1 Afghanistan’s Groups & Their External Loyalties ............

127

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ACC ACJ APP CA CG CIA CO CLJ COW CPA CT DC DFI DP DPWG EAC ELJ EU FEC FIP GB GWB IAF IBRD IIG IMF INC INDC INL ISAF ISI KA KDP LJ MA MD

Allied Control Council (in Germany) Allied Council for Japan Alliance for Progress Program (US) California Coalition Government Central Intelligence Agency (US) Colorado Constitutional Loya Jirga (Afghanistan) Coalition of the Willing (US supervised) Coalition Provisional Authority Connecticut Democracy Consolidation Development Fund for Iraq (in US) Democracy Promotion Democracy Principles Working Group European Advisory Commission Emergency Loya Jirga (Afghanistan) European Union Far Eastern Commission (World War II agency on Japan) Future of Iraq Project (US) Great Britain George W. Bush Iraqi Accord Front International Bank for Reconstruction and Development Iraq Interim Government International Monetary Fund Iraqi National Congress Iraq National Dialogue Council Iraqi National List International Security and Assistance Force (Afghanistan) (Pakistan’s) Inter-Services Intelligence Kurdish Alliance Kurdish Democratic Party Loya Jirga (Afghanistan) Massachussetts Maryland

xii MEPI MP NA NATO NDP NED NFZs NIFA NJ NY OECD OEEC OIC OMGUS ON ORHA OTI PUK SIC SPDP SSRC SWNCC TA TAL TNA UIA UK UN UNDP UNRRA US USAID WMD VE

list of abbreviations Middle East Partnership Initiative Marshall Plan Northern Alliance North Atlantic Treaty Organization National Democratic Party (Iraq) National Endowment for Democracy (US) No-fly zones (in Iraq) National Islamic Front of Afghanistan New Jersey New York Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development Organization for European Economic Cooperation Organization of Islamic Countries Office of the Military Government, United States (in Germany) Ontario Office for Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance (US) Office of Transition Initiative (US) Patriotic Union of Kurdistan Special Independent Commission (Afghanistan) Studies in Political Development Program (of SSRC) Social Science Research Council (US grant-offering agency) State, War & Navy Coordination Committee (US, during World War II) Transitional Administration Transitional Administrative Law (Iraq) Transitional National Assembly (Iraq) United Iraq Alliance United Kingdom United Nations United National Development Program United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Agency United States United States Agency for International Development Weapons of mass destruction Victory in Europe (Day)

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS As the product of my sabbatical, spent as a Visiting Professor at the Christopher Browne Center for International Politics, University of Pennsylvania, this volume goes beyond bringing three-hundred pages and two academic institutions together into leaving a legacy of gratitude. My first set of appreciation goes to the two pertinent directors, Alejandro Anaya Muñoz in my home base, for making that sabbatical happen, and Edward D. Mansfield, for facilitating work at Penn. Frank Plantan, Co-Director of the undergraduate International Relations Program at Penn, also chipped in by permitting me to not only teach two courses during that year, but also pilot a brand new course stemming from the book research. I thank him for his efforts, as too Thomas Legler, my own colleague at Ibero, for his valuable recommendations and Anthony West—a former landlord, now a good friend, in Philadelphia—in whose house this manuscript was written. I am also indebted to a number of discussants, fellow panelists, and attendees at the following scholarly conferences where observations were presented: International Political Science Association (2006), American Political Science Association (2007), and the International Studies Association (2008). Segments of Chapter 7 and part of its title were previously published by the Bologña Center Journal of International Affairs, whose editors I remain thankful to for some of the earliest feedback I received. Hylke Faber, Nienke Brienen-Moolenaar, Lotte Nielsen, and Saskia van der Knaap at Brill impressed me immensely with their prompt responses, courteous exchanges, and effective handling of the contract, editorial work, and the publishing process; while both cover cartoons, derived from www.CartoonStock.com, capture precisely what I had in mind. Thanks, each and all. This book is dedicated to a number of friends I grew up with, and from whom I learned one of the unspoken virtues of democracy: irreverance toward authoritarianism. Dhanmandi Lake, on whose banks we met, drew both full-time visitors (Bablu, Farid, Gorjon, Khaled, Khaleque, Papun, Pinchu, Reza, Robin, Saki, Shamim, Shamol, Titu, Tultul, and Yusuf Samad) and part-timers (Bachchu, Bikal, Billie, Fazlu, Lalu, Yusuf Sakhawat, among so many others),

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but perhaps they will all agree with the reverent idea that none other than Manu was the most irreverent of us all—and therefore the group’s lifeblood. To you, my utmost tribute for the great times. To others, like the majority in Afghanistan and Iraq, you are the unsung heroes of home-grown democracy. Of course, I alone remain responsible for any and all errors. Imtiaz Hussain Universidad Iberoamericana, Mexico City, November 2009

1. AFGHANISTAN & IRAQ , DEMOCRACY & THE UNITED STATES: BETWEEN ROCKS AND HARD PLACES Introduction: Of Puzzles, Problems, & Predicaments Legions of scholars have long asserted how democratization opens doors. Aristotle,1 representing democracy’s “first coming,”2 Immanuel Kant,3 highlighting the second,4 and the even greater number reflecting the many democratic waves,5 identified peace,6 trade,7 development,8 or enhanced welfare,9 among the consequences. Yet, twenty-five centuries after Aristotle, why is democratization still a hard pill to swallow?

John Warrington, Politics, and Athenian Constitution (London: J.M. Dent, 1959). Reference to Athens, Greece, at the time of Pericles, during the 5th century BC. See John Dunn, Democracy: A History (Toronto, ON: Penguin Books, Canada, 2005), chaps. 1 and 2. 3 Immanuel Kant, Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Essay, trans., M. Campbell Smith (London: G. Allen Unwin, Ltd., 1903). 4 Began with the European Enlightenment, and continued to the time of Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, ed., Richard D. Heffner (New York, NY: New American Library, 1956); John Stuart Mill, On Liberty (London: J.W. Parker & Son, 1859); and ——, Utilitarianism (London: Longman’s, Green, Reader, & Dyer, 1871) in the 19th Century; as well as Joseph A. Schumpeter, Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy (London: Harper & Bros., 1942), among others, in the 20th Century. 5 Samuel P. Huntington, The Third Wave: Democratization in the Late Twentieth Century (Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 1991). 6 Michael Doyle, “Liberalism and world politics,” American Political Science Review 80, no. 4 (December 1986): 1150–69. 7 Cordell Hull, Economic Barriers to Peace, address on receiving the Woodrow Wilson medal, New York, April 5, 1937 (New York, NY: Woodrow Wilson Foundation, 1937). 8 The entire Studies on Political Development series indirectly addresses democracy: Lucian W. Pye, ed., Communications and Political Development (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1963); Robert E. Ward and Dankwart A. Rustow, ed., Political Modernization in Japan and Turkey (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1964); James S. Coleman, ed., Education and Political Development (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1965); Lucian W. Pye and Sidney Verba, eds., Political Culture and Political Development (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1965); Joseph La Palombara and Myron Weiner, eds., Political Parties and Political Development (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1966); and Leonard Binder, Coleman, Palombara, Pye, Verba, and Weiner, Crises and Sequences in Political Development (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1971). 9 See, among others, Amy Gutman, ed., Democracy and the Welfare State (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1988); Humayun Kabir, Science, Democracy, and Islam; and Other Essays (London: G. Allen Unwin, 1955); Stuart Nagel, Policymaking and Democracy: 1 2

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Democratizing Afghanistan and Iraq illustrates a cross-section of what may be at stake. After an unbroken authoritarian/totalitarian past, one would expect the democratization sojourn to be downhill; yet, from the very start, we notice as many doors closing as opening. Clearly it is too early to draw conclusions, but trends, orientations, and trajectories raise questions almost on a daily basis about the types of democracy emerging, Islam’s relationship with democratization, whether democracy can be imposed from outside, at the extreme, by force, the self-appointed U.S. guardianship role, and distinctions between nation- and state-building. Rarely has the democratization cup overflowed to such an extent as it is with Afghanistan and Iraq: Nation- and state-building were hitherto completely independent tasks; Islam’s relationship with democratization never became headline news until after the Cold War; and the United States seeking democracy from a barrel of a gun was not what Woodrow Wilson had in mind in proposing to “make the world safe for democracy,” nor what became a U.S. Cold War priority. By placing political development, religious affiliation, and U.S. world leadership in one cup, Afghani and Iraqi democratization also places them on the line. Explanatory efforts, in turn, fall short on all of these counts. As snapshot events and peculiar experiences provide the shine to make the media hay, generalized pictures get stumped from the moment they are postulated: When tangible causal factors have their own intangible causes, and how predictable consequences change against unpredictabilities on any given day, explaining democratization might become as uphill as the democratizing processes themselves. Since it was purported to be a global phenomenon, could the wave argument, for instance, explain the Afghani and Iraqi cases? More specifically, do Afghanistan and/or Iraq satisfy the third democratization wave tenets? Or should the fourth wave postulations covering democracy-dictatorship admixtures be extended from former Soviet-successor states to Afghanistan and/or Iraq?10

A Multinational Anthology (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2003); Torben Iversen, Capitalism, Democracy, and Welfare (New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2005); and Sigrid Rossteutscher, ed., Democracy and the Role of Associations: Political, Organizational and Social Contexts (London: Routledge/ECPR, 2005). 10 Renske Doorenspleet, Democratic Transitions: Exploring the Structural Sources of the Fourth Wave (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2005); and Michael McFaul, “The fourth wave of democracy and dictatorship: noncooperative transitions in the postcommunist world,” World Politics, vol. 54 ( January 2002): 212–44.

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Or could Afghanistan and Iraq be spearheading a Muslim “coming”—a conceptually distinctive fifth wave?11 Behind these discussions, the United States seems to be emerging as some sort of an on-again, off-again democracy messenger and uninvited Muslim savior. Encouraged by Afghanistan’s painless and low-cost democracy initiation, as well as the trappings of Saddam Hussein’s tyrannical rule, George W. Bush apparently believed Iraq was the beginning of a “greater Middle East democracy” domino. Along with democracy would come corporations, cranes, and civil-society campaigners to simultaneously supplement nation- and state-building efforts, making John F. Kennedy’s U.S.$20b 1961 Alliance for Progress Program (APP), also dubbed Latin America’s Marshall Plan, look peanuts by comparison.12 Based as APP was on Walt Whitman Rostow’s economic development strategies,13 although APP was abandoned in the early 1970s after spending U.S.$80b, correlating Latin America’s post-Cold War democratization surge with APP demands more imagination than seems practical. Why, then, is Afghanistan, Iraq, and generally, Middle East democratization, receiving far more attention than the relatively smoother yet still incomplete Latin cases did? Even more puzzling, why is military invasion being utilized to catalyze democracy, and how well has this combination worked? Democracy was hitherto sought through peaceful means or economic development. Although associated with conflict now, a distinct causal mechanism seems arguably absent even in the most successfully democratized cases of Germany and Japan after World War II. Though prior expectations in lesser cases, such as Haiti (1915–34, 1994–96), Nicaragua (1909–33), South Vietnam (1964–73), Cambodia (1970–73), Grenada (1983), Panama (1989), and so forth (Table 1.4 lists all cases),14 often substituted a causal connection, without a blueprint, causation can

See my “A fifth democratic wave? Observations from Muslim countries,” Presented at the International Political Science Association biennial conference, Fukuoka, Japan, July 2006. 12 On positioning the APP in Latin America’s neoliberal shift, and thereby democracy, see Richard Feinberg, Summitry in The Americas: A Progress Report (Washington, DC: International Institute for Economics, 1997), esp. chap. 1. 13 John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson recruited Walt Whitman Rostow to pursue these goals, promoting themes from his famous work, The Stages of Economic Growth: A Non-Communist Manifesto (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1960). 14 Cases from Minxin Pei, Samia Amin, and Seth Garz, “Building nations: the American experience,” Nation-Building: Beyond Afghanistan and Iraq, ed., Francis Fukuyama (Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2006), 66, but see chap. 3. 11

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not be automatically established. In Germany’s and Japan’s cases, the blueprints adopted were formulated a posteriori, that is, after the conflict was over. In all the other cases of unconvincing democratization, the blueprints implemented were chalked out after the military objectives were fulfilled. So too in Afghanistan and Iraq, as the frenzied parleys and negotiations after Kabul and Baghdad fell indicate. Just as conflictdemocracy correlations become tenuous in policy-making trenches, so too do they remain unconvincing on the scholar’s drawing board. How we define democracy and conflict complicates interpretations. If democracy begins when a tyrant is toppled, a rogue regime evaporates, or hastily held elections produce elected representatives even before the voters can adequately digest what democracy entails, a meaningless starting point inevitably produces institutional indigestion. If the conflict is not only externally defined, but also in terms of identifying rogues as them in the us versus them equation, by virtue of collaborating with the tyrants, a significant proportion of the population automatically becomes illegitimized—disenfranchised in any democracy parlance—creating suspicions, deepening divisions, and eventually emaciating the rubrics of democracy. Definitions aside, local cultures get swept away for imported counterparts without first appraising adjustment problems and possible consequences. An example exposes the point: While it took one full century for first-wave countries, that is, the most democratized countries on earth today, to extend voting rights to women, or roughly to half of the population, extending those same rights to Afghani women in two or three years tantamount to a social revolution, further feeding the very underpinnings of any rogue regime (in this case, the Taleban).15 Iraqi women almost became an exception to this electoral seclusion rule in the Middle East, but arguably post-Saddam democratization may have irrevocably snatched away the benefits and reputation accruing from this privilege. The democracy-conflict connection not only acquired a doctrinal status, but the Afghanistan and Iraq cases also generate interesting

15 Manuscript uses the BBC News spelling, Taleban, rather than the common U.S. usage (and also by noted local journalist, Ahmed Rashid), of Taliban. Neither is superior to the other, but the root word resonates phonetically more accurately as taleb. Broader still, the book italicizes many non-English terms, especially all the ethnic groups (though not ethnic locations), just for distinction purposes.

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chicken-egg perspectives. In his title-teasing One Percent Doctrine, Ron Suskind informs us the second track of Bush’s war on terrorism focused on the “humbling and disarmament of rogue states.”16 Proposing the approach for the second time,17 Paul Wolfowitz, George W. Bush’s Deputy Secretary of Defense,18 contended “American power . . . be used to replace rogue regimes with U.S.-friendly democracies in the troubled Arab world,”19 an idea formulated incrementally with Zalmay Khalilzad and Scooter Libby before Bush’s father entered the White House. Khalilzad first met Wolfowitz when, as a Columbia University political science professor, he won a Council on Foreign Relations fellowship to work in the State Department, where Wolfowitz, previously himself a political science professor at Yale, was Director of Policy Planning. This was in the early 1980s. Although he spent a long time subsequently with RAND, he is better known as an original member of the Project for the New American Century (PNAC) and for cosigning a letter to President William L. Clinton on January 26, 1998 urging an Iraqi invasion irrespective of U.N. approval. George W. Bush made Khalilzad Special Assistant to the President, directing the South-west, Near-east, and North Africa desks in the National Security Council (NSC). At PNAC, he also met Scooter Libby, a student of Wolfowitz at Yale. Libby also worked for Wolfowitz in Policy Planning under the Reagan Administration, and in September 2000, wrote “Rebuilding America’s Defense: Strategies, Forces, and Resources for a New Century.” It vaulted him, first to the position of Chief of Staff of the Vice President Dick Cheney, then as his national security assistant. In both capacities he centrally drove the 2002–03 Israel-Palestine road-map efforts. With Wolfowitz, he helped shape George W. Bush’s foreign

16 Ron Suskind, The One Percent Doctrine: Deep Inside America’s Pursuit of its Enemies Since 9/11 (New York, NY: Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, 2007), 79. 17 He had proposed it to Harold Brown, Jimmy Carter’s Secretary of Defense through his “Limited Contingency Study.” See Lou Dubose and Jake Bernstein, Vice: Dick Cheney and the Hijacking of the American Presidency (New York, NY; Random House, 2006), 174. 18 For an interesting history of the rise of the Pentagon depicting precisely the military-industrial complex, see James Carroll, House of War: The Pentagon and the Disastrous Rise of American Power (Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin, Co., 2006). 19 Suskind, One Percent Doctrine, 34.

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and security policies as part of the Vulcans,20 and with Khalilzad, a fearsome threesome formulated the conflict-democracy linkage. Just as 9/11 rationalized targeting Iraq directly, no matter the evidence, Iraq provided the platform for Middle East considerations. The Future of Iraq Project (FIQ), launched in April 2002, “to build a sense of solidarity and common purpose between Iraqis who were coming together to plan their country’s recovery,” brought 240 Iraqis, produced 2,000 pages of reports in 13 volumes, at the expense of $5m, and covered every topic under the sun, from education and health to infrastructure and finance, to security, law, and justice.21 War with Iraq opened other foreign policy goals. Brent Scowcroft, one of George H.W. Bush’s National Security Advisor and Chairman of the George W. Bush’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board from 2001 to 2005, resented the idea openly and from the very start, especially since it was sanctioned at the very top. Iraq, he argued, “would not be a cakewalk,”22 even though Vice President Cheney had “already bec[o]me a true believer in the scheme.”23 “I want to know about links between Saddam and al Qaeda,” George W. Bush instructed George Tenet, Director of CIA, eight days after 9/11, peppering the command with his customary footnote, “the Vice President knows things that might be helpful.”24 What was born as the Cheney Doctrine became an integral part of the Bush Doctrine; and

Named after a statue of a vulcan in Birmingham, Alabama, where this group met, with Condoleezza Rice as hostess. See James Mann, The Rise of the Vulcans: The History of Bush’s War Cabinet (New York, NY: Viking, 2004). 21 David L. Phillips, Losing Iraq: Inside the Postwar Reconstruction Fiasco (New York, NY: Basic Books, 2005), 37–8, but see chap. 3. 22 Dubose and Bernstein, Vice, 174. 23 Ibid., 177. 24 Suskind, op. cit., 23. Tenet was himself not enthusiastic about, nor successful in, strengthening this linkage. “The Iraq WMD issue had been around for years,” he confessed, but “CIA found absolutely no linkage between Saddam and 9/11.” “We could go as far back as outlining contacts between Iraq and al-Qa’ida [sic] going back a decade,” he continued, “to Bin Ladin’s [sic] time in the Sudan, to Abu Musab alZarqawi finding safe haven in Iraq, and to a dozen Egyptian Islamic Jihad operations who showed up in Baghdad in the spring and summer of 2002.” A June 21, 2002 CIA paper, “Iraq & al Qai’da: interpreting a murky relationship,” clarified “there was no conclusive signs between Iraq and al-Qaida with regard operations.” Disbelief in the “murky relationship” by Wolfowitz and Scooter Libby prompted Tenet to chastise both for constantly wanting “to check, recheck and recheck.” See Tenet, At the Center of the Storm: My Years at the CIA, with Bill Harlow (New York, NY: HarperCollins Publisher, 2007), 341, 345, and 342, respectively, for the three quotes; but see chap. 18. 20

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the Bush Doctrine became the first U.S. strategy to place democracy,25 as well as nation- and state-building, on the policy-making front seat. Since the origins of the Bush Doctrine can be traced back at least to the George H.W. Bush administration, at least two interesting questions arise: Were the Afghanistan and Iraq invasions pre-planned? Were the mechanics of democratization spelled out? To be sure, Afghanistan was not a priority for Bush, Sr., or even the PNAC, but Iraq clearly was. Having failed to dislodge Saddam with Operation Desert Storm (when perhaps the intention did not even exist), Saddam became the linchpin of both the PNAC and the Vulcans for at least two reasons: (a) his own defiance of U.S. and U.N. rules, intensification of his persecution within Iraq, and, given his decade-long war with Iran in the 1980s, the external threat Iraq now posed in a highly sensitive part of the world, and particularly to Israel; and (b) with Bush, Sr., losing the 1992 presidential elections and Clinton radically shifting his policy priorities in several other directions, PNAC and the Vulcans found the opportunity to beef up the would-be doctrine. This beefing-up did not necessarily imply democratization modalities were being put into theoretical order, but contacts with Saddam’s exiled opponents suggest a post-Saddam scenario was becoming less of a hope and vision and more of a reality, necessitating some preparation. Whether or not 9/11 rudely diverted attention from this goal after Bush, Jr., won the 2000 elections, when immediately after 9/11 the U.S. president’s comments about 9/11 included the phrase Saddam “tried to kill my dad,” it was clear the Afghan invasion served as a sideshow to the main event:26 an Iraqi invasion. Democratizing rogue states might have rationalized that goal, but its components and procedures would be learned in Afghanistan. As democracy and democratization entered a new phase, their endogenous virtues would no longer have to compete with deformed or diseased alternatives to win the day; those deformities and diseases

25 Many detailed descriptions pay less attention to the democracy element. See, for instance, Robert Singh, “The Bush Doctrine,” The Bush Doctrine and the War on Terrorism: Global Responses, Global Consequences, eds., Mary Buckley and Singh (London: Routledge, 2006), chap. 2; also see other chapters in this volume. In addition, Robert Jervis, “Understanding the Bush Doctrine,” Political Science Quarterly 118, no. 3 ( June 2003): 365–88; and ——, “Why the Bush Doctrine cannot be sustained,” Political Science Quarterly 120, no. 3 (Fall 2005): 351–77. 26 Quote from John L. Gaddis, “A grand strategy of transformation,” Foreign Policy, issue 133 (November-December, 2002): 50–55.

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could now be surgically removed, clearing the way for democracy and democratization to march in—an exogenous solution to a 25century predicament. Success in Afghanistan and Iraq was critical to the plan. This is a comparative study of democratization in both those countries, asking three clear questions: What is the nature of the subject of investigation? How will the investigation be formatted? Why is the subject significant? Nature of the Subject So as not to miss any key dynamic, Afghani-Iraqi democratization, as this study’s subject, raises the obvious opening questions of what was/were the trigger, blueprint, modus operandi, and outcomes? Five explanatory clusters have been placed under the microscope: democracy blueprints; democratic stages, processes, institutions, and culture; Islam’s religion-politics mix; neighborly consent; and democratizing the U.S. way. Blueprinting Democracy Democratizing Afghanistan and Iraq involved different triggers proceeded along dissimilar pathways, and elicited distinctive degrees of legitimacy—thus predicting quite divergent outcomes. Afghanistan’s triggers can be directly traced to facilitating 9/11, Iraq’s to the rogue state rationale just discussed and a nebulous weapons-of-massdestruction (WMD) claim.27 Democratizing two stubborn cases with surprisingly similar blueprints sparks yet other questions: Was the blueprint used before, and if so, what did the scorecard say before the Afghanistan and Iraq ventures? If the blueprints were not alike but the democratization goal was, must ends justify the means, or simply adopt a noble alternate to an essentially noble goal? Of course, the million dollar question still remains what transpired in implementing the

27 These claims did not spurt on the spot. Even before 9/11, Janne E. Nolan made the case how WMD-control needed a strong country since multilateral intervention was inherently limited. See “Sovereignty and collective intervention: controlling weapons of mass destruction,” Beyond Westphalia: State Sovereignty and International Intervention, eds., Gene M. Lyons and Michael Mastanduno (Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999), chap. 8.

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blueprint? Behind the increasing Afghani costs and Iraqi carnage relayed regularly by the mass media, is the blueprint really sinking in? Since the picture painted on the drawing board is likely to encounter turbulence, how much more time does it need in the trenches of real life? If success is predicted, will the new democratization model permit replication elsewhere; but if failure cannot be avoided, where precisely must the formula be mended, or should it be changed entirely? Identifying and analyzing the blueprints become the fundamental tasks. Comparing and contrasting them positions the critical first building-block of any theoretical discussion. The next subsection tries to understand how they proceeded. Stages, Processes, Institutions and Culture After seven years of the Afghani experiment and five of Iraqi,28 with elected governments installed in both, what can be said about the endogenous and exogenous dynamics of democratization? Extending the categorization, how do we distinguish domestic causal pathways from external? Turning first to democracy’s endogenous dynamics and characteristics: Can the electoral process be broken down into stages or thresholds, and if they can, what does a two-case comparative study suggest? How have these been institutionalized, indeed, if institutionalization was attempted, how were the endemic ethnic rivalries in both countries reined in? To what extent did quid pro quo, or give-and-take, coalition bargaining over those seven or five years, respectively, displace the more entrenched sine qua non, or take-it-or-leave-it, past pattern? If democracy is all about inclusion, how have the excluded Ba’athists and Taleban fared, and what does their exclusion predict for the immediate future? Ultimately, are we any closer to irreversible peace? Bringing exogenous catalysts or impediments under the microscope, how do these influence unfolding political dynamics? Conflict released several exogenous forces, for example, in how ethnic groups draw political lines; and since they overlap Afghani and Iraqi state boundaries, the scope for external meddling in domestic politics also increases sharply. Regional power balances cannot remain immune

28 Investigations and writing for this work was completed by mid-2007; editing and proof-reading spilled over into 2008. Hence, the volume goes deep into events until about mid-2007, but skims across those thereafter.

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to domestic political fluctuations; nor can Afghani narco-trafficking or Iraqi refugee outflows escape political attention. More urgent is the threat of transnational jihadists. Carrying such a heavy exogenous baggage, democracy in Afghanistan and Iraq faces a characteristically different environment than in any of the first three waves, at least in the initial phases. Does that make democracy a different beast? Will democracy and democratization keep the upper hand or succumb? Shifting next to the domestic dynamics, whether the trappings of authoritarianism or totalitarianism remain embedded or face evaporation, or if the robust growth and political impact of Islam on politics, reconfiguring democracy as we know it, imposes other urgent considerations: How was the old regime displaced, and what precisely did the different factions do, other than removing the old, to coordinate a new regime? Particularly, how were the different priorities, between moderates and extremists, modernizers and traditionalists, one ethnic group against another, as well as one religious group against another, brought and kept together constitutionally and politically? How were traditional negotiations under tribal leaders accommodated in the new set-up? What about the external forces, particularly the role and duration of foreign military forces? Could the blueprint have been implemented without the United States, for example, under United Nations auspices, or under some other multilateral body? Would this have made a difference? In the final analysis, to what extent were the politics and outcomes influenced by the occupying forces? Within all four dimensions lurks the role of Islam. Unlike the English Enlightenment opening a secular door to Dunn’s second democracy coming, Islam cannot sensibly be excluded or subordinated in democratizing Muslim countries. What does this political-religion mixture mean for democracy, since the assumptions of secularity and rationality must now be relaxed to incorporate non-rational and after-life considerations? Sidelining value-judgments, what does Islam imply for democracy? Islam & the Religion-Politics Mix That question specifically boils down to how have Islam, on the one hand, and Afghani and Iraqi democratization, on the other, adjusted to each other? Indeed, given democracy’s secularity assumption, to what extent does Christianity’s counterpart of giving unto Caesar

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what is Caesar’s, and unto God what is God’s, apply? With religion and politics intertwining under Islam, is Islam’s state-masjid paradigm being ontologically altered?29 Both new constitutions prioritized Islam, but in the trenches of institution-building, how do we characterize religion, and what is its present-day prognosis, at least for Islam? If fitting Islam is not working, what should be tried next? More importantly, since 9/11 involved Islamic extremists in Afghanistan, while historically persecuted Iraqi Shi’as can now flex their muscles simply on the basis of a population majority, how have the dividing lines within Islam been affected?30 Have moderates and extremists evolved a working relationship, or has exclusionary politics continued in other forms? What about Islam’s oldest but still unresolved fissure, between Shi’as and Sunnis, in the land where it originated—Iraq?31 How have the constitutions safeguarded minorities, if at all; and what role will the all-consuming Sharī a play?32 Neighborly Consent With Afghani and Iraqi democratization largely an external imposition and ethnic groups spilling over into neighboring countries, to what extent can Afghani and Iraqi democratization proceed without the consent of their largely non-democratic neighbors? Far from being

Masjid: Mosque. Not a stray thought. See Vali Nasr, The Shia Revival: How Conflicts Within Islam Will Shape the Future (New York, NY: W.W. Norton). 31 Why important brought out by Nasr, The Shia Revival. 32 Sharī a: A “constitution of Islam” (Khan, 1997), derived from the 7th Century Qur ān, the sunnas (sacred customs of Prophet Muhammad), hadiths (traditions), and oral adjudications of caliphs or clergymen. Partly silent in the 21st Century, partly active, all of these laws can be easily ignited to face any exigency, with the ultimate penalty of death (by stoning, throat-slitting, or by any others means), still legitimately sanctioned. See Ralph H. Salmi, Cesar Adib Majul, and George K. Tanham, Islam and Conflict Resolution: Theories and Practices (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1998), chps. 3–4; Paul Marshall, “Introduction: the rise of extreme sharī a,” Radical Islam’s Rules: The Worldwide Spread of Extreme Sharī a Law, ed., Marshall (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2005), 1–17; Joseph Schacht, “Law and the state,” The Legacy of Islam, ed., Schacht, with C.E. Bosworth (Oxford, U.K.: Clarendon University Press, 1974, 2nd ed.), 392–403; and Mohammed A. Muqtedar Khan, “Islam as an ethical tradition of international relations,” Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations 8, no. 2 ( July 1997): 177–92. On how Islam is adjusting to the modern world, see James P. Piscatori, Islam in a World of Nation-States (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, for The Royal Institute of International Affairs, 1986), chap. 6. 29 30

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an idle question, it thrusts democratization’s domestic dynamics into the battlefields of international relations. Since none of the Afghani nor Iraqi neighbors offers the freedoms, rights, and representations Afghanistan and Iraq do through their new constitutions, can Afghani and Iraqi democracy be hijacked by their neighbors? If Afghanistan and Iraq do not succeed with their democratization experiment in spite of well-intentioned, full-fledged efforts because of disruptive neighbors, how do we shift the attention and concentration of democracy models on procedural, institutional, and relevant cultural issues to capture the new dynamics? In short, has democracy been reduced to the equally ancient art of power politics or strategic considerations? Democracy the Ubiquitous American Way Power politics, strategic considerations, and democracy remain incomplete discussions today without mentioning the United States. In the two cases being studied, the United States was behind the steering wheel of both the conflicts and the democracy blueprints. Questions arise if it is still making the world safe for democracy by dealing with strategic considerations before democratization, as it did during the Cold War, or making democracy itself a strategic consideration in the post-9/11 era? In the 60-years of immortalizing Woodrow Wilson’s cliché, the opportunity that the end of the Cold War provided to democratize more receptive audiences in Africa and Asia was not fully utilized by existing democracies, and particularly by the country Wilson vaulted to lead the crusade; but when democracy was made pivotal by the evolving Bush Doctrine, 9/11 diverted attention temporarily but crucially, and conceivably reconfigured whatever democracy was and however it had to be pursued. With Afghanistan and Iraq catalyzing this shift, and with the Middle East as the next stop, is there a Plan B if the blueprints do not work out? Pushing the point, what must the United States do whether the experiment fails or succeeds? In making the United States synonymous with conflict and democracy, one might very well ask, what is the opportunity cost of the United States? No other country, big or small, has invested so much on conflict and democracy. With Afghani/Iraqi democracy proving a tough nut to crack, tendencies toward authoritarianism/totalitarianism simply will not go away, in fact, will only be strengthened if any of the new regimes falters. Amidst ethnic cross-fires, would it not be better to let Afghanistan and Iraq, and generally other Muslim or Middle East

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countries, to recultivate their own enlightenment,33 experience their own version of West Europe’s Thirty Years War,34 produce their own Westphalian resolution,35 and then, when the dust settles, let rationalitydriven democracy creep in with its own momentum? If, indeed, the United States left, would Afghanistan and Iraq jump from the frying pan to the fire, or from the fire back to the frying pan? We don’t, and we won’t, have all the answers, but generalizing the specific cases often sheds, rather than obscures, more light. To that task the next section turns. Summarizing, no matter how inundated we may be with unfolding (and never-ending) Iraqi developments, and increasingly with Afghani, as the string of questions and concerns indicate, our comprehension may be covering no more than the iceberg’s tip. Not only is a chaotic transformation engulfing the two countries, but familiar concepts as democracy and predictable processes like democratization seem both shaky against new dynamics and in need of an anatomical overhaul. Formatting Interpretations At least two interpretive strands place Afghani and Iraqi experiences in the big democratization picture: the wave argument; and a U.S.driven conflict-democracy matrix. Examining them exposes other puzzles, problems, and predicaments. To what extent must democracy be a top-down or bottom-up phenomenon, why is it being increasingly confused with nation- and state-building, what is its relationship with development, and how do we explain its symbiotic literary relationship. These constitute but a sundry list of additional perspectives.

33 Under the Abbasid dynasty of the 8th and 9th centuries, not only were the Greek classics debated and discussed during the Muslim Renaissance, but through the Islamic spread, it was carried to West Europe, through Spain, to trigger the western Renaissance. See Edwin I.J. Rosenthal, Political Thought in Medieval Islam: An Introductory Outline (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1958), chap. 1; and Bernard Lewis, Arabs in History (London: Hutchinson University Library, 1958), chap. 6. 34 Instead of being restricted to the 1618–48 period, the religious conflict can be traced 100-years earlier to Martin Luther’s 1517 theses. See Daniel Philpot, “The religious roots of modern international relations,” World Politics 52, no. 2 ( January 2000): 206–45. 35 Among others discussing this, see Lynn Miller, Global Order: Values and Power in International Politics (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1985); and Steven D. Krasner, “Sovereignty and intervention,” Beyond Westphalia, chap. 10.

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Wave Argument At least four waves have been identified in the literature, all in Dunn’s second coming. Only the third and fourth waves have potential relevance to Afghanistan and Iraq. Since the third wave, though global in spread, was a largely Catholic experience, and since the fourth was postulated to cover Soviet successor states across Central Asia, Afghanistan’s and Iraq’s relevance must be found elsewhere in a possible fifth wave, Muslim in composition, to account for George W. Bush’s greater Middle East democracy campaign. “A wave of democratization,” according to the most forceful articulator of the argument, Samuel P. Huntington, “is a group of transitions from non-democratic to democratic regimes that occur within a specified period of time and that significantly outnumber transitions in the opposite direction during that time.”36 By the time the argument was published, in 1991, three waves had occurred, as Table 1.1 lists. Huntington’s third wave was challenged by Michael McFaul for assuming “negotiations, compromises, and agreements” when outcomes in the post-communist world showed “protracted confrontation, yielding unconsolidated, unstable partial democracies and autocracies.”37 Central to the former were “democracy-enhancing pacts” between “choice-making actors”: soft-liners and hard-liners of the old regime, as well as moderates and radicals among challengers.38 Their goals were to (a) limit the agenda of policy choice; (b) share benefits proportionately; and (c) restrict outsiders from participating. In several cases, as McFaul argues, the opposite happened, revealing the unimportance of a balance of power among the actors: multiple agendas did not fail; benefits reflected zero-sum, rather than shared, mentalities; and outsiders actually helped.39 Instead, he articulated three different routes: (a) democracy emerging from “an imbalance of power in favor of the democratic challengers of the old regime,” triggered by “revolutionary movements from below—not elites from above;” (b) autocracy, “when the distribution of power favors the rulers of the ancien régime;” and (c) partial democracies, based on pacts, and a balance, rather than imbalance, of power between the actors often associated with “violent confrontations leading to either partial democracy or partial dictatorship.”40 Table 1.1 captures these waves, and postulated reverse waves. 36 37 38 39 40

Huntington, Third Wave, 15. McFaul, “The fourth wave of democracy and dictatorship,” 214. Ibid., 216–7. Ibid., 221–2. Ibid., 222–3.

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Table 1.1 Democratization waves and reverse waves41 Waves

Reverse Waves

* First (1828–1926): Argentina, France, Italy, Switzerland, US +33

First (1922–42): Austria, Czechoslovakia, Estonia, Greece, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Portugal, Spain –22

* Second (1943–62): Austria, Brazil, * Second (1958–75): Argentina, Costa Rica, Federal Republic of Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Greece, Germany, Italy, Japan, South Korea, India, Indonesia, the Pakistan, Uruguay Philippines, South Korea, Taiwan, +40 Uruguay –22 * Third (1974–): Argentine, Brazil, * Third (not indicated, but the late Bolivia, Chile, Greece, Guatemala, 1970s is appropriate):42 Sudan and Honduras, Hungary, Pakistan, Peru, Suriname. the Philippines, Poland, Portugal, –3 Romania, Spain +33 * Fourth (overlaps the Third Wave but * Fourth (overlaps the Third Wave extends farther over time): reverses but extends farther over – Democracy from balance-of-power time): (a) favoring challengers (Croatia, – Dictatorships from balance-ofCzech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, power (a) favoring old regime Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia, (Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrghystan, and Slovenia); (b) favoring the old Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan); and regime (Romania); and (c) actual (b) actually balanced between old balanced between old and new and new (Tadjikstan) (Bulgaria and Mongolia) –6 – Partial democracy from balanceof-power (a) favoring challengers (Armenia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Georgia); (b) favoring the old regime (Yugoslavia/Serbia); and (c) actually balanced between old and new (Albania, Azerbaijan, Macedonia) +19

41 The number of countries indicated in some of the boxes have been taken directly from Huntington, Third Wave; the fourth wave number deduced from McFaul, op. cit. 42 Huntington points to 3 reverse cases, but only mentions Sudan and Suriname; since the book was published, Bangladesh (2007), Pakistan (1999), Venezuela (2001), Thailand (2006), among others, show at least 2 types of reversals: socialism against democracy (as in Venezuela), or military crackdowns against democracy-facilitating corruption (Bangladesh, Pakistan, Thailand, and so forth).

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Table 1.1 (cont.) Waves

Reverse Waves

* Fifth (21st Century, Muslim * Would most likely find impetus countries in the Middle East and from very diverse sources: (a) North Africa): George W. Bush’s Islamic neo-fundamentalists, or “Greater Middle East democracy” extremists; (b) Islamicists, such as campaign offers the intellectual mainstreams orthodox believers; framework, with objectives of (c) the status quo of local, regional, replacing rogue regimes, if and global strategic interests necessary by force, then implanting democracy: – Democracy from balance-ofpower (a) favoring challengers (Afghanistan, Iraq, possibly Lebanon and Palestine); (b) favoring the old regime (possibly Algeria, Egypt, Morocco, Sa’udi Arabia, Syria, Tunisia; and (c) actually balanced (possibly Iran) Possibly +12

According to these authors, some of the key features of democratization include:43 (a) an intimate relationship with political liberalization; (b) legitimacy; (c) economic development producing a robust and large middle class; (d) religious leaders chastising authoritarians; (e) external actors through their policies; and (f) demonstration effect. One notices the widening democratization scope through (a) endogenous features like elections, and every dynamic related to holding elections, being influenced by exogenous forces, such as economic conditions; and (b) domestic dynamics, such as political or economic development, reflecting external triggers, for instance, the demonstration effect and possible policy influences of other countries. Many of these forces represent an increasing function across the four waves. For example, the demonstration effect had the least impact in the first wave between 1828 and 1926, but for an obvious reason, seems to be acquiring more robustness ever since, with mass media, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and multilateralized rules serving as crit-

43 Listed here from Huntington’s path-finding work, upon which both Doorenspleet and McFaul also rely. See Third Wave, 45–6 list some of these, 47–108 explain them.

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ical catalysts contrasted to their virtual absence before. Religion also represents an increasing function, rocking the secularity assumption of democracy. Pushing the point, while the demand side and conditions of democracy expand, one wonders if the democracy being supplied remains (a) essentially similar; (b) robust enough to withstand reverses; and (c) commensurate to the escalating demands, meaning keeping all customers, conditions, and campaigners satisfied. How does the argument affect Afghanistan and Iraq? The linkage is more indirect: Public and policy-making attention paid to democracy and democratization spiraled after the Cold War ended, thus isolating resistant countries. One might argue, both Afghanistan and Iraq were well-positioned for democracy just when Huntington’s Third Wave was published in 1991: After the Soviet Union withdrew from Afghanistan in 1989, conditions were ripe to stage a democratic election until about 1992, but either warlords or communist leaders subverted the process, even as the United Nations indicated intentions to go the distance and supervise any transition;44 and Iraq’s 1990–91 defeat was neither consummated nor converted into democracy, through the quid pro quo usage of policy instruments, either by the United States or the United Nations. Afghanistan slid into civil war, producing the Taleban; Iraq broke down as Saddam’s continued persecution produced no-flyzone protections for the Kurds and Shi’as, which they briskly utilized to change the regime (though unsuccessfully). If the third wave passed both countries by, since both were sufficiently influenced by Soviet communism and displayed the same post-Soviet authoritarianism, the fourth could arguably be stretched to include Afghanistan and Iraq. The second democratizing opportunity for Afghanistan and Iraq came after the Taleban eviction in Afghanistan and Ba’athist downfall in Iraq, beginning with the December 2001 Bonn Accord and the 2003 Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) arrangements, respectively. With the old regimes eliminated from the picture, the U.S. military presence permitted selecting and electing new government officials—largely previous challengers of the old regime. If Afghani and Iraqi democratization is replicated in Lebanon and Palestine, as part of George W. Bush’s greater Middle East democracy drives, an alternate to direct

44 Imtiaz H. Bokhari, “Internal negotiations among many actors: Afghanistan,” Elusive Peace: Negotiating an End to Civil Wars, ed., I William Zartman (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 1995), 231–64.

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U.S. intervention may have to be worked out (through U.N. or multilateral forces), since the 2006 mid-term election results and public opinion during the 2008 presidential election campaigns suggest a war-weary U.S. public increasingly keen to retreat. Even if Afghanistan and Iraq face a reverse wave, both will have experienced the notions, instincts, and expectations, as well as the procedures, policies, and institutions, of democracy—for the very first time—a factor likely to keep democracy an irreplaceable, though not necessarily successful, political demand. Above all, both war-hawks and democracy-advocates will have been united for different reasons. To die-hard supporters of the conflict thesis, the situation reaffirms intervention and changing political gears, to full-blooded democracy advocates, it points precisely to the institutional deficits only an external push can compensate. On balance, as the weight of external and exogenous pressures rises to unprecedented historical levels, internal and endogenous forces will never remain too far from the break-point, since the stronger the democratizing forces, the stronger the resistance they may encounter, at least in the initial stages. Ultimately, traditional balancing forces, such as the capacities of tribal networks, may prove critical on the endogenous front, while external and exogenous forces must remain facilitative long enough for democracy to cross the significant thresholds. As Table 1.1 reassuringly suggests, once stricken by democracy, a return journey is possible should reversals occur. If current efforts work out, two cheers for democracy;45 if they falter, perhaps the next drive will succeed. If it does, generalizing across the Middle East or Muslim countries would not be an illogical policy pursuit. Casting Iraq’s democratization in a greater Middle East democracy campaign, the United States would face the liabilities, since an Iraqi reversal would scuttle the larger plan too. At least that expectation is consistent with the wave-argument advocates. In the worst case scenario, both Afghanistan and Iraq could fit the fourth wave, if not as a democracy, then as a dictatorship; but in the best case scenario, both might even trigger a fifth wave—shifting the democratization fulcrum from Central Asia to the Muslim heartland in the Middle East, and a proposition others may test. In this fifth wave,

45 Two cheers for democracy: one because it admits variety and two because it permits criticism. Two cheers are quite enough: there is no occasion to give three. See E.M. Forster, Two Cheers for Democracy (New York, NY: Harcourt, Brace, 1951).

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democracy may result from the balance of power (a) favoring challengers, as in Afghanistan and Iraq, and possibly Lebanon and Palestine; (b) favoring the old regime, such as in Algeria, Egypt, Morocco, Sa’udi Arabia, Syria, and Tunisia, since replacing these regimes may be too costly strategically for any country, including the United States, and especially since reliable alternatives to the old regime have not been accepted by the United States; and (c) being actually balanced, as in Iran over the broad post-Khomeini time-span between reform and theocracy since Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s time. Of course, more in-depth analyses of this hypothetical wave is needed, but at least Afghani and Iraqi performances thus far do point to a similar fourth-wave argument moving into absolutely new terrain. Unlike the previous four waves, the fifth (a) is more exposed to extremist/jihadist threats, and thereby to reversal pressures a priori rather than a posteriori; (b) must adjust to religion in one way or another, thus expanding the number of actors in the balancing game to moderate and extremist religious leaders; and (c) face actual or potential U.S. military intervention to expedite the democratization problem—a situation unlikely to appeal to the U.S. public as open-ended campaign. Sundry Spillovers Behind these democratization efforts lie a number of other pressing issues. Among them: balancing top-down and bottom-up pressures, nation- versus state-building, democracy’s relationship to development, and a symbiotic literary relationship. Top-down versus Bottom-up Orientations Huntington’s wave argument and Dunn’s two comings capture democracy’s high tides and low, as well as surges and counter-surges, but remain silent on the causes and consequences of top-down or bottom-up democracy.46 Paul G. Buchanan, for example, sees top-down democracy encompassing “a gradual liberalization and political opening followed by competitive elections,” while bottom-up begins “when civil society mobilizes and expands the range of its demands while moving to secure a greater voice in the governmental decision making

46 Discussed in terms of legitimacy by Matthew S. Weinert, Democratic Sovereignty: Authority, Legitimacy, and State in a Globalizing Age (London: University College London Press, 2007), 66–9.

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process.”47 More succinctly to Richard Youngs, top-down democracy “incorporates the institutions of the state, along with political parties, playing a vital role in the aggregating of interests, and one or more levels of local government,” with bottom-up democracy referring to “the associational, non-office-seeking activity located in the space between the state and the family unit.”48 These distinctions probably did not matter before. Voting rights developed slowly even in advanced democracies to make them relevant in the first and second waves; and the thrill of the outcome obscured the processes during the third wave. Several contemporary forces thrust those distinctions to the forefront: transparency and state/society exposure; communications revolutions; revolutions of rising expectations; and border permeation by globalized and multiplying lateral forces, such as migration creating floating electoral constituencies, refugees as sidelined citizens and voters, issue-specific non-governmental organizations campaigns competing with the democratization agenda, and of course, illegal transnational groups sabotaging elections. Balancing both approaches remains the Afghani-Iraqi predicament. Given the ethnic and religious divisions in the two country, a top-down approach could centralize more than is healthy: For Afghanistan, local warlords would be sidelined into restlessness—a fate Hamed Karzai already faces; for Iraq, Shi’as would be more empowered than Kurds or Sunnis would like. A bottom-up approach lacks the institutional framework both countries desperately need. Mixing and matching may be the safest exit option, but who mixes and who matches could become problematic since any party in power could make any switch to suit its needs, setting a chain effect and producing a vicious cycle. Nation- versus State-Building Priorities Another democracy-influencing distinction inherent in many of the above dynamics is between nation- and state-building. At times paralleling the bottom-up and top-down dichotomies, the nation- versus state-building notion increasingly carries connotations of salvation,

47 Paul G. Buchanan, “From military rule in Argentina and Brazil,” Authoritarian Regimes in Transition, ed., Hans Binnendijk (Washington, DC: Center for the Study of Foreign Affairs, Foreign Service Institute, U.S. Department of State, 1987), 224, but see 223–33. 48 Richard Youngs, The European Union and the Promotion of Democracy (Oxford, U.K.: Oxford University Press, 2001), 14–5.

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emanating, as it is beginning to, from re-launching poor-people policies, resurrecting failed states, remodeling rogue states, and so forth. According to Francis Fukuyama, nation-building involves “creating or requiring all the cultural, social, and historical ties that bind people together as a nation,” while state-building is concerned with “creating or strengthening such government institutions as armies, police forces, judiciaries, central banks, tax-collecting agencies, health and education systems, and the like.”49 In another work, he disaggregates the state in terms of its functions/goals and policy execution/enforcement, thus making any state-building claim ambiguous since the two dimensions can move in opposite directions.50 He cites Seymour Martin Lipset to support a weak U.S. state owing to the separate institutional allocations of functions/goals to guarantee checks and balances; and Max Weber to support the strong state thesis of enjoying the monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force. On the other hand, in a third work, Fukuyama argues, “what Americans mean by nation-building is usually state-building,” where state-building refers to “constructing political institutions, or else promoting economic development.”51 “Nations,” he elaborates, echoing the European view, “are never built, particularly by outsiders; rather[,] they evolve out of an unplanned historicalevolutionary process”—a process the United States did not experience “constructing a new political order in a land of new settlement without deeply rooted peoples, cultures, and traditions,” in its own case. In international relations, however, this distinction may not be as robust. To Afghanis and Iraqis, for example, as well as to Germans and Japanese after World War II, the presence of U.S. occupying forces convey/conveyed a strong state. Fukuyama’s first set of definitions distinguishing nation-building from state-building resonates more powerfully: nation-building gravitates towards bottom-up forces,52 and

49 Francis Fukuyama, “Nation-building 101,” The Atlantic Monthly ( January–February 2004):159–62. 50 Fukuyama, State-Building: Governance and Order in the 21st Century (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2004), 6–7. 51 Fukuyama, “Nation-building and the failure of institutional memory,” NationBuilding, 3. 52 Others writing on the subject, include Jochen Hippler, ed., Nation-building: A Key Concept for Peaceful Conflict Transformation? Trans, Barry Stone (London: Pluto Press, 2005); Hagen Schulze, Nation-building in Central Europe (New York, NY: Berg, 1987); Graham Smith, et al., Nation-building in the post-Soviet Borderlands: The Politics of National Identities (New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 1998).

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state-building towards top-down, institution-driven forces.53 In this sense, there may be more congruence with European interpretations of the same terms. What the state is, or is not, either subordinates democracy claims and efforts, as during the Cold War, or furiously unleashes corrective measures in the name of democracy, as conceivably with Afghanistan and Iraq. Ian Lustick sees the state as “special institutions” encompassing two thresholds marking “discontinuities”: regime (when consolidating a policy arena faces more “civic upheavals, violent disorders, and challenges” than “possible defection”), and ideological (deeper but not irreversible institutionalization, evident when “ambitious politicians systematically avoid questioning even by implication, the permanence of the integration of [the policy arena]”).54 A movement from the first threshold towards and beyond the second reflects state-building, a reverse movement state-contraction.55 Boundaries, both internal and external,56 constitute “crucial components of the set of stable expectations which, ultimately, constitute the state as an institution.”57 Battling fractious ethnic groups, Afghanistan and Iraq face a dilemma over what Brendan O’Leary, Ian Lustick, and Tom Callaghy call state right-sizing:58 Each ethnic group could forego its autonomous claims, and thereby help up-size the Afghani or Iraqi statehood, essentially keeping them as they are; or by pushing their own autonomous claims to the maximum, stopping short of independence, they could down-size the existing Afghani and Iraqi states into federations. Building upon Lustick’s model, O’Leary articulates three forms of ethnic management, as shown, compared, and contrasted in Table 1.2.59 Labeling

53 Others discussing the subject at length include: Aidan Hehir and Neill Robinson, ed., State-building: Theory and Practice (New York, NY: Routledge, 2007); and David Waldner, State Building and Late Development (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1999). 54 Ian Lustick, Unsettled States, Disputed Lands: Britain and Ireland, France and Algeria, Israel and the West Bank-Gaza (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1993), 45. 55 Lustick, “Thresholds of opportunity and barriers to change in the right-sizing of states,” Right-Sizing the State: The Politics of Moving Borders, eds., O’Leary, Ian Lustick, and Tom Callaghy (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2001), 79. 56 For 3 variations of meanings, see Anssi Paasi, “Boundaries as social processes: territoriality in the world of flows,” Boundaries, Territory and Postmodernity, ed., David Newman (London: Frank Cass, 1999), 69–88; and how these threaten the state comes across more forcefully in Gearóid Ó Tuathail, “Deterritorialised threats and global dangers:geopolitics and risk society,” ibid., 17–31. 57 Lustick, Unsettled States, 37. 58 Brendan O’Leary, “Introduction,” Right-Sizing the State, 2–3. 59 O’Leary, “The elements of right-sizing and right-peopling the state,” Right-Sizing the State, 38–47.

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those forms control, consociation, and arbitration nicely captures how dynamics central to both dictatorships and democracies transited the former for the latter under external supervision. Control depends on coercion, as under Saddam, or cooption, which is more likely in liberal democracies, as Afghanistan and Iraq wish to be, as expressed in their new constitutions. Whereas consociation promotes “equal ethnic pluralism” through coalition government, proportionality, autonomy, and constitutional vetoes for minorities, arbitration could be by internal or external references, provided they are neutral. With control no longer an option in Afghanistan and Iraq, consociation and arbitration gain relevance, with consociation exerting a larger force, reflecting as it does domestic associational dynamics, and arbitration serving more as a regulator and an instrument of last resort. Within that framework, another key question of how the democracy blueprints facilitate consociation and/or arbitration steers this investigation. Turning to Table 1.2, how Afghanistan and Iraq have responded to ethnic management is highlighted under consociation, and how the nature of arbitration is evolving in both countries is profiled in the last column, under control, provides the benchmark of changing from a dictatorship to a democracy. Table 1.2 Approaches to managing ethnic differences Dimensions

Coercion

Consociation

Arbitration

1. Interests protected:

Interests of the dominant

Common interests of partners: A: bare minimum kept I: bare minimum kept

Common interests of groups as perceived by arbiter: A: somehow working I: More U.S. impositions than arbitration; Sistani factor ignores U.S. arbiter

2. Linkages between groups:

Dominant extracts from dominated

Exchanges between groups: A: Yes, shifting from supervised to independent exchanges I: Increasing after elections and Sunni return

Regulated exchanges: A: Fits the pattern I: More regulation than arbitration

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Table 1.2 (cont.) Dimensions

Coercion

Consociation

Arbitration

3. Bargaining:

Unilateral imposition

Sign of health and proportionality A: more quid pro quo than sine qua non I: more reverse

Arbiter as medium of communications A: Increasingly less so I: Less so after CPA, but arbiter looms larger

4. Role of official regime:

Partisan

Cipher of bargains A: Working with rough edges I: Working with rough edges, but hostage to external developments

Umpire A: Fairly neutral one I: Partisan, as perceived by groups

5. Normative justification:

Ideology of dominant group

Common welfare/ peace A: Unity, Islam, development I: Local autonomy, Islam, peace

Necessity A: Working out somehow I: Struggling to work

6. Relations between elites:

Asymmetric

Responsible/ Cooperative A: More civil than uncivil I: Very unpredictable behind façade

May be irresponsible A: Not a problem thus far I: Unpredictable

7. Metaphor:

Puppeteer manipulating puppet

Balancing scale A: Efforts being made I: Localism still over-rides collective spirit

Judge in family quarters A: Largely so I: Not seen as judge, nor as a family

Legend: A = Afghanistan, I = Iraq Source: Brendan O’Leary, “The elements of right-sizing and right-peopling the state,” Right-Sizing the State: The Politics of Moving Borders, eds., O’Leary, Ian Lustick, and Tom Callaghy (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2001), 47.

Addressing interests protected in the first dimension, we see the heartwarming emergence and growth of common interests under consociation and arbitration. In both countries, these have been kept to a

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bare minimum to begin with, hoping the common interests will grow. With arbitration, though, we see the underlying differences: It is working and being accepted in Afghanistan, but Iraq’s different trajectory beginning with the CPA and hand-picked Iraqi Governing Council (IGC), and continuing with Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani’s refusal to engage with the United States, impositions have been more frequent. Linkages between groups became less asymmetrical under consociational exchanges, and regulate more softly in Afghanistan, but actually at the expense of arbitration in Iraq. Whereas Afghanistan registered more independent exchanges between groups and before crises, Iraq’s pattern has been fewer exchanges and mostly to thwart crises. As such, bargaining patterns in the third dimension acknowledge the huge shift from unilateral imposition under Taleban or Ba’athist control, towards recognizing ethnic proportionality, with arbiters as a medium of communication. Afghanistan boasts more quid pro quo bargaining than sine qua non, while Iraq shows more the opposite trend, thus making the arbiter increasingly relevant as an Afghani medium, but commanding an Iraqi presence. In the fourth dimension, the partisanship under Taleban and Ba’athist control similarly gave way to a transactions model under consociation with arbiters playing the umpire role. Yet, though this is working with rough edges in both countries, Iraqi bargaining remains more of a hostage to exogenous events, such as bombings and terrorism. At the same time, the umpire is seen as being more partisan in Iraq than in Afghanistan, especially by minority Sunnis, while Shi’as do not trust the United States. Norms also shifted, from those of the dominant groups under control, to the common welfare under consociation, and necessity for arbitration. Still, while both countries promote the few common interests, such as Islam, development, peace, and democracy, group self-help is more vivid in Iraq than in Afghanistan, in turn suggesting relations between elites in the sixth column to be more civil than uncivil in Afghanistan, but very unpredictable in Iraq. For the arbitration this has not posed a problem in Afghanistan, but Iraq remains unpredictable. Finally, the metaphor for all 3 types differs substantively, from puppeteering under control to balancing under consociation, and judging under arbitration. Iraqi sectarianism rocks the balancing act, and the arbiter’s lack of Iraqi acceptance makes Iraq a more formidable proposition than Afghanistan. If adjusting democracy to the state opens one can of worms, another stems from its adjustment to development.

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Democracy-Development Nexus Not a stray consideration, development is conspicuous by its absence in Afghanistan, while Iraq’s infrastructural deterioration magnifies the passing of a relatively developed era during Saddam’s dictatorship. Democratization and development seem to have merged so completely, we often lose sight of which is which. Fortuitously when the democracy-development combination began after World War II, both concepts generated more smiles than frowns the world over. Putting them together even painted panglossian pictures. Yet, why have frowns increasingly displaced those smiles, to the point of democracy actually partnering conflict today? Not only that, implicit competition between democracy promotion (DP) programs also promotes the image of democracy over the realities of establishing it. If we examine the European Union attempts in the 1990s, policies necessary to join the club or become compatible with the club, such as the Copenhagen criteria or the Euro-Med Partnership program, paid more attention to creating convergences and clones, that too from the top, than to grassroots preferences and local realities. Could the same be true of the United States—to create democracy paper-tigers than actual democracies? Political development must go hand-in-hand with economic development in Afghanistan and Iraq, if only to quench the revolutions of rising expectations. Without political stability, economic development is stumped; and without economic development, neither stability nor institutional growth can be possible. If the U.S. military provides the necessary military condition for political developmental pursuits, other countries or multilateral groups led by the United States must also supply resources for economic development. Thus far, Afghani economic development has profited more than Iraqi from less endemic violence to facilitate democracy, but this does not mean it is out of the woods: Afghani infrastructural needs outstrip Iraq’s by far; and opium income also saps interest and investment in the legitimate economy. Being a hostage of violence, Iraq’s huge oil reserves are simply not producing public gains: More than 2m refugees will not benefit from oil revenues, while without employment growth, relief measures may take a chunk out of the oil income. Even as democracy and development align formally with each other, the message on the wall remains negative. In earlier years when democracy and development raised the chicken-egg relationship question, today’s climate seems to be releasing both chickens and eggs simultaneously, not sequentially. The net lose-lose outcome can only be prevented by far-sighted leaders, whether political or religious.

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If these do not overwhelm policy-makers, theory-builders, concerned citizens, and well-wishers at the end of every day, cumulation effects further complicate democratization. For example, if every wave begins at a higher threshold because of lessons learned and demonstration effects, wouldn’t the time for democratic values to sink into local culture be less with every wave, eroding the quality of democracy to the point of creating a new beast with every wave? Literary Symbiosis How the relevant literatures and paradigms constantly mirror these twists and turns in the trenches is indeed remarkable. Table 1.3 illustrates. When the going was good for the democracy-development combination in the hey-days of the late-1950s and early 1960s, the Social Science Research Council, for example, launched the huge Studies in Political Development Project to capture these dynamics—coinciding, as one might expect, with Huntington’s second wave, explained below. Yet, the assumptions of western society (rationality, secularity, institutional safeguards, more than just a short-term orientation, and a positive-sum outlook) struggled in other arenas. If the insufficient absorption of local styles and patterns into the new and foreign paradigms was underplayed or neglected, extremist reaction far outweighed mainstream adjustments. The net result: a differential democratic experience. Democracy might predict homogenized attitudes, behavior, and customs, but the development literatures could not show enough of this in the 1960s. Table 1.3 Correlating themes and publications with democratic waves Waves: Themes

Publications

* First: Climax of Dunn’s second coming

Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America; John Stuart Mill’s, On Liberty; Mill, Utilitarianism; Joseph A. Schumpeter, Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy

* Second: Social Science Research Council’s 1960s Studies on Political Development as the subject of investigation, with democracy a subset of this

Lucian W. Pye, ed., Communications and Political Development; Robert E. Ward and Dankwart A. Rustow, ed., Political Modernization in Japan and Turkey; James S. Coleman, ed., Education and Political

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Table 1.3 (cont.) Waves: Themes

Publications Development; Lucian W. Pye and Sidney Verba, eds., Political Culture and Political Development; Joseph La Palombara and Myron Weiner, eds., Political Parties and Political Development; and Leonard Binder, James C. Coleman, Joseph La Palombara, Lucian W. Pye, Sidney Verba, and Myron Weiner Crises and Sequences in Political Development.

* Third: European DP: Copenhagen Criteria (1993); Euro-Med Partnership (1995): Elates topdown/bottom-up, nation versus state-building; multilateralized democracy; and economicdemocracy relationship; U.S. bail-out plans for Latin countries enhances democratization; E.U.U.S. competition to democratize emerges as a new phenomenon

On Europe: Antoaneta L. Dimitrova, Driven to Change; Heather Grabbe, The EU’s Transformative Power; Geoffrey Pridham, Transitions to Democracy; Pridham, Eric Herring, and George Sanford, Building Democracy On Latin America: Roderic Ai Camp, Citizen’s View of Democracy in Latin America; Merilee S. Grindle, Audacious Reforms; John Peeler, Building Democracy in Latin America; Peter H. Smith, Democracy in Latin America; and Howard Wiarda, Dilemmas of Democracy

* Fourth: Looks at non-cooperative dynamics (adjusting to authoritarian culture); and pays more attention to associational dynamics inside democratizing countries; goes beyond democratic reversibility towards impossibility; Afghanistan and Iraq hypothetically fit here; rogue-state argument made causal factor of democracy

Noam Chomsky, Rogue States; Renske Doorenspleet, Democratic Transitions; Michael McFaul, “The fourth wave;” Michael Klare, Nuclear States and Nuclear Outflows; Robert Litwak, Rogue States

* Fifth: Islam and authoritarian relationship placed under more analytical concept than emotional; Afghanistan and Iraq could become foundational cases if greater Middle East democracy campaign flourishes

M. Steven Fish, “Islam and authoritarian government;” Imtiaz Hussain, “A fifth democratic wave?” M.A Muqtedar Khan, ed., Islamic Democratic Discourse

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By its very rough edges, third wave developments were matched by too numerous and too dense models in the literature, so much so, the restrictive staying capacity of each left little to build upon. Depicted most concertedly by efforts to fathom democratization in East and South Europe, and extended later to other Soviet-successor states,60 this strand was more interested in stepping stones toward European Community membership or some partnership arrangement, making democracy one of them, often the very first one. The 1993 Copenhagen criteria formalized EU admission criteria,61 while the Euro-Med Partnership was more of a strategic pursuit than commercial or democratic with North African countries. On the other hand, a simultaneous Latin democratic surge was prompted by financial crises, and quid pro quo borrowings from either the United States or U.S.-influenced institutions, such as the IMF and World Bank.62 Democracy was promoted through policy inducements under both cases, and for the first time, DP became a competitive industry. Not all third-wave expectations were rosy. Michael McFaul argued for the inclusion of dictatorships in analyzing democratic waves,63 while Renske Doorenspleet spelled out weaknesses in the construction of third wave cases.64 This formed the background of what was called the fourth wave. It recognized democratic reversibility, opened the door to examining Islamic countries, and paid much more attention to associational 60 See, for instance, Antoaneta L. Dimitrova, ed., Driven to Change: The European Union’s Enlargement Viewed from the East (Manchester, U.K.: Manchester University Press, 2004); Heather Grabbe, The EU’s Transformative Power: Europeanization Through Conditionality in Central and Eastern Europe (Houndsmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire, U.K.: Palgrave Macmillan 2006); Geoffrey Pridham, Transitions to Democracy: Comparative Perspectives from Southern Europe, Latin America and Eastern Europe (Aldershot, Hants, U.K.: Dartmouth, 1995); ——, Eric Herring, and George Sanford, eds., Building Democracy? The International Dimension of Democratisation in Eastern Europe (London: Leicester University Press, 1997, 2nd ed.). 61 Includes stabilized institutions guaranteeing democracy; a functioning market economically capable of competing within the European Union (EU); the capacity to adjust to the goals of the political, economic, and monetary union; and an understanding of the EU’s capacity to recruit and balance new members in the larger comity. See Grabbe, op. cit. 10, but read 10–31 for details. 62 Roderic Ai Camp, Citizen’s View of Democracy in Latin America (Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2001); Merilee S. Grindle, Audacious Reform: Institutional Innovation and Democracy in Latin America (Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000); John Peeler, Building Democracy in Latin America (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2004); Peter H. Smith, Democracy in Latin America: Political Change in Comparative Perspective (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2005); and Howard J. Wiarda, Dilemmas of Democracy in Latin America: Crisis and Opportunity, with assistance from Esther M. Skelley (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2005). 63 McFaul, op. cit. 64 Doorenspleet, op. cit.

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dynamics within the democratizing countries. At its extreme, the fourth wave recognized the partnership between conflict and democracydevelopment, producing nation-building, state-building theses, on the one hand, and on the other rogue and failed state analyses.65 This shift towards assessing the democratic credentials of Muslim countries opens a possible fifth wave. It arguably found momentum with Afghanistan and Iraq, but if George W. Bush’s greater Middle East democracy campaign continues, the argument may acquire greater weight. Though not advocating a fifth wave, a number of authors turned to the supplementary tasks of re-evaluating the Islamic scriptures and traditions for clues towards democracy.66 As democratic experiences cumulate and the literary inheritance grows heavier, it is instructive to return to the very beginning of democracy, to Dunn’s first coming in ancient Greece: Aristotle’s state typology still weathers the storms of almost two and a half thousand years remarkably well to be easily discarded, suggesting the democracy predicament is less endogenous than exogenous, or at least the contact between endogenous and exogenous forces. U.S. Conflict-driven Democracy Connecting with past patterns and future expectations, the alternate argument of U.S. conflict-driven democracy, profiled in Table 1.4, found its picture-perfect examples in Germany and Japan after World War II. This approach has been traced to Cuba during 1898–1902. Although Minxin Pei, Samia Amin, and Seth Garz point to at least 15 other instances before Afghanistan and Iraq,67 many of them ultimately failed. Yet, since the German and Japan successes were conspicuous enough to revitalize the argument, if Afghanistan and Iraq could be added to that short-list of success, a full-blown democratization for-

65 On these states, see Michael Klare, Rogue States and Nuclear Outflows: America’s Search for a New Foreign Policy (New York, NY: Hill and Wang, 1995); Robert S. Litwak, Rogue States and US Foreign Policy: Containment After the Cold War (Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson Center/Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000); Noam Chomsky, Rogue States: The Rule of Force in World Affairs (Cambridge, MA: South End Press, 2000); and ——, Failed States: The Abuse of Power and the Assault on Democracy (New York, NY: Metropolitan Books, 2006). 66 M. Steven Fish, “Islam and authoritarianism,” World Politics 55, no. 1 (October 2002):4–37; M.A. Muqtedar Khan, ed., Islamic Democratic Discourse: Theory, Debates, and Philosophical Perspectoves (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, Division of Rowman & Littlefield, Inc., 2006). 67 Minxin Pei, Samia Amin, and Seth Garz, op. cit., 66.

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mula would not be far away—a lesson current Muslim authoritarians across the Middle East, North Africa, and elsewhere hope they won’t have to learn or be victimized by. Table 1.4 Corelating themes & publications with conflict & democracy Conflict: Themes

Publications

* Nation- versus state-building

Francis Fukuyama, State-Building; Fukuyama, Nation-building; Aidan Hehir & Neill Robinson, State-building; Jochen Hippler, ed., Nation-building; Hagen Schulze, Nation-building in Central Europe; Graham Smith, et al., Nationbuilding in the post-Soviet Borderlands; Albert Somit & Steven A. Peterson, The Failure of Democratic Nation Building; David Waldner, State Building and Late Development

U.S.-based Cases (unilaterally or multilaterally): 1. Iraq (2003): unilateral 2. Afghanistan (2001): multilateral 3. Haiti (1994–96): unilateral 4. Panama (1989): unilateral 5. Grenada (1983): unilateral 6. Cambodia (1970–73): unilateral 7. South Vietnam (1964–73): unilateral 8. Dominican Republic (1965–66): unilateral 9. Japan (1945–52): unilateral/ multilateral 10. Federal Republic of Germany (1945–49): multilateral 11. Dominican Republic (1916–24): unilateral 12. Cuba (1917–22): unilateral 13. Haiti (1915–34): unilateral 14. Nicaragua (1909–33): unilateral 15. Cuba (1906–09): unilateral 16. Panama (1903–36): unilateral 17. Cuba (1898–1902): unilateral

Democracy as Outcome? 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.

Still unfolding Still unfolding No Yes Yes No No

8. No 9. Yes 10. Yes 11. No 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17.

No No No No No No

Source: Minxin Pei, Samia Amin, and Seth Garz, “Building nations:the American experience,” Nation-Building: Beyond Afghanistan and Iraq, ed., Francis Fukuyama (Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2006), 66.

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At least two features distinguish the conflict thesis from the wave argument: (a) the Munich syndrome rationale; and (b) the simultaneous stateand nation-building pursuits. In their analysis of Paul Wolfowitz’s policy-making perspectives, Alex Roberto Hybel and Justin Matthew Kaufman contend “Hitler’s behavior was a reliable analogy”.68 His reasoning was construed as follows: Against Hitler’s rearmament, “the world’s hollow warnings formed weak defenses;” when Anchluss, or the reunion with Austria, took place, “the world sat by;” and when Czechoslovakia was invaded, the “world sat still.” Saddam followed a similar trajectory after Operation Desert Storm: allegedly building weapons of mass destruction while ignoring “the world’s hollow warnings”; when the Shi’as were persecuted, “the world sat by;” and when wrath turned upon the Kurds, “the world sat still.” Even by imposing no-fly-zones, the argument suggests, Saddam would still produce his Poland, by assuming external apathy and appeasement. This had to be stopped. The wave argument assumes statehood, and in fact expects the more democracy deepens, the more robust the state will get, with any nationality or ethnic problems well ironed out. To the contrary, the conflict thesis assumes some types of states or people could threaten democracy, paving the way for the United States to break down such regimes and begin from scratch, that is, from the drawing board, to build new counterparts—making war to keep peace, as Jeanne J. Kirkpatrick’s book title succinctly proposes.69 Once again, the de-nazification success in Germany validates this approach, though the Japanese counterpart was mitigated by retaining the emperor and the 1889 Meiji Constitution, albeit in significantly modified forms. Two fundamental problems arise in replicating Germany or Japan in Afghanistan and Iraq: (a) Neither Germany nor Japan had ethnic rivalries the way Afghanistan and Iraq do, thus fortifying statehood pursuits, a claim Afghanistan could never make before and Iraq only under Saddam’s totalitarian control; and (b) in tip-toeing the English enlightenment, both Germany and Japan separated religion from politics even before World War II, but this remains the Afghani and Iraqi Achilles Heel. Should the Afghani and Iraqi democratization blueprints be pursued elsewhere in the Middle Alex Roberto Hybel and Justin Matthew Kaufman, The Bush Administration and Saddam Hussein: Deciding on Conflict (Houndsmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire, U.K.: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006), 125–26, but see 122–44. All quotes in the paragraph from these pages. 69 Jeanne J. Kirkpatrick, Making War to Keep Peace (New York, NY: HarperCollins Publishers, 2007), with chap. 5 on Afghanistan and Iraq. 68

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East or any Muslim country, the problem is unlikely to be absent given the strength of idiosyncratic styles and cleavages. Nevertheless, should democratic outcomes legitimize the conflict thesis, and conflict widens the democracy smile, Afghani and Iraqi experiences do not predict either as of mid-2008. Significance of Subject Evidently, democratizing Afghanistan and Iraq is pregnant with empirical and theoretical possibilities. Four clusters of issues address the democratizing significance: the subject (Afghanistan and Iraq); dynamic (democratization); key protagonist (United States); and the embedded academic discipline (international relations). Afghanistan and Iraq Since others have spoken about the conflict in Afghanistan or Iraq,70 or country-specific democratization,71 discussions below shift the singlecase approach to the comparative. For at least four reasons, AfghanIraq democratization is of enormous importance: (a) transforming two

70 Kenneth J. Campbell, Tale of Two Quagmires: Iraq, Vietnam, and the Hard Lessons of War (Boulder, CO: Paradigm, 2002); Anthony H. Cordesman, War After War: Strategic Lessons of Iraq & Afghanistan (Washington, DC: Center for Strategic and International Studies, 2004); John Davis, ed., Presidential Politics and the Road to the Second Iraq War: From Forty One to Forty Three (Aldershot, England: Ashgate, 2006); Rick Fawn and Raymond Hinnebusch, Iraq War: Causes and Consequences (Boulder, CT: Lynne Rienner, 2006); Norman Friedman, Terrorism, Afghanistan, and America’s New Way of War (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2003); Michael Griffin, Reaping the Whirlwind: Afghanistan, Al Qa’ida and the Holy War (London: Pluto Press, 2003); Salman Haidar, Afghan War and its Geopolitical Implications for India (New Delhi: Academy of Third World Studies, Manohar, 2004); Victor Davis Hanson, Between War and Peace: Lessons From Afghanistan for Iraq (New York, NY: Random House, 2004); Michael Isikoff and David Corn, Hubris: The Inside Story of Spin, Scandal, and the Selling of the Iraq War (New York, NY: Crown, 2006); Thomas Moule, ed., Hope is Not a Plan: The War in Iraq from Inside the Green Zone (Westport, CT: Praeger Security International, 2007); Paul Rogers, War Too Far: Iraq, Iran and the New American Century (London: Pluto Press, 2006); ——, War on Terror: Afghanistan and After (London: Pluto Press, 2004); and Peter Dale Scott, Drugs, Oil, and War: The United States in Afghanistan, Colombia, and Indochina (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2003). 71 Several newspaper reports carry relevant information, but for reasons of space, they are not mentioned here. Chapters 3–8 are replete with them. Markus E. Bouillon, David M. Malone, and Ben Rowsell, Iraq: Preventing A New Generation of Conflict, Project on International Peace Academy (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2007); and John McGarry and Brendan O’Leary, “Iraq’s constitution of 2005: liberal consociation as political prescription,” International Journal of Constitutional Law 5, no. 4 (October 2007): 670–98.

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problematic states; (b) unpredictable ripple effects destabilizing the region; (c) ethnic and religious impacts; and (d) political and strategic adjustments. Both countries will unquestionably be transformed, though it is presently unclear if the positive side will triumph over the negative in either. Relatively backward and resources-less Afghanistan urgently needs monetary and humanitarian support, backed by effective centralized institutions, while Iraq’s imperatives begin with chalking out consociationalist arrangements, propped up by legitimate central institutions. If delivered and consolidated, democracy will have stood some of its most stringent tests; if not provided, no external military can forever sustain the existing state; and if the outcome is mixed, both countries may still find their fates determined by outsiders, in all likelihood under worsening conditions, since the failure to fully deliver and consolidate translates into the inability to eliminate some of the corrosive inherent problems. Narco-trafficking in Afghanistan and refugee outflows in Iraq only beckon and strengthen the worst-case scenario. Without first institutionalizing multiethnic pacts, narco-trafficking and refugee care will not become front-burner issues, in turn, hastening the worst-case outcome. Second, the past predicts whatever happens inside Afghanistan and Iraq will inevitably spill over, producing positive or negative consequences. A democratic Afghanistan would pressure Pakistan and several Central Asian countries to follow through, just as a democratic Iraq could rattle, as George W. Bush would like, the larger Middle East. If democracy fails in Afghanistan or Iraq, authoritarian controls would strengthen in neighboring countries. Sandwiched between Afghanistan and Iraq is Iran, the country most critically positioned, not just because of a two-front exposure to the changes underway, but also central to any Shi’ite Arc connecting the Persian Gulf to the Mediterranean Sea through Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon. In two very rough neighborhoods, whether Afghanistan and Iraq democratize or not, more disruptive than harmonious forces await their self-enhancing moments, not necessarily because they favor or oppose democracy, but because intervention is a tradition. Turning to the overlapping third issue of ethnic and religious impacts, without compacts within Afghanistan and Iraq, ethnic spillovers and religious loyalties abroad invite instabilities. Neither Afghanistan nor Iraq can control these, meaning, without first securing domestic compacts, it may be impossible to establish external working relations, in

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turn necessitating both displaced groups, Pashtuns in Afghanistan and Sunnis in Iraq, to be restored at the center in collaboration with their key rival groups, if any eruption is to be halted. How democracy protects the minority groups and what it implies for a very restless Islamic community today, might become the most urgent of Afghani and Iraqi considerations, leading to the fourth important consideration. Behind the ethnic and religious divisions lie states with formidable interests, often divisive ones: Pakistan, on the one end, Sa’udi Arabia and Turkey, on another, and Iran straddling both, not only protect powerful domestic discontinuities but also feed into broader global alignments directly and indirectly affecting the United States. If the United States has oil interests in the region, and views nuclear developments in Iran and Pakistan suspiciously, continued instability in Afghanistan, but particularly Iraq, not only subtracts from these interest, but also invites other entrepreneurs of chaos, thus converting Afghanistan and Iraq into a long-term cauldron of turmoil. What shape the state will take in Afghanistan and Iraq is still unclear, eliciting both optimism and pessimism alternately; but central to the statehood will be the domestic compacts attained. Democratization Afghanistan and Iraq may be envisioned as either the Waterloo or Rubicon of democracy. Given all the conflicts and carnage we still hear about and read under the elected governments in both countries, and especially, if democracy does not work in these two countries, as the above section suggested, ripple effects may generally retard democracy more than promote it. Both cases would necessitate do-or-die efforts. If democracy does not work, it is unlikely to be pushed in these regions for a long time to come, since the resources to promote it will simply not be there. Nevertheless, if democracy survives in at least one of the two countries, democratization batteries would be recharged, infusing new hopes and attracting new ideas. Crossing the Rubicon, both countries would make at least three important overlapping contributions: (a) deal a decisive blow to authoritarianism with an empowered democracy blueprint; (b) corroborate Islam-democracy compatibilities; and (c) institutional innovations reflecting the religion-politics mixture. Since each country buried stigmatized totalitarianism, each has more than tinkered with democracy, while simultaneously battling to

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uphold statehood.72 Making such a colossal turn-around overnight was facilitated by, and its impacts softened through, a workable blueprint. Arguing the blueprint was imposed by invading forces would not be fair to many Afghanis who bargained among themselves in Bonn, Iraqis who risked their own lives to oppose Saddam and contribute to his downfall, and numerous international observers and facilitators pushing the democracy thesis even before the conflict. Without the invading forces, their efforts may have been in vain; but working with them provided the very anchors democracy needs. Although the conflict approach to democracy is not to be recommended when so many peaceful approaches exist, Afghanis had gone through enough battles and Iraqis sufficient repression as to want nothing more than democracy, clinging to any blueprint to start the oxygen-flow, then customizing it to local needs. Without local vanguards or champions, neither would have happened. Most of all, a message is emitted of selfless democracy pursuits by anyone anywhere being ultimately recognized and possibly rewarded. Just as there is no substitute to that, permitting the pro-democracy majority views to be hijacked by extremist minorities cannot remain an obligation only Afghanis and Iraqis must fulfill. Owing to the fragility of their democratic desires and institutional efforts, external help became a necessary condition, but must ultimately assume multilateral and non-military formats. Second, both Afghani and Iraqi citizens made two other messages very clear: democracy won out because of all the rights, freedoms, and representations it allows; and because none of these seriously dilute or challenge Islamic beliefs. Majority desires in both countries, unfortunately, make fewer headline news than Afghani narco-trafficking or skirmishes, or Iraqi carnage, but they probably carry a longer future shadow than Islamic extremism if permitted to circulate on a daily basis. If democracy fails in either country, it will only be because a majority desire was hijacked off the road. Supporting this outcome is the third feature: the growth of democratic institutions. At least one generation of time is needed, according to Samuel Huntington in yet another work of his, for institutions to acquire irreversibility, which, given the 21st Century longevity of life,

72 This is an old problem. See Toby Dodge, Inventing Iraq: The Failure of Nation Building and a History Denied (New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 2003).

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could be at least twenty years in Afghanistan and Iraq.73 Both Afghanistan and Iraq have a long way to go, but whether they have covered 10%, 20%, 30%, or 40%, 50%, or 60%, they will have covered more ground than ever before in their histories. Like the Weimer Republic that came so close to preventing Nazi growth in Germany after World War I,74 but unfortunately failed, Afghanistan and Iraq are on track to prevent a totalitarian recurrence, but desperately need external support to not fail like the Weimar.75 Global Leadership: The United States Much can be said about the United States, but keeping the democratization focus, 3 interpretations merit importance here: (a) the increasing difficulty in associating democracy with the Untied States; (b) distinguishing hands-on from off-shore U.S. roles; and (c) the opportunity costs of U.S. engagement. It is popular to see the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq as driven by oil interests;76 or some other ill-designed strategic consideration, such as “to permanently shift” U.S. security interests through the Bush Doctrine when permanence has had no antecedent;77 and increasingly to view 9/11 events for their inconsistencies, exposing

Deduced from discussions pairing institutionalization and participation rates in which capacities of the former should remain ahead of the growth of the latter, thus distinguishing civic societies from praetorian, as well as low, medium, and high growth rates of both. See Huntington, Political Order in Changing Society (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1968), see 78–92. 74 E.H. Carr, International Relations Between the Two World Wars (1919–1939) (New York, NY: Harper & Row, 1966), chap. 2. 75 Noah Feldman elaborates what is at stake for Iraq in What We Owe Iraq: War and the Ethics of Nation Building (Princeton,NJ: Princeton University Press, 2004); and for Afghanistan, Paula R. Newberg, “Neither stable not stationary: the politics of transition and recovery,” Building a New Afghanistan, ed., Robert I. Rotberg (Cambridge, MA: World Peace Foundation and Brookings Institution, 2007), 82–97. 76 Ahmed Rashid, Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil, and Fundamentalism in Central Asia (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2002); as well as Albert Somit and Steven A. Peterson, Failure of Democratic Nation-building: Ideology Meets Evolution (Houndsmills, Basington, Hampshire, U.K.: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005). 77 Charles W. Kegley, Jr., and Gregory A. Raymond, After Iraq: The Imperiled American Imperium (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2007), 8, but see chap. 5 for the details. 73

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unanswered questions,78 or proposing other disturbing theses.79 Associating the United States with democracy was anathema precisely because conflict abroad promoted, even necessitated, self-help policy-making thrusts. This was true during the Cold War, for example, when the best U.S. friends against communism were dictators, from Augusto Pinochet in Chile to the Shah of Iran to Asian generals in Pakistan, Indonesia, and Thailand, not to mention a megalomaniac here and there, as in the Philippines. Even pro-democracy protagonists like Salvador Allende Gossens in Chile or José Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua, battled against U.S. forces. Transforming the United States into a democracy stalwart just because Soviet communism lost the Cold War needs no further empirical testing, but a honest sense of history. In the best case scenario, the United States can not transform overnight from baiting to championing democracy. How U.S. strategic interests and democracy promotion efforts in Afghanistan and Iraq distinguish themselves from each other against the tumultuous events unfolding in both countries remains the exercise empirical energy should be directed to—and towards which this manuscript is only one small step. Second, the nature of U.S. engagement has not been significantly disaggregated, since not only can a country take on several roles at the same time, but as we also starkly notice, the United States plays a different Afghani role than Iraqi. In that sense, hands-on versus off-shore interpretations take us farther towards more accurate analytic reports, especially those laced with recommendations. Finally, if the United States is assumed entirely away from the Afghani and Iraqi cauldrons, what might transpire? No other power or powers could do what the United States did to remove Taleban and the Ba’athists, and certainly not stay back as long as it has done with as many troops (and casualties). The end-product of conflict leading to deeper authoritarian or totalitarian systems would fragment both countries. Democratizing Afghanistan was the logical and legitimate U.S. response to 9/11; democratizing Iraq, though noble and needed, was neither logical nor legitimate for the United States to undertake based on the evidence it supplied, the blueprint it imposed, and the desire it had to make Baghdad the shining city on a hill in a historically David Ray Griffin, Christian Faith and the Truth Behind 9/11: A Call to Reflection and Action (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2006). 79 For example, James H. Fetzer, ed., The 9/11 Conspiracy: The Scamming of America (Peru, IL: Carfeet Press, Division of Carus Publishing Co., 2007). 78

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divided and misunderstood neighborhood. With the invasion releasing the genie out of a very unpredictable bottle, it may be too late for the United States to retreat now: Iraq will be worse-off without the Untied States than with it; and unless some magnanimous multilateral body gradually replaces that country, the biggest game in the country will quite likely remain conflict-related than democracy-enhancing. International Relations Just as World War II baptized IR and supplied the most original paradigms, the end of the Cold War clearly indicated many unfolding dynamics could not be adequately captured by extant paradigms for explanatory purposes. Explanatory gaps reflect not a weakness, rather, in how adjustments are made, a sign of a maturing discipline. Democratizing Afghanistan and Iraq is significant to IR for at least 3 reasons: (a) many established theories reflecting high politics and low can be tested, corrected, or rejected; (b) both Afghanistan and Iraq consciously push IR from its North Atlantic, and thereby Christian, moorings to long-neglected Islamic frontiers, adjusting in the process to vastly different epistemologies and ontologies; and (c) comparative politics not just as a parallel IR field nor only as a supplement to IR, but as an integral part of IR methodology. Not just democracy theories, but the entire analytical spectrum from levels of policy-making analysis, the rationality assumption, and the nature of the state can be brought under the microscope under rather different circumstances. Instead of political development as the subject of investigation, as it was for Leonard Binder, James S. Coleman, Joseph La Palombara, Lucian W. Pye, Sidney Verba, and Myron Weiner in the SSRC Studies in Political Development Project (SPDP), for example, identity, legitimacy, penetration, participation, and distribution could be re-examined, not as developing crises,80 but as possible explanations of democracy. Sidney Verba once lamented his inability to place these crises “into sequential ordering”;81 but from a democracy perspective, they arguably offer a more logical sequence: seeking identity first, then legitimacy to run in elections, before mobilizing possible votes (penetration), for possible electoral support (participation), and in

80 See the entire volume, Crises and Sequences in Political Development (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1971). 81 Ibid., 309.

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case of victory, shaping policy rewards (distribution). Further testing is no doubt needed, but the Afghani and Iraqi cases yield encouraging results. Even though Crises and Consequences was the seventh and final SPDP volume, all of the previous six discussed democracy elaborately,82 though not by name. An even more path-finding work, Gabriel Almond’s and Verba’s Civic Culture,83 also focused on democratic processes, but only in five countries with ample democratic experiences, not in those with no or low such experiences. This study is but the tip of an iceberg of how SPDP hypotheses could be resurrected in very diverse and fledgling cases. Since the 1960s, when these works were articulated, institutions and processes faced numerous forms of ad hoc behavior affecting democracy, such as conflict as a catalyst, associational configurations not just in divided societies but also against over-riding strategic interests, exilee votes and inputs, citizenship claims against refugee statuses, dispensing the secularity assumption, a more cluttered portrait of past experiments, inter-relationship with Islam, simultaneous state-building or nation-building in war-torn countries, and so forth. Bringing these to the democracy petra-dish could unlock many of the still-mysterious political development puzzles, and with new actors and levels of analysis, a lot of new light would be shed. Secondly, any case or comparative study of Muslim countries would at some point have to also reassess the state, including all its attributes, including the rationality assumption. Implicitly influenced by Adam Smith’s invisible hand in a competitive market and Max Weber’s Protestant work ethic,84 many western paradigms fall short in describing societies with collective culture, eventually dismissing collective culture much as they would ascriptive patterns of traditional society. Even in the modern Muslim societies of Malaysia and Turkey, for example,

82 Pye, Communications and Political Development; Ward and Rustow, Political Modernization in Japan and Turkey; Coleman, Education and Political Development; Pye and Verba, Political Culture and Political Development; and La Palombara and Weiner, Political Parties and Political Development. 83 Gabriel Almond and Verba, The Civic Culture: Political Attitudes and Democracy in Five Nations (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1963. 84 Adam Smith, An Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, ed., Edwin Cannan (New York, NY: Modern Library, 1937, originally Dublin, Whitestone, 1776), esp. ch. 1 on the pin factory; and Max Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, trans. Talcott Parsons (New York, NY: Scribner’s, 1930).

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collective culture has not been, and probably will not be, eliminated. How do western paradigms adjust to such behavior, and more broadly to Islam’s philosophically and anatomically different processes and structures? Not only the collective culture of an ummah,85 but pushing the process of integration to also bring life’s hereafter into the analytical framework. In the process, the state and all of its institutions, lose many other assumptions: claims to permanence, immanence, and centrality. Since Iraq is unlikely to be stabilized without resolving the religious connections, leaving Islam out of the analytical box may inflict more damage than bringing it in. Finally, this comparative study is significant for IR because in comparing and contrasting cases of vital importance to the theoretical and empirical development of IR, it explicitly makes comparative study an instrument of IR. As a method, it extracts information with a shadow, that is, within a context—which is not new; but when applied to resolving IR questions, the method gains vibrancy, boasts independence, and illuminates uncharacteristically. Whether this is in filling theoretical blanks or drawing theoretical lines, or even in configuring empirical cases or explaining them, comparative insights sift stereotypes, permit observations along any given dimension to first bounce off different cases before shaping conclusions, and produce the kind of nuanced policy necessary to grapple with increasingly hybrid circumstances. Overall, very much like democracy, it opens doors and signaling how IR carries a wider and more heterogeneous agenda. Organization Comparing Afghani and Iraqi democratization adopts a format wellknown to negotiators, built by explicitly identifying various stages and their necessary functions. To be sure, democracy was adopted in both countries out of negotiations—in Bonn for Afghanis, and with the CPA in Iraq. Borrowing from and modifying Brian Tomlin’s stages

85 Community: In Islam this moves in concentric fashion, beginning with the first ummah, Medina, established by Prophet Muhammad, then Sau’di Arabia, a country he unified with as much vigor as Otto von Bismarck did Germany, and Cavour and Garibaldi did Italy, and eventually culminating in an ummah of all believers of Allah without borders.

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serves a useful starting point.86 These stages include: (a) pre-pre-negotiations, specifying the identification of the problem and considering options; (b) pre-negotiations, making a commitment to negotiate and communicating that desire to the other side; (c) negotiations on the table, where gains and losses from exchanging chips can be measured and moderated; and (d) post-negotiations, to capture new developments, modifications, extensions, or ratifications of the agreement. As will become evident, Afghani and Iraqi democratization also went through a 4-stage, post-conflict method paralleling Tomlin’s: an interim government establishing the modus operandi through an ad hoc constitution; utilizing this constitution to bring in representatives of the people to draft a permanent constitution and hold elections under it; installing an elected government; and monitoring performances of the elected government. Of course, conflict set the ball rolling in the first place in both cases, while in Iraq, the peculiar role of the CPA, and its hand-picked IGC introduced an oddity. These can be fitted into the theoretical stages as follows: Pre-pre-negotiations identifying democracy as the goal, and the participants in the democracy-building exercise; prenegotiations engaging the various ethnic and political groups framing the interim constitution, and seeking popular mandate; negotiations focusing on how the permanent constitution was framed by the many groups, culminating in elections; and post-negotiations to account how the elected government performed. Accordingly, 8 chapters follow. Chapters 3 and 4 address pre-prenegotiations; chapters 5 and 6 pre-negotiations; Chapter 7 negotiations; and Chapter 8 post-elections. Each offers substantive conclusions, which Chapter 9 summarizes, adds other observations, and projects implications along the various dimensions introduced in this chapter. Finally, Chapter 2 gets the ball rolling by profiling two other cases— German and Japanese democratization—to explore the conflict-driven democracy thesis through robust cases, and ultimately thicken the Afghani-Iraqi comparisons. Skipping Chapter 2 will not break the Afghanistan-Iraq discussion flow.

86 See Brian Tomlin, “States of pre-negotiation:the decision to negotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement,” Getting to the Table: The Process of International Prenegotiation, ed., Janice Gross Stein (Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1989), 22–6. He does not formalize a pre-pre-negotiation stage, but two of his prenegotiation tasks can be placed in a pre-pre-negotiation stage, as done here.

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The manuscript finds Afghanistan ahead of Iraq in the democratization game in the initial stages, that is, on the basis of the first democratic elections held, not because of a longer experiment, nor owing to the greater legitimacy of military intervention, but due to a distorted Iraqi start-up, highlighting an aberrational CPA role. Critical to a democratic future in both is a multi-tiered consociational arrangement between various persuasions—ethnic, religious, emotional-rational, extremist-mainstream, and victor-villain—backed up by external props. If this can hold, democracy is likely to plant roots; if it collapses, a return to the authoritarian past seems inevitable. The future, in short, hangs,87 not by a thread, but by a sword—the damoclean sword—symbolizing unenviable inheritances and breathtaking original, thus uncultivated, instincts.

87 Metaphor from Robert Putnam, Hanging Together: Cooperation and Conflict in SevenPower Summits (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1987).

2. HYPHENATING DEMOCRACY: GERMANY, JAPAN, & THE CONFLICT THESIS Argument Just as the wave argument gained post-Cold War circulation, so too did an alternate thesis postulating the causal role of conflict.1 Often embedded in nation- or state-building tasks,2 or directed at countries in transition, the conflict school shared with its wave counterpart an interest in changing regimes. Whereas the wave school kept this interest primarily at the observation and analytical levels, the conflict approach gave it legs: Used as an instrument, conflict could not only change an undesirable government, but also recreate governance along more desirable lines. The only mystery remained the trigger, what it would take to respond to an undesirable regime once limits of peaceful inducement had been crossed. Previously embedded in explanations of authoritarianism, studies more recently invoke rogue state or weapons of mass destruction rationales. Iraq illustrates this approach, Afghanistan the pure retaliation Japan faced in World War II. One of the first instances of conflict-driven democratization surprisingly, did not need explanations nor justification: It was the product of actual war in which establishing democracy was not a causal factor. Nazi Germany and imperialist Japan were targeted by the Allies, not for the types of regimes in power, but for their military expansion, which rudely altered the balance of power. After meeting Adolf Hitler, Neville Chamberlain even talked about “peace in our time” in 1939.3 However, the more their defeat looked inevitable, the more the post-war plans gravitated towards the kind of government to install after victory. The rest was amazing history: Both not only became 1 Sunil Bastian and Robin Luckham, eds., Can Democracy be Designed? The Politics of Institutional Choice in Conflict-Torn Societies (London: Zed Books, 2003). 2 James Dobbins, Seth G. Jones, Keith Crane, and Beth Cole DeGrasse, The Beginner’s Guide to Nation-Building (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2007); Francis Fukuyama, ed., Nation-Building: Beyond Afghanistan and Iraq (Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2006); and ——, State-building: Governance and World Order in the 21st Century (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2003); among others. 3 E.H. Carr, International Relations Between the Two World Wars, 1919–1939 (New York, NY: Harper & Row, 1947), 271.

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irreversibly democratized, but also models of how to instrumentalize democracy. If Cold War wrangling prevented democracy lessons from being heeded for four decades, the post-Cold War era, with its real or imagined end-of-history mentality,4 is more ripe for that purpose. Just as the wave argument elevates endogenous development within a democratizing country, the conflict alternative invites exogenous and external dimensions. By endogenous is simply meant the set of features springing out of democracy and the democratizing process, and exogenous pertaining to all other features from the outside. For example, electoral procedures and institutions would be endogenous, conflict as exogenous. Similarly, domestic democracy initiatives, like those of the Polish Solidarity under Lech Walesa, or Latin America’s neo-liberal shifts catalyzing the rendezvous with democracy in the 1980s, differ from the externally-imposed or externally-induced routes to democracy. Whereas conflicts illustrate the former external type, the European Union’s (E.U.’s) Copenhagen membership criteria of 1993 and the 1995 Euro-Med Partnership (EMP), for example, show a different non-conflicting externally-engineered type. Just as the E.U. has been associated with democracy promotion (DP) or democracy consolidation (DC) with its non-conflictual instruments, the literature vividly identifies the United States as promoting similar ends using conflict as the means.5 Afghanistan and Iraq certainly don’t exhaust recent cases of U.S.led conflict-driven democratization, but since they are not the first, two questions beg attention: (a) How similar have both cases been to Germany and Japan after World War II, since only by comparing discrete cases can the general picture conducive to theory-testing or theorybuilding be clarified? (b) Regardless of how clear the emerging general picture becomes, have Afghani and Iraqi democratization experiences encouraged or discouraged other conflict-driven democracy pursuits? Chapters 3–8 take up the second question in comparative detail. This one addresses the first.

4 Stems from Fukuyama, The End of History and the Last Man (New York, NY: Free Press, 1992). 5 Minxin Pei and Sara Kasper, “Lessons from the past: the American record on nation-building,” Carnegie Policy Brief, #24 (Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2003).

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Theoretical Perspective At stake is the process between conflict and democracy. Simplifying a long democratizing process, one might simply ask if the initial priority is on channeling democracy through new or refurbished institutions, or simply just mobilizing the people along democratic lines. Robin Luckham, Anne Marie Goetz, and Mary Kaldor label these democratic institutions and politics, respectively. “Democratic institutions,” they postulate, include “a set of arrangements for organizing political competition, legitimizing rulers and ensuring accountable governance,” constituting “the building blocks of democracy.”6 Similarly, democratic politics refers to “the struggle or competition for power or for access to rulers and collective goods,” more specifically “the capacity of citizens (acting independently or through government) to hold powerful private interests as well as agents of the state to account,” for at least three contemporary reasons: (a) as safeguard, since “corporate interests have rolled back the frontiers of the public domain,” (b) to capture the expanding policy realm, shifting “the real levers of political power . . . elsewhere . . . in the corporate economy, mass media and international financial institutions,” and (c) to influence “new forms of democratic positions,” such as grassroots campaigns and transnational corporations.7 Whereas the institutional approach builds upon what Barrington Moore once called the bourgeois instinct,8 the political approach reflects, in the words of Luckham, Goetz, and Kaldor, “the politics of inclusion,”9 with the former showing more interest in building, the latter in checking, institutions. In the literatures, these also correspond to top-down and bottom-up democracy, as defined in the previous chapter. The task remains to locate where democratization begins, using labels from Richard Youngs, in the political-institution sphere at the top, or the civil society counterpart at the bottom.10

6 Luckham, Anne Marie Goertz, and Mary Kaldor, “Democratic institutions and democratic politics,” Can Democracy be Designed, 18. 7 Ibid., 19–20. 8 Barrington Moore, Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy: Lord and Peasant in the Making of the Modern World (Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 1966), chap. 1. 9 Luckham, Goetz, and Kaldor, op. cit., 21. 10 Richard Youngs, The European Union and the Promotion of Democracy (Oxford, U.K.: Oxford University Press, 2001), 14–5.

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Two problems arise in comparisons, what might be called the tunnel-vision approach under externally-imposed conflict, and the obvious time-space differential. Externally-imposed conflict usually does not offer choices between top-down and bottom-up approaches: Changing regime is a function at the top, and resources automatically concentrate here to begin the transformation. Especially if the conflict is sponsored by the United States, or any hypothetical single advanced industrialized country in Europe, we will find the top-down being preferred since that is the how the United States and industrialized European countries began their own democratization generations ago. Diluting this accent could be the spread of non-governmental or other transnational organizations feeding democratizing efforts independently through issue-specific pursuits, for example, the Carter Center monitoring elections, often by Jimmy Carter himself. How widely and deeply they spread depends on technological progress or communication facilities. This is the second problem: we would expect many more bottom-up initiatives at the start of the 21st Century than after World War II in the middle of the 20th Century. CNN and the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), for example, did not exist and had no comparable counterparts to cover or encourage German or Japanese democratization as they do Afghanistan and Iraq today. Given earlier thrusts and within these limits, what new light can a comparative study of German and Japanese democratization shed on Afghanistan’s and Iraq’s ongoing democratization? Democratizing the Defeated: German and Japanese Experiences in Comparative Light Two comparative subsections follow. The first examines the substance of democratization, the second draws lessons for discussions in the conclusion chapter (Chapter 9), against Afghani and Iraqi experiences. Democracy as Purpose and Process Table 2.1 profiles the discussions through 12 dimensions. There is no theoretical rationale behind the dimensions chosen, except that they cover what a later generation would call the democratization process, paying less attention to the electoral dynamics than the transition from conflict to democratic peace. In that sense, the dimensions hug the

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regime-change thesis, capturing discarded elements of the old-regime, their new-regime replacements, how these came about, and what they eventually meant. Table 2.1 U.S. & Conflict-Driven Democracy Dimensions

Germany

Japan

1. Direct reason for U.S. engagement:

Support U.S. allies in Europe, rebalance power distribution, extend retaliation against Japan to ally of Japan

Retaliation: Pearl Harbor Japanese surrender: USS Missouri (to MacArthur and Nimitz), September 2, 1945

2. Formal adoption of decision to democratize:

Potsdam Conference, 1945

Surrender accepted at Potsdam, as too to establish “freely expressed will of the Japanese people” principle

3. Alternate proposal(s):

Henry J. Morgenthau’s de-industrialize Germany Plan

4. U.S. Partners:

Great Britain, France, Soviet Union

Great Britain, China, and Soviet Union

5. Elements of Occupation: 1.6m troops on VE Day: 600,000 troops (45,000 dropped to 200,000 end from Britain) of 1946 6. Inter-Allies Coordination European Advisory Agency/Agencies: Commission (EAC), November 1943; Council of Foreign Ministers (CFMs), July 1945; and Allied Control Council (ACC), 1945

Far Eastern Commission (FEC), with 11 countries (consensus decisionmaking), February 1946; Allied Council for Japan (ACJ), December 1945

7. Approach adopted:

Top-down: “rule Japan through existing Japanese government machinery” (to conserve forces)

Grassroots (bottom-up, local self-government) based on Joint Chiefs of Staff ( JCS) directive 1067 of April 1945

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Table 2.1 (cont.) Dimensions 8. Anchor:

Germany

Japan

General Lucius D. Clay’s “stern, all-powerful military administration” in U.S. sector (Britain merged 1947, Japan 1949), representing Office of the Military Government, United States (OMGUS)

Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers (SCAP), General Douglas MacArthur, with “military government” in 8 regions and 46 prefectures (became “civil affairs” teams eventually): Decisions made in Tokyo, sent down

9. Remnants of old regime Nazi regime, military, dissolved: communications, press, propaganda, and education

10. Elements of new regime:

* Basic Law: 1948–49 * Decentralization: from kreis (county) to länder (state) on non-security issues * Deutschmark replaces reichsmark * Constabulary force (Fall 1945), based on 1:450 people ratio, eventually only 31,000, not 38,000 * Marshall Plan (April 3, 1948), for 3 years (managed by OEEC at first, then OECD), with US providing additional $3.4b in 1946 and $4.7b in 1947; IMF/ IBRD/UNRRA: $1.2b in 1946, $1.1b in 1947

Military demobilized; Imperial Headquarters (hq) dissolved, Combined Fleet hq, Navy General hq also dissolved; army & Navy ministries disbanded; Okinawa taken for 25 years from 1947, under trusteeship * State, War & Navy Coordination Committee (SWNCC) document 150/4), and JCS 1380/15 (secret) * Article 9 of Constitution (no-war clause): no military to be left * September 1951: peace and security treaties with US, with military capped at 300,000–350,000 * MacArthur’s $250m food aid * Tokyo War Crimes Trial: Tojo + 24 others (7 hanged) * Land reform; top-level zaibatsus dissolved, but kereitsus emerged

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Table 2.1 (cont.) Dimensions

Germany

Japan * Other reforms: political system, education * 1889 Meiji Constitution revamped in 1946, with more civil liberties given, emperor reduced from sovereignty to symbol, Diet elevated, women liberation * Elections: April 10, 1946: 363 parties, 2,770 candidates for 466 seats * 1952: reacquires sovereignty

11. When outlined:

1946

1945

12. Challenges:

Soviet refusal to Soviet Union in a cooperate: led to division; spoiler role, communism Cold War wrangling spreading from mainland China

Cause for U.S. Military Engagement Taking Germany and Japan on in the same war, the United States was still driven by different impulses. Needless to say, engaging Japan was out of pure retaliation for Pearl Harbor, regardless of rivalry in the Pacific prior to the war. In fact, before Pearl Harbor, obtrusively secret U.S. support for Britain and France against Nazi Germany commanded more attention and resources than the Pacific or Japan. Shortly after World War II began, Anglo-American cooperation hit a new high with the August 14, 1941 Atlantic Charter, which enshrined many of post-Cold War aspirations, including democracy. In fact, addressing Congress on January 7, 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt spoke of “a world founded upon four essential human freedoms . . . of speech and expression . . . to worship . . . from want . . . [and] from fear.”11 Of the 11 U.S. Department of State, Making the Peace Treaties, 1941–1947 (Washington, DC: Department of State, 1947), 1.

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eight Atlantic Charter principles, the third sought to give all peoples “the right to choose their own form of government.”12 These did not influence the U.S. decision to enter the war, but as observed, furnished the goals to be met once military victory seemed inevitable. Nonetheless, the United States entered World War II against Japan to avenge the Pearl Harbor “infamy,” and against Germany for a number of other related and unrelated reasons: (a) prevent the conquest of Europe and thereby impose a different power distribution; (b) out of identity with long-established friends, such as Britain; (c) make the Atlantic Ocean safer for commerce and passage given the German submarine threats; and (d) to extend the war against Japan to its Axis partners. Democracy and democratization remained on the backburner, though symptoms of regime-change were clearly present. One critical aspect of this, though the Nazi and imperialist structures would be demolished, replacing them with democracy was broadly expected but not specifically designed. Deciding to Formally Democratize By the end of the war, however, democratizing Germany and Japan became a priority. The Yalta Declaration of Liberated Europe fanned the flames of democracy, but the Potsdam Conference after Germany’s May 7–8, 1945 defeat directly and explicitly proposed “all democratic political parties with rights of assembly and of public discussion shall be allowed and encouraged throughout Germany,”13 which the U.S. Joints Chiefs of Staff directive 1067 ( JCS1067) of April 1945 had already concretized into “an eventual reconstruction of German political life on a democratic basis.”14 Similarly, the fate of Japan, according to the Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers (SCAP), General Douglas MacArthur, was to be left to “the freely expressed will of the Japanese people.”15 Owing to differences with Josef Stalin over providing France a zone of control in Germany, “out of kindness,” as Roosevelt put it,16 the Big Three emphasized regime change more than regime replacement. “It Ibid., 2. James Dobbins, John G. McGinn, Keith Crane, Seth G. Jones, et al., America’s Role in Nation-Building: From Germany to Iraq (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2003), 15. 14 Ibid. 15 Ibid., 26. 16 John L. Snell, Wartime Origins of the East-West Dilemma Over Germany (New Orleans, LA: The Phauser Press, 1959), 141, but read chap. 7. 12 13

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is our inflexible purpose to destroy German militarism and Nazism,” they confirmed, and “wipe out the Nazi Party, Nazi laws, organizations and instructions, remove all Nazi and militarist influences from public office and from the cultural and economic life of the German people. . . .”17 One can muster some sympathy for the U.S. decision to ban the Ba’athists and Taleban, even though that decision directly aggravated post-war bloodshed, and set an unpredictable precedent. Reiterating these same themes at the Potsdam Conference, held between July 16 and August 2, 1945, the 3-power commitment to democracy, which assumed an undivided Germany, led them to propose the reintroduction of political parties, various rights, and public discourse, “throughout Germany.”18 Self-government, in particular, was to be “restored throughout Germany on democratic principles” on a zone-by-zone basis. This zone-by-zone approach, the best option at a very fluid moment, became important for at least two reasons: (a) when the British and French zones eventually merged with the U.S. zone by 1949, though the type of democracy to emerge in all 3 was disproportionately influenced by the United States, it was nonetheless consistent with practices within the 3 countries themselves. (b) By adopting a different route, the Soviet Union indicated how contestable and ambiguous the term democracy would become. Whereas the western interpretation was anchored in the people, the Soviet was for the people with the Communist Party playing the vanguard role. Among the consequences was the different democratic development within Germany—a factor not easily streamlined after the German Democratic Republic (GDR) joined the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) in 1990, or arguably in the seventeen years since. Alternate Proposals Democracy was not the only post-war proposal for Germany and Japan. Strong opinions prevailed against both countries for launching the wars they did, and out of them flowed some harsh counter-measures. Prominent among them was one U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry J. Morgenthau proposed to de-industrialize Germany, a proposal looked upon with great sympathy in the Soviet Union. From the very

17 18

Ibid., 165. Ibid., 201.

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moment of its own occupation of Germany, the Soviet Union was already moving factories and other Germany capital goods back home. President Harry S Truman, who needed the Soviet Union to open a second front against Japan, did not protest against the Soviet Union, but was more abrupt with both Morgenthau and his proposal. Reducing Germany into an agrarian economy might not have served the democratizing goal, since it would alienate many metropolitan residents who had gotten used to Germany becoming a mighty industrial power before World War II. It would also impose greater humanitarian burdens upon the United States, since, without jobs, more mouths would have to be fed in the desperate aftermath of war. No similar proposal was made for Japan, but the depth of the sentiments to punish the Japanese monarch also obstructed democratization formidably. Given his enormous influence on the minds of his people, the king had to somehow be retained, a task SCAP could fulfill only surreptitiously. In the final analysis, here was a rogue institution which could not be dispensed with, just as Germany as an industrialized democracy gained increasing urgency, so too was Stalin’s East European stranglehold deepened. Interestingly, one notices how the country to actually inflict war damage on the United States got off more lightly than another adversary not directly threatening the United States. Whether this implied Nazism or Soviet communism posed a greater threat in Germany than any threats in Japan would, the atomic-bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki also induced greater U.S. remorse for post-war Japan than post-war Germany, at least at the policy-making level, since public cries to punish Emperor Hirohito continued even after those bombings. Partners One of the key differences, though with minor impact on outcomes, was the number of Allied Powers directly managing the defeated country from within that country. Germany was largely defeated by the combined forces of Britain, France, the Soviet Union, and the United States, on the basis of multilateral controls. On the other hand, Japan was defeated virtually single-handedly by the United States, thus giving it more unilateral influence over outcomes.19 Although Britain,

19 See Gary D. Allinson, Japan’s Postwar History (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2004), chap. 2.

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China, and the Soviet Union were recognized as partners in the war against Japan, the United States alone commanded Japan’s defeat, surrender, and reconstruction. Against all three other powers in Germany, the United States was able to merge its own zone with Britain by 1947, thus creating a bizonal arena, and with France in 1949, thus paving the way for the Federal Republic of Germany establishment in 1949, still under Allied sovereignty.20 In the final analysis, the U.S. democracy plan in its own zone spread to these other zones; but that it couldn’t permeate the Soviet zone proved critical in labeling the forces against communism: democracy was significantly catalyzed and prioritized by this initial communist threat, though unfortunately during the rest of the Cold War, dictatorships provided the front-line of defense against communism outside Europe. This might arguably have been the first occasion of democracy appearing within a strategic context: The spread of Soviet communism significantly enhanced the desire for and reputation of democracy, since the alternatives of Soviet communism, or the totalitarian governments just evicted in Germany and elsewhere, looked cold and cruel. Less attention is paid the fact only the United States was fully championing democracy during World War II. Both Britain and France had colonies they still wanted to retain for as long as possible, and this rekindled their hostile reception of Woodrow Wilson’s self-determination proposal to “make the world safe for democracy” in 1917 and at Versailles in 1919. Yet, having entered the global power game it had shunned so far, and taking up the Soviet communist challenge, the United States was less aggressive in promoting democracy in 1945 than in 1918. Nevertheless, if not the only significant democracy advocate in the late 1940s, the United States became the most crucial one. Elements of Occupation One price to pay for being so preponderant in war and reconstruction thereafter is to bear a heavier burden—in men, material, and money. As the fifth element acknowledges, the United States supplied the largest chunk of troops in Germany—1.6m on VE Day, with MacArthur demanding 200,000–600,000 to occupy Japan.21 Others were much John E. Peters, Stuart Johnson, Nora Bensahel, Timothy Liston, and Traci Williams, European Contributions to Operation Allied Force: Implications for Transatlantic Cooperation, Report #1392AF (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2001). 21 Dobbins, op. cit., 9 and 30. 20

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more conservative, for example, the British Empire ended up sending 35,000 troops to Japan when it was expected to have sent 135,000. Behind the deployment of large U.S. troops were increasing calls to demobilize them—a public opinion force not absent even today. Shuffling public opinion and troop deployment is a task only a shrewd and decisive leader can effectively undertake. If Franklin Roosevelt was one, so too was Truman. Democratizing Germany and Japan with a flagging force-level was not an option; but if training that force in democracy-promotion was, a hard-headed leader capable of convincing the public suited the occasion. Under pressure, the United States did reduce the numbers significantly and rapidly, but their initial presence helped complete the critical initial tasks, to which several dimensions below will turn. Inter-Allied Cooperation Given the large number of troops and partnerships of sorts, several agencies were created to coordinate them. For Germany, these included the European Advisory Commission (EAC) from November 1943, the Council of Foreign Ministers (CFM) from July 1945, and the Allied Control Council (ACC), also from 1945. Likewise for Japan, there were the Far Eastern Commission (FEC) from February 1946 in which 11 countries participated; and the Allied Council for Japan (ACJ) from April 1946. Behind them, however, the United States remained in unchallenged control, through the Office of the Military Government, United States (OMGUS) in Germany and the SCAP in Japan.22 Leadership also counted here, albeit in a different way. Creating the institutions not only helped coordinate relations between the Allies, but also softened the rough edges of battle-hardened soldiers as they shifted attention to reconstruction, democracy, and development—all more than necessary functions of the military forces since fewer NGOs, transnational groups, and individually-driven campaigners were available in the 1940s than today.

22 On the OMGUS, see Erich J. Hahn, “U.S. policy on a West German constitution, 1947–1949,” American Policy and the Reconstruction of West Germany, 1945–1955, eds., Jeffrey M. Diefendorf, Axel Frohn, and Hermann Rupieper (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press and the German Historical Institute, 1991), chap. 2.

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Approach Adopted Given the division of Germany into zones and Japan’s sole occupational authority being the United States (or General MacArthur, depending on how one wants to interpret that control), the United States not only influenced democratization, but also did so in contrasting ways. Whereas in Germany it adopted a “grassroots” approach in its own zone in the south, in Japan it retained the extant top-down approach, albeit in modified form. These were dictated by JCS 1067 in Germany and JCS 1380/15 in Japan. If one were to compare these to the Afghani and Iraqi equivalents, the Bonn Accord and the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) arrangements, respectively, one will notice how much closer the World War II documents were to the Iraqi than to the Afghani: The former was the product largely of the United States, and driven by military interests; the latter was the product of Afghanis under multilateral coordination. Ironically, the United States proposed a decentralized approach to Iraq much like it had experienced in Germany, though its centralized Japanese approach was to be replicated in Afghanistan. The bottom-up approach in Germany finds its rationale in the multilateral nature of the occupation, but the approach adopted in Japan was also influenced by the shortage of soldiers. Whereas Japan was recreated “through existing Japanese government machinery,”23 Germany was revamped more thoroughly at the roots. By comparison, the United States would adopt a centralized approach to Afghani democratization, but the decentralized caucusbased Iraqi approach was shot down by the Shi’ite majority. Both the Taleban and Ba’athist systems needed as thorough cleansing as the Nazi, but demographic considerations intervened to produce different outcomes: Not enthused by Iraq’s Shi’a majority, the United States was more interested in preserving Iraq than in pursing a centralized Iraq, and preserving Iraq necessitated recognition of Kurdish and Sunni interests; while in Afghanistan, since too many divisions threatened the unity of the country, the United States had no choice but to favor centralization, especially as significant symbols of the center, the monarchy and a Pashtun leader in the form of Hamed Karzai, were available.

23

Dobbins, op. cit., 30.

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Ethnic divisions in Afghanistan and Iraq make comparisons with ethnically homogeneous Germany and Japan difficult. The difference also speaks to the impact of time: One of the assumptions behind the state was nationality at the time of World War II, emerging from the 1648 Westphalian Peace,24 which influenced European politics for more than three centuries; but across Africa and Asia after World War II, ethnicity became as noisy as European nationalism was previously, and increasingly so since many of the emerging states were artificially constructed without a nationality to build upon and neglected ethnic sentiments. Both Afghanistan and Iraq were created by outside powers after World War I to satisfy regional balances, the former between Britain and Russia,25 the latter between British, French, and (defeated) Ottoman interests through the secret 1915 Sykes-Picot Treaty;26 whereas Germany was created between 1864 and 1871 by Otto von Bismarck as an expression of German nationalism,27 while Japan had always remained its own distinctive and isolated entity under Japanese control. Both Germany and Japan fitted Barry Buzan’s description of a nation-state,28 Afghanistan and Iraq fitted more the state-nation alternative. As such, “grassroots”, top-down, and bottom-up thrusts were not of generic origins, but peculiar responses to peculiar circumstances on the ground. Anchor Democratization was anchored in a “stern, all-powerful military administration,” from the very start, the OMGUS in Germany, SCAP in Japan.29 One also notices how only Iraq replicated this pattern, not

24 Lynn Miller, Global Order: Values and Power in International Politics (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1985), chap. 2. 25 As J. Bruce Amstutz informs us, the British-Russian rivalry over intelligence during the 1840s was dubbed the “great game,” later popularized by Rudyard Kipling in his 1901 novel, Kim. See Afghanistan: The First Five Years of Soviet Occupation (Washington, DC: National Defense University, 1986), chap. 1; and Peter Hopkirk, The Great Game: The Struggle for Empire in Central Asia (New York, NY: Kodansha, 1994). 26 David Fromkin, “Britain, France, and the diplomatic agreements,” The Creation of Iraq, 1914–1921, eds., Reeva Spector Simon and Eleanor H. Tejirian (New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 2004), 134–45. 27 A.J.P. Taylor, Struggle for the Mastery of Europe, 1848–1918 (Oxford, Eng.: Clarendon Press), chaps. 8–9. 28 Barry Buzan, People, State and Fear: An Agenda for International Security Studies in the PostCold War Era (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 1991, 2nd ed.), 57–111. 29 On SCAP, see Louis D. Hayes, Introduction to Japanese Politics (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 2002), chap. 2.

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Afghanistan. The respective leaders were General Lucius D. Clay in Germany, General Douglas MacArthur in Japan, the key difference between them being MacArthur performed both civilian and military roles, Clay only military, thus creating a much more authoritarian control in Japan than in Germany, though, as the Japanese acknowledge, a benevolent authority. MacArthur’s military governments in all 8 regions and 46 prefectures were eventually reclassified civil affairs organizations, in which decision made in Tokyo trickled down to the countryside. Clay did not have to worry about controlling an entire country, but his decentralization efforts, elaborated below,30 eventually embraced the country, not from the top, but from the bottom. Democratizing Afghanistan and Iraq also involved quite different anchors. Though military forces in both countries were disproportionately influenced by the United States, in Afghanistan the United States could adopt a more hands-off political approach, preferring to play off-shore political and military roles, while Iraq’s hands-on U.S. approach became the sine qua non of the country’s democratization. One explanation for the different Afghani-Iraqi treatments could be the strategic role of democratization: If it is to serve other purposes than just the country being democratized, as was suggested for Iraq within the greater Middle East democracy campaign, hands-on U.S. engagement was fundamental in Iraq, but not for Afghanistan. Similarly, hands-on U.S. engagement in Japan also fitted the larger U.S. interests in the Pacific before World War II began,31 when the historically diminishing interest in European politics and power balances still prevailed, and would continue to until World War II and the Soviet communist threat. Pacific interests continued the legendary western movement from the time of the country’s inception; European neglect stemmed from the reasons propelling migration to the New World in the first place. Dissolving Remnants of the Old Order While all the other dimensions paved the way for regime-change, dissolving remnants of the old order was the first of two critical tasks in

30 Willi Eichler, “The political reconstruction of Germany,” Remaking Germany, eds., Mary Saran, Eichler, Wilhelm Heidorn, and Minna Specht (London: International Publishing Co., 1945), 9–17. 31 Walter McDougall, Let the Sea Make a Noise: A History of the North Pacific from Magellan to MacArthur (New York, NY: Basic Books, 1993), Part II.

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democratizing the two totalitarian countries. The other, of establishing the new order, is discussed next. There was no question about the military, as well as political links to the military, being dissolved immediately. In Germany this meant the Nazi Party, in addition to all its vestiges and left-overs in the military, communications systems, press, propaganda, and education, while in Japan the Imperial Headquarters, alongwith those for the Combined Fleet and Navy General, as well as Army and Navy ministries, were dissolved. Okinawa was placed in U.S. trusteeship for 25 years from 1947. In the Nuremberg Trials, held by the International Military Tribunal, 24 top leaders were indicted, 10 of whom were hanged,32 while the Tokyo War Crimes Trials indicted Tojo and 24 other top leaders, hanging 7, imprisoning the others. These were marshaled by the United States, but given the excesses and horror of the crimes perpetrated, public opinion strongly favored that justice be meted out. Here we notice these tasks were handled rather differently with Afghanistan and Iraq. There were no counterparts in Afghanistan, while those in Iraq were carried out, through military tribunals, by the Iraqi government, including that of Saddam himself, under U.S. eyes. But the old order was completely erased in Afghanistan and Iraq, as in Germany, though in Japan the monarch was allowed to remain in a nominal capacity. New Regime Elements Bringing in the new was left as a U.S. privilege; and democracy was the big winner. After the Basic Law was formulated, approved, and adopted in 1948–49,33 the Federal Republic of Germany was established in 1949, though sovereignty still remained with the Allied powers; by 1955, when it could join NATO and get permission to rearm within limits,34 the FRG won back its full sovereignty. Germany’s instrument of force became a constabulary force, from Fall 1945. Originally designed to have a 38,000 limit (on the basis of 1 police for every 450 citizens), it eventually only had 31,000. Japan, on the other hand,

32 Further on the Nazis in Perry Bidiscombe, The Last Nazis: SS Werewolf Guerrilla Resistance in Europe 1944–1947 (Stroud, Eng.: Tempus Publishing, 2000). 33 Germany: 1945–1954 (Schaan, Leichtenstein: Boas International Publishing Co., 1954), 41–44. 34 Robert McGeehan, The German Rearmament Question: American Diplomacy and European Defense After World War II (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1971).

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adopted the significantly modified 1889 Meiji Constitution,35 this time expanding civil liberties, promoting women emancipation, lowering the voting age from 25 to 20, but most of all (a) reducing the monarch from a sovereign power to merely a symbol, and (b) through Article 9, banning any instruments of war, from production to institutions. Japan received its sovereignty in 1952.36 Decentralization was promoted in both, more heavily in Germany. Clay remodeled the political system, beginning at the krei (county) level, before moving up to the länder (province), empowering administration at all these levels in terms of all non-security issues.37 Elections were organized faster in Japan than in Germany, given the less dramatic institutional changes. Though both produced stable and legitimate founding governments, the public seemed to have been more mobilized in Japan than in Germany, in part due to the reduction of the voting age and the emancipation of women. More than 360 parties contested the April 10, 1946 elections in Japan, fielding 2,770 candidates for the 466 Diet seats, while the April 1947 local elections also elicited extensive participation.38 Interestingly, both elections produced conservative governments, under Prime Minister Shigeru Yoshida in Japan, and, after the August 1949 elections in the FRG, Konrad Adenauer of the Christian Democrat Party (CDP).39 In fact, it is argued the U.S. favored the CDP over the rival Social Democrat Party (SDP). At any rate “relations between the American occupation forces and the newly reorganized Social Democrats did not start out on the best of footings.”40 On the economic front,41 the deutschmark replaced the reichsmarck in 1948, while the Marshall Plan (MP), beginning that same year, 35 Tetsuya Kataoka, The Price of Constitution: The Origin of Japan’s Postwar Politics (New York, NY: Crane Russak, 1991). 36 T.A. Bisson, Prospects for Democracy in Japan (New York, NY: The Macmillan Co., 1949). 37 Rebecca Boehling, “U.S. military occupation, grass roots democracy, and local German government,” American Policy and the Reconstruction of West Germany, chap. 14. 38 Jean-Marie Bouissou, Japan: The Burden of Success (London: Hurst & Co., 2002), chap. 2. 39 Diethelm Prave, “German democratization as conservative restabilization: the impact of American policy,” American Policy and the Reconstruction of West Germany, chap. 15. 40 Dietrich Orlow, “Ambivalence and attraction: the German Social Democrats and the United States, 1945–1974,” The American Impact on Postwar Germany, ed., Reiner Pommerian (Providence, RI: Berghahn Books, 1997), 36, but see chap. 3. 41 Wilhelm Hiedorn, “The economic reconstruction of Germany,” Remaking Germany, 18–24; and Bouissou, Japan, chap. 3.

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transformed the economy by the time it ended three years later. Even prior to the MP, the United States pumped in $3.4b in 1946 and $4.7b in 1947, together with the newly established International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD), and the United Nations Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Agency (UNRRA) also pumping in $1.2b and $1.1b in those same years. Japan also benefited from similar plans,42 which actually helped the United States to downsize, even eliminate the more aggressive zaibatsus, though it could not prevent the emergence of another type of conglomeration, the kereitsus. Facilitating the transformation of both countries was the onset of the Cold War. Not only were U.S. strictures loosened, but the hope both countries could support the containment of communism was also spawned. Just as the 1949 Berlin crisis dramatized this, so too the 1950 outbreak of the Korean War confirmed the vital roles of both countries on the Cold War frontier. Japan signed peace and security treaties in 1951,43 while Germany became a NATO member in 1955. By then, democratization slipped from the U.S. priority list, but the United States won two democratic countries in its fight against Soviet communism. Process Both of the above cases informally suggest the democratization process beginning with conflict and outright defeat proceeded towards electoral democracy through four stages: (a) the construction or cleansing of institutions, whether at the center or local levels; (b) an overlapping consolidation phase, formulating or modifying the constitution in conjunction with massive refugee and rehabilitation aid as well as economic development funding; (c) a threshold-crossing phase with the elections, supplemented fortuitously for the United States by conservative parties winning in both countries and the Cold War thickening; and (d) restoration of full sovereign rights to the countries in all but

42 Theodore Cohen, Remaking Japan: The American Occupation as New Deal (New York, NY: Free Press, 1987). 43 Jeff Kingston, Japan in Transformation, 1952–2000 (Harlow, Eng.: Harlow, 2001), ch. 2; and Tsuyoski Michael Yamaguchi, The Making of an Alliance: Japan’s Alliance Policy, 1945–1952 (London: Minerva Press, 1999).

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military developments, but also as democracies in possibly the fastest democratic transformation time. Were it not for Cold War pressures, the United States had every reason to replicate these cases; yet, when the Cold War ended, replication pressures surfaced, driven perhaps not so much by the same reasons as Wilson articulated in 1917 or the 1945 Potsdam conference outlined, but by (a) the implicit victory for democracy in the breakdown of Soviet communism; (b) the larger number of democratic or democratizing countries than ever before; (c) the E.U. entry into the global democratizing market; and (d) the surge in bottom-up democratization pressures through the media and transnational or non-governmental organizations. Challenges Not a mute consideration, the Soviet challenge became pivotal to Germany and Japanese democratization. It elevated the role of alternatives, introduced an exogenous factor very explicitly, and elevated the external context of democratization. Of course, none of these would have meant much without domestic democratic well-springs. Here too emerged another challenge, skillfully exploited by the peace-makers or nation/state builders: never to let Germany and Japan return to its Nazi or imperial past, a mission as much of the citizens of those countries as their post-war masters. Occupational forces played this card well, for example, by expanding liberties, rights, and the electorate in Japan, as well as by recreating the political infrastructure from scratch in Germany. Behind these two challenges, the third challenge simply dissolved: not to let the democratization be reversed. The Cold War lasted long enough to permit all the deepening, party-in-power rotation, and, in short, irreversibility. With its invisible enemy and open-ended frontier, terrorism remains the biggest challenge facing the United States in Afghanistan and Iraq, suggesting the United States will be supervising Afghani and Iraqi developments much longer than it did Germany and Japan—if, that is, the U.S. public can be persuaded of the threat and rationale. More peculiar challenges still prevail, with Iran and Pakistan being thorns in Afghanistan, Iran in Iraq, as well as Afghani narco-trafficking and Iraqi refugee flows creating potentially explosive long-term threats. Within the two countries, however, the United States seems

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to be emerging as the only player capable of negotiations with all conflicting sides—Kurds, Shi’as, Sunnis in Iraq; and Hazaras, Pashtunis, and Tadjiks in Afghanistan. Curiously, the United States also became popular as an occupying force in Germany and Japan. Lessons Table 2.2 lists many of the lessons learned from both cases. While the next 6 chapters assess Afghani and Iraqi democratization substantively, it might be useful to purview the relevance of these lessons for Afghanistan and Iraq first. Table 2.2 Democracy-Related Lessons Lessons from the two World War II Defeated Countries Germany: 1. Democracy can be transferred, societies can be changed 2. Defeated populations can be cooperative and malleable 3. Enforced accountability for past injustices (through war crimes tribunals) can help transformation 4. Dismembered and divided countries can be difficult to put back 5. Defeated countries need huge inflows of cash and humanitarian inflows 6. Reparations can be counterproductive: economy must grow first 7. More than 1 power determining policy can impose huge delays Japan: 1. Democracy can be transferred to non-west societies 2. War responsibility affects internal political dynamics and external relations (zaibatsus) 3. Coopting existing institutions better than building new ones 4. Unilateral action better than multilateral

Implications for both 21st Century Defeated Countries (Afghanistan, Iraq) 1. Relevant for both countries 2. Questionable for both 3. Could go the other way, as in Iraq today 4. Relative in both 5. Very relative for both, more for Afghanistan than for Iraq 6. Not so relevant 7. Not relatively true in Afghanistan

1. Relevant for both countries 2. Probably very true for both countries 3. Not followed in Iraq 4. Reversed in Afghanistan (multilateral)

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Table 2.2 (cont.) Lessons from the two World War II Defeated Countries

Implications for both 21st Century Defeated Countries (Afghanistan, Iraq)

5. Concentrating economic policy 5. Not enough evidence as yet decisions helps recovery 6. Delegating economic policy 6. Probably true for both countries implementation to local levels can dilute effectiveness of change 7. Idealistic reforms (like democracy) 7. Probably true, but leading to must yield to global concerns of incomplete satiation of both occupying power (modern example: terrorism)

Of the seven lessons from Germany’s case, we find three very relevant to both Afghanistan and Iraq (1st, 4th, and 5th), two not very relevant to both (6th and 7th), the second particularly for Afghanistan, and two remain questionable (2nd and 3rd). Among the three relevant ones, the first one (democracy can be transferred, societies can be changed) is tentative since it is too early to say if democracy has sunk in, but more than that, societies can be changed by a multitude of forces today, of which democracy is only one. Both 4th and 5th lessons may be increasingly relevant for both Afghanistan and Iraq, but reparation being counter-productive (6th) has not been an issue in either Afghanistan or Iraq, while delays from multilateral occupying powers (7th) may not even register in societies moving at a slower pace than Germany and Japan. Most questionable remain the 2nd and 3rd lessons, since defeated populations in Germany and Japan were not ethnically divided as in Afghanistan and Iraq, while enforced accountability against Ba’athists and Taleban have not helped the transformation underway. Turning to the seven lessons from Japan’s case, four merit various degrees of relevance, with the 1st and 2nd being very relevant, but the 6th and 7th lesser so; the 3rd, of co-opting existing institutions, has not been followed in Iraq, while the 4th, of multilateral occupation forces being less effective than unilateral, is being reversed, with Afghanistan (a case of multilateral forces) doing arguably better than Iraq (a case of unilateral occupation), and in the 5th, of concentrating economic policy implementation to local levels diluting effectiveness, cannot be fully tested as the situation hasn’t clearly emerged.

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Such a mixed report suggests its own lessons: If they served as models, Germany and Japan were utilized only sporadically and not in any blueprint fashion. Comparisons could be between apples and oranges, that is, two different sets of cases because of the causal factors, catalysts, and strategic contexts. What they all share include a conflict, democracy, and the same agent of change (United States), but the political, economic, socio-cultural, and legitimacy contexts vary widely. Conclusions This last lesson from a mixed comparative report is perhaps crucial to democratization in general: It alerts us to the peculiar circumstances of each country, undermining comparisons across a vast time-span. At least three sets of time differentials could become sources of distortions: First, democratization had fewer champions and spoke to a smaller audience then than now, and thus carries more instruments today than ever before. Britain and France wanted democracy, but only within their domestic context, not globally, since it would threaten their controls of increasingly fragile colonies; the Soviet Union had a different conception of democracy, propped up by force. While today, as discussed, democracy could be top-down, bottom-up, endogenously driven, or externally imposed—a wider menu than ever existed, but some of whose seeds were sown in Germany and Japan after World War II. Second, as the agent of democracy, the state carried far different connotations and constituted quite different sentiments with Germany and Japan than with Afghanistan and Iraq. It was an established fact in Europe then, and Japan was but one of an Asian exception claiming all the properties of statehood at the time of World War II; but its contested presence in Asia even to this day, highlighted by Afghanistan and Iraq, raises the question if the same agent can fulfill the same democratic functions when other pressing demands also need resources and attention. Without the proper agent to execute the tasks of representative government, democracy faces more of a vacuum today in Africa and Asia than it did in Europe and the United States in the middle of the 20th Century, when, in fact, both parts of the Atlantic were actually consolidating a welfare system—something even

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democratic African and Asian countries might find too tall a task to fulfill for a long time to come. Third, strategic considerations mattered on both occasions, but served more direct and limited targets then than the more indirect and open-ended targets now. For example, the European balance of power was influential then but is quite irrelevant today; just as the U.S. bipolar balancing concerns after World War II do not suit present power atmospherics. Some scholars talk of the defensive U.S. Cold War military orientation shifting to offensive realism today,44 highlighted by the Bush Doctrine. Since interests change, doctrines will too. Other than the different playing fields, all four cases carry other peculiarities. Once again, 3 illustrate. First, democratization was the unintended consequence of illegitimate behavior by Afghanistan, Germany, and Japan, but seeks to be the direct target, through regime-change, in only Iraq. Although all four underwent regime changes, Afghanistan and Japan also faced direct U.S. retaliation, Germany U.S. retaliation by association. Second, religion was not a factor in invading and democratizing Christian Germany and Shinto Japan, but appears to be a critical factor in Muslim Afghanistan and Islam. If this is a correct understanding, religion will be affecting strategic considerations of a world power for the first time since Westphalia. Finally, victory in Germany and Japan still led the United States to befriend dictators more closely in the campaign against communism after World War II, but victory in Afghanistan and Iraq seems to be pushing the United States to cultivate more democratic friends in its campaign against terrorism, implying democratization may have either reached its limits today, or its golden moment is yet to come.

Stephen G. Brooks, “Dueling realisms,” International Organization 51, no. 3 (Summer 1997): 445–77. 44

3. EMBRACING DEMOCRACY: AFGHANISTAN, IRAQ , & PRIOR U.S. CONSIDERATIONS Introduction Must democracy follow a formula? Indeed, must it belong to a wave? Riffling through the accumulation of four waves of democratic experiences in Chapter 1, we noticed how just as convergences diminish innovation and subordinate local cultures, divergences raise the likelihood of ethnic conflict. How democratization relates to statehood also sheds light on the viability of both democratization and statehood: When initiated after firmly establishing statehood, democratization is more likely to assume irreversible proportions than if it must compete with a state still struggling to establish its governmental structures, acquire legitimacy from the people, or even claim an identity. Complicating matters is the external context, an increasingly critical democratization trigger today when during the first wave it was conspicuous only by its absence. Democratizing Afghanistan and Iraq could be seen as part of the same unfolding panorama of bonded peoples becoming free of their own will and volition, or being induced into democracy by circumstances more than will. Though neither is mutually exclusive, one of the distinguishing features of the latter possibility is the contingent role of conflict: Conflict hastens the rendezvous with democracy, either by external imposition or from the exhaustion of other domestic alternatives, without predicting eventual success. Only a handful of successful cases prevail: Japan and West Germany after World War II, Panama and Grenada more recently.1 The United States leads other countries, or groups of countries like the European Union, in imposing democratization.2 Either alone, as

1 Examples from Minxin Pei, Samia Amin, and Seth Garz, “Building nations: the American experience,” Nation-Building: Beyond Afghanistan and Iraq, ed., Francis Fukuyama (Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2006), 66, Table 3.1, but see chap. 3. 2 The E.U. is known less for imposing democracy from outside and more for inducing policy-changes leading towards democracy (often as a stepping stone for E.U. membership). See Antoaneta L. Dimitrova, ed., Driven to Change: The European Union’s

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with Germany, Grenada, Haiti, and Japan, or in conjunction with the European Union, as in Bosnia-Hercegovina, Croatia, and Kosovo, the United States championed democracy under different contexts with varying intensities: Before World War II, the chief criterion was to extend self-determination to, particularly European, colonies in Europe, Asia, and Africa, with Woodrow Wilson’s Fourteen Points and the Paris Peace talks highlighting this approach; during the Cold War, as dictators became better bulwarks against communism, democratization essentially lay low on the U.S. agenda, even though the World War II defeat of Germany and Japan permitted two of the 20th Century’s most complete transformation from authoritarian rule; after the Cold War ended, the United States was less of an initiator than a beneficiary of democratization, at least at the policy-making level, though U.S. institutions like the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), became ardent champions; and in the post-9/11 era, democratization seems to have returned as an explicit U.S. goal as in the first phase, this time not to promote self-determination as much as to drain the swamps of terrorism. In this last phase, as Katerina Dalacoura elaborates, the United States mobilized three levels of responses to democratize the Middle East:3 (a) policy initiatives promoting civil society engagements, especially through U.S. Agency of International Development (U.S.AID) from 2001, the Middle East Partnership Initiative (MEPI) from December 2002 in conjunction with the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), and the Broader Middle East and North Africa Partnership Initiative (BMENAPI) from June 2004 under G-8 auspices; (b) conventional diplomacy through the Department of State, highlighted by President George W. Bush’s November 2003 speech on Middle East democracy at the NED; and (c) intervention, if need by invasion, whether

Enlargement Viewed From the East (Manchester, U.K.: Manchester University Press, 2004); Heather Grabbe, The EU’s Transformative Power: Europeanization Through Conditionality in Central and Eastern Europe (Houndsmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire, U.K.: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006); Geoffrey Pridham, Designing Democracy: EU Enlargement and Regime Change in Post-Communist Europe (Houndsmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire, U.K.: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005); ——, Eric Herring, and George Sanford, Building Democracy? The International Dimensions of Democratisation in Eastern Europe (London: Leicester University Press, 1997, 2nd ed.); and Richard Youngs, The European Union and the Promotion of Democracy: Europe’s Mediterranean and Asian Policies (Oxford, U.K.: Oxford University Press, 2001). 3 Katerina Dalacoura, “US democracy promotion in the Arab Middle East since 11 September 2001: a critique,” International Affairs 81, no. 5 (October 2005): 963–66, but see 963–79.

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the pretext is pay-back or pre-emption, real or hypothetical, as in Afghanistan and Iraq, respectively. Afghanistan and Iraq provided opportunities. Terrorist hideouts could be drained, Islamic fundamentalists and an authoritarian regime could be eliminated, and democratization could be experimented with in as significant a way as in Germany and Japan after World War II, and thereby develop models to apply elsewhere in the Muslim Middle East. In addition, neither Afghanistan nor Iraq fitted the third or fourth democratization waves.4 The former took a Catholic turn, sweeping across East Europe, the Mediterranean, and Latin America, and the latter addressed post-Soviet states with their own peculiarities (such as proximity to Russia, large Russian segments of the population not fully embracing the change, independence beginning with institutionalized authoritarianism, and so forth). Both waves avoided conflicts by and large, and swayed more into the European Union (E.U.) domain than the United States. Afghani and Iraqi democratization not only remained largely U.S. prerogatives, but were also expected to become U.S. show-cases. Afghanistan and Iraq relate to both waves only because of a common authoritarian background, but parallel more closely the cases of German and Japanese democratization after World War II for several other reasons: decisive conflict victory creating democratization space; direct and full-fledged U.S. coordination of both the conflict and subsequent democratization; and possible positioning as U.S. strategic outposts, Afghanistan in terms of Central Asia and Iraq in terms of the Middle East and Persian Gulf just as Germany and Japan became Cold War frontiers in East Europe and East Asia, respectively. What Humphrey Crum Ewing proposes about Iraq, however, may hold true for all four invaded countries: “to impose . . . a particular view of what is ‘right’. . . . a precise set of social, economic, political, philosophical and ethical values and objectives, albeit incoherent in their combination and with no one of them fully thought out.”5 Andrea Kathryn 4 See Samuel P. Huntington, The Third Wave: Democratization in the Late Twentieth Century (Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 1991); Renske Doorenspleet, Democratic Transitions: Exploring the Structural Sources of the Fourth Wave (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2005); and Michael McFaul, “The fourth wave of democracy and dictatorship: non-cooperative transitions in the postcommunist world,” World Politics 54, no. 1 ( January 2002): 212–44. 5 Humphrey Crum Ewing, “Iraq March–April 2003: outcome, a division of views—and an abuse of intelligence,” Intelligence and National Security 19, no. 1 (Spring 2004): 108, but see 105–11.

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Talentino goes even farther. In addition too imposing new values, the U.S. demand for war “challenged the basic assumption of liberal hegemony—the strategy of cooperation and consensus-building,” thus “undermining the normative consensus of the post-Cold War order and beginning the process of delegitimization.”6 Democracy without values and norms delegitimizes itself; and liberal hegemony becomes, in Stephen Zunes’s term, more belligerent.7 Negotiating Democracy A content analysis of Afghani and Iraqi democratization follows in this chapter and the next five, with the November–December 2001 Bonn Accord and the May–November 2003 Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) arrangements serving as the blueprints for Afghanistan and Iraq, respectively. Since neither country had prior democratic experiences, a formula had to be formulated first, then Afghanis and Iraqis had to be familiarized with expectations, through all sorts of negotiations. Those at Bonn were formal, open, largely horizontal, and involved other sideline players, including neighboring countries; those with CPA were informal, private, top-down, and included largely selected domestic groups. With phases and background considerations discussed in the first two subsections, a third summarizes observations. Phases From the bargaining literature, we learn of how negotiations can be broken into stages. Brian Tomlin, for example, identifies prepre-negotiations, dealing with identifying a problem and evaluating options; pre-negotiations, involving a commitment to negotiate and communicating this decision to other relevant parties; and hard-core negotiations on the table where the give-and-take dynamics occur.8

6 Andrea Kathryn Talentino, “US intervention in Iraq and the future of the normative order,” Contemporary Security Policy 25, no. 2 (August 2004): 323, but see 312–38. 7 Stephen Zunes, “The United States: belligerent hegemony,” The Iraq War: Causes and Consequences, eds., Rick Fawn and Raymond Hinnesbusch (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2006), chap. 2. 8 See Brian Tomlin, “The stages of prenegotiation: the decision to negotiate North American free trade,” Getting to the Table: The Processes of International Pre-negotiations, ed., Stein (Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1989), 18–43; also Janice

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Robert Putnam’s theory of ratification helps outline a post-negotiations phase.9 Although he discusses it only in terms of the agreement concluded abroad, post-negotiations can also include modifying agreements by returning to the tasks of the prior three stages. Testing the robustness of these stages is not the purpose of this investigation, but at least they offer contours along which the fate of Afghani and Iraqi democratization is explored in the next five chapters. This chapter addresses what might be called pre-pre-negotiations issues, the next two focus on pre-negotiations issues, Chapters 6 and 7 address negotiations, while Chapter 8 the post-negotiations. Together they offer a 5-phase U.S. democratization approach: (a) battlefield victory; (b) specifying individuals, institutions, and interests; (c) establishing an interim governmental phase; (d) shifting to a transitional government; and (e) holding elections to determine a democratically elected government. This chapter provides a backgrounder to the democratization formulas adapted and implemented in Afghanistan and Iraq. Background Considerations What were some of the background considerations nurturing or nudging the Bonn Accord and CPA arrangements? Five arguably imperative considerations have been listed as dimensions in Table 3.1, and elaborated below: (a) excluding remnants of the old order entirely; (b) anchoring democratization along the lines of, or upon leaders selected by, the United States as expected vanguards; (c) pivoting democratization upon a favorable military order; (d) funneling multilateral, transnational, and international support or contributions through the United States; and (e) positioning the democratization endeavor strategically. Excluding the Old Order The first was inevitable. Both the Taleban in Afghanistan and Ba’athists in Iraq were excluded from the envisioned order, the former for synchronizing its sympathies and interests with al-Qaeda, directly targeting

Gross Stein, “Getting to the table: the triggers, stages, functions, and consequences of prenegotiation,” ibid., 239–68; and Gilbert R. Winham, “The prenegotiation phase of the Uruguay Round,” ibid., 44–67. 9 Robert Putnam, “Diplomacy and domestic politics: the logic of two-level games,” Double-Edged Diplomacy: International Bargaining and Domestic Politics, eds., Peter Evans, Putnam, et al. (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1993), appendix.

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3. embracing democracy Table 3.1 Prior U.S. Considerations in Comparative Context

Prior Considerations

Afghanistan

Iraq

Excluding the Old Order:

Taleban and the al-Qaeda connection

Ba’athists and Saddam stooges

Selecting Hamed Karzai: Pashtun Democratizaconnection tion Vanguards:

Ahmad Chalabi: Shi’ite connection

Democratization * Triple criteria: declare and the Military regime change/preserFulcrum: vation; deploy large troop numbers; use military and civilian personnel in political administration * Fukuyama’s reconstruction and development prerogatives

* Triple criteria: declare regime change/ preservation; deploy large troop numbers; use military and civilian personnel in political administration * Fukuyama’s reconstruction and development prerogatives

U.S. and the Filtering Effect:

U.N. to coordinate nonmilitary inputs from other countries, transnational groups, and multilateral organizations—all on behalf of the U.S., leaving NATO to coordinate military inputs, also on behalf of the U.S.

U.S. to coordinate inputs from other countries, transnational groups, and multilateral organizations, whether for economic or military purposes

Positioning Democratization Strategically:

Opportunity for U.S. to reclaim ownership of democratization

Opportunity for U.S. to reclaim ownership of democratization

the United States in particular but the west generally, and unleashing the events of 9/11; the latter for institutionalizing civilian repression through the alleged use or threat of weapons of mass destruction (WMDs),10 and under the direct command of Saddam Hussein or his kins or cronies. Since the pious Taleban sprang from Afghanistan’s Pash10 WMDs include anthrax, botulin, nerve agents, and nuclear weapons—all specifically identified by George W. Bush’s 2003 State of the Union speech.

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tuns, and the secular Ba’athists reaffirmed a Sunni identity by persecuting Iraq’s Kurds and Shi’ites, large chunks of the Afghani and Iraqi populations were automatically alienated, not just along the historical ethnic lines, but suddenly also religious. Though King Muhammad Zahir Shah and the future president, Hamed Karzai, were Pashtuns, the country’s largest ethnic group was practically sidelined. One consequence was to reconfigure both domestic and regional power balances. As Tadjiks moved to the forefront, along with Uzbekis and Hazaras, memories of the 1992–96 Afghani civil war, which hastened the Taleban resurgence, were rekindled, as too was the bitter and inconclusive 1996–2001 Tadjik-Taleban conflict; kicking domestic dust, in turn, created opportunities to reduce Pakistan’s stranglehold of Afghanistan, which Iran, Russia, and India availed of immediately through their own client groups—Hazaras for Iran, Tadjiks for Russia and India. Representing a mere 20% of the population, Iraq’s Sunnis nonetheless wielded power, not just under Saddam Hussein but for a large portion of the history since Islam emerged. Saddam was too secular an authoritarian to unleash any Sunni-Shi’a confrontation, but his persecution of both Kurds and Shi’as exposed Sunnis to reprisals after his downfall; and compounding this was the Shi’ite spillover from Iraq into Iran—a country whose ayatollahs had institutionalized a “great Satan” image of the United States from 1979. Thus, if democracy was to live up to its own image, of governance of, by, and for the people, Afghanistan’s largest group was, at best, a reluctant participant, while Iraq’s largest group, the Shi’ites, harbored deep anti-U.S. sentiments. Selecting Democratization Vanguards Pitfalls such as these were not unknown to the shapers of Afghani and Iraqi democracy. Coming to terms with these constraints led to the second consideration: selecting local leaders to spearhead democratization. As Larry Diamond articulated while “promoting democracy” in Iraq on behalf of the CPA in early 2004: “Democracy is a system of government in which the people can choose their own leader—and replace their leaders—in regular, free, and fair elections . . .”11 It didn’t

11 Larry Diamond, Squandered Victory: The American Occupation and the Bungled Effort to Bring Democracy to Iraq (New York, NY: Henry Holt and Company, Owl Book, 2005), 106. Passage taken from a chapter (chap. 5) entitled “promoting democracy.”

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matter, certainly to his sponsors, the CPA, that before the people actually chose their own leader, the CPA would not only narrow the choices of its own will, but also push its own favorites. This apparently did not matter to Diamond either in the heady hey-days after Saddam’s overthrown. His “strategic plan” for “promoting democracy” at the time consisted of three components:12 (a) disseminate the ideas, themes, and elements of democracy over a few months through leaflets, money for which was provided by the Office of Transition Initiative (OTI) in the U.S. Agency for International Development (U.S.AID); (b) formulate proper Arabic terms for each English idea, theme, or element, a process assisted by the Center for Civic Education’s “Res Publica” (the public thing), another OTI grant to utilize the mass media; and (c) face-to-face town-hall meetings and democracy dialogues, for which U.S.AID recruited Research Triangle International (RTI) to train local facilitators. Behind the “promoting democracy” campaign was the Iraq Governing Council (IGC), “an appointed [not elected] interim administrator,” established by the CPA on November 15, 2003. As an epilogue to his penetrating analysis of the actual war, John Keegan noted a series of “constitutional procedures,” such as the March 8, 2004 adoption of the Transition Administrative Law (TAL), creation of an Iraq Interim Government (IIG) by June 30, 2004, and the summoning of a Transitional National Assembly (TNA) by January 31, 2005, “threaten[ed] the interests of many groups in Iraq and their supporters in neighboring countries.”13 The unfolding insurgency would cost 1,500 U.S. and 100 British fatalities by 2005, in Keegan’s tabulation, as compared to 122 U.S. and 33 British deaths during the actual war.14 “The first Marine killed in action,” Michael R. Gordon and Bernard E. Trainor point out ironically, “died at the hands of an Iraqi dressed in civilian clothes who fired from a pickup truck not a tank [encountering] primitive roadside bombs, suicide car bombs, foreign jihadists, and guerrilla-style ambushes . . . hallmarks of the insurgency to come.”15 Even Diamond subsequently admitted he had no idea his democratization Ibid., 109–14. John Keegan, The Iraq War (New York, NY: Vintage Books, Division of Random House, 2005, 2nd ed.), 220–24. 14 Ibid., 204. 15 Michael R. Gordon and Bernard E. Trainor, Cobra II: The Inside Story of the Invasion and Occupation of Iraq (New York, NY: Vintage, Division of Random House, Inc., 2007), 575. 12 13

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campaign “might be muted or overshadowed by the outbreak of a second war.”16 By June 2007, U.S. fatalities exceeded 3,500, which is roughly when a military “surge” supplemented by alliances with key Sunni tribes against al-Qaeda brought the carnage to an end, raising hopes, albeit dimly, of democracy surviving. This new spin on democratization is not the same as top-down democratization: Among other reasons, the latter involves group behavior and a functional bureaucracy, the former has thus far revolved around specific individuals, though the selection process has been topdown: From the coalition of countries responsible for evicting the Taleban in Afghanistan and the Ba’athists in Iraq, the United States alone made the tactical and strategic plans, including who to entrust the democratization processes to. In terms of Afghanistan, Burhanuddin Rabbani, the U.N.-recognized president ousted by the Taleban in 1996, was unacceptable to the United States, as too the restoration of the monarchy. The king’s supporters, known as the Rome Group after the city where he sought exile when overthrown in 1973, were pressured against advancing his cause in Bonn, where the negotiations were to take place from November, 2001. Rabbani carried more liabilities, at least from the U.S. viewpoint: He was a Tadjik, meaning he belonged to a minority group, but remained unacceptable to the new Tadjik leaders;17 he oversaw, and directly facilitated, the rapacious civil war between 1992 and 1996; and he traveled to Dubai, once Kabul was liberated from the Taleban, to meet officials of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), a move designed to continue Pakistan’s influence over Afghanistan which the United States did not want. Though not the first U.S. choice, Hamed Karzai carried impressive credentials: On the eve of the assault on Kandahar to capture or defeat Mullah Muhammad Omar, Karzai left Quetta, in Pakistan, and directly engaged the Taleban in battle; he belonged to the same Popolzai tribal group as King Zahir Shah, and since the monarch was popular, Karzai could siphon much of that popularity towards rebuilding Afghanistan; and above all, he was a Pashtun. Being Pashtuni was not necessarily the clincher, but this was the safest Pashtuni connection the United States could make given how Afghani democratization

Diamond, op. cit., 114. These new leaders, called the Tadjik Trio, or Panjshiri Trio after the capital city of that province, include: Abdallah Abdallah, Younus Qanooni, and General Fahem. 16 17

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would collapse without full-fledged Pashtuni participation. By contrast, a safe Ba’athist or Sunni connection was not sought in Iraq under the assumption one did not exist during the tumultuous opening days of post-Saddam Iraq. It made a huge difference. Iraq’s predicament was different. Inevitable Shi’ite governance in a democratic Iraq necessitated a Shi’ite leader the United States could work with. Here too the United States found someone who fitted the bill, at least superficially. Saddam’s brutalities produced quite an extensive network of prominent exiles. An influential businessman among them was the savvy Ahmad Chalabi, whose interests and unpopularity extended to Lebanon too. He successfully courted a number of influential U.S. neoconservatives, such as Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz, and Douglas Feith, with alleged information of Saddam’s nuclear WMD development, coating the casus bellie with promises of downtrodden Iraqis openly welcoming any liberation force. Not all U.S. agencies bought his lines, for example the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the Department of State viewed him suspiciously from the very start. Nevertheless, he got deep inside the U.S. administration with his messages and single-handedly determined Bush’s WMD-rationale to invade Iraq and Vice President Dick Cheney’s unabashed proclamation of U.S. forces being welcomed as liberators. Chalabi neither had connections with the masses nor triggered confidence among other Shi’ites; but Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, blaming the CIA’s “inability to document significant direct ties between Al Qaeda and Iraq” in late 2002, developed his own Office of Special Plans “to put the data under the microscope to reveal what the intelligence community [couldn’t] see.”18 Chalabi fitted in well, even though a State Department official saw him as belonging to “a bunch of half-assed people . . . pissants who can’t get the President’s ear.”19 By the time he was brought to heel, the damage had been done to (a) Iraqi democratization by pegging it on such a wily individual, (b) Shi’ite participation by exposing the need to cleanse the ranks and files of the group, and (c) U.S. reputation by highlighting the incompatible and dubious associations its leaders made.

18 From Seymour M. Hersh, Chain of Command: The Road From 9/11 to Abu Ghraib (New York, NY: Harper, 2005), 210, but see chaps. 4 and 5. 19 Ibid., 170.

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Democratization and the Military Fulcrum The third dimension boils down to distinguishing military intervention from state-building. Military intervention should satisfy three criteria, according to Minxin Pei, Samia Amin, and Seth Garz:20 (a) an explicit goal of regime preservation or change; (b) deployment of large U.S. ground troops; and (c) use of military and civilian personnel in political administration. The United States, they argue, fulfilled these aplenty, the first “to defend its core security and economic interests,” but critically, “not to build democracy”; the second to both fight hostile forces and perform essential administrative functions, such as establishing law and order; and the third to exert “decisive influence in the selection of leaders to head the new regime.” If this third consideration overlaps the second, that is, in the selection of would-be leaders, one might keep in mind Chalabi was chosen even before ground forces were deployed in Iraq, and he never really wielded significant administrative power from any office; while, on the other hand, Karzai was not only chosen after the war against the Taleban was underway, and almost completed, but also as head of the new Afghanistan, his personal security eventually relied entirely on U.S. personnel by his own choice. Intervention for state-building purposes is an even more cluttered engagement. Francis Fukuyama disaggregates this engagement into reconstruction and development activities. Whereas the first “refers to the restoration of war-torn or damaged societies to their per-conflict situation,” the second “refers to the creation of new institutions and the promotion of sustained economic growth, events that transform the society open-endedly into something that it has not been previously.”21 Whereas reconstruction “is something that outside powers have shown themselves historically able to bring about,” with Germany and Japan as two blatant examples, development “is much more problematic, both conceptually and as a matter of pragmatic policy.” Pursued “without regard for the democratic legitimacy of the governments involved,” development in the form of state-building “implicate[s] foreign donors in the human rights abuses of recipients and fail[s] to prevent coups, revolutions, and wars that le[ad] to political breakdown,” as, for example, in Pakistan. Fukuyama identifies three development problems:

Pei, Amin, and Garz, “Building nations: the American experience,” 64–5. Fukuyama, “Nation-building and the failure of institutional memory,” NationBuilding, 4–5, but see chap. 1. 20 21

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weak local institutions; outsiders conducting the critical tasks rather than allocating them to locals from fear of mistakes; and insufficient knowledge of the developmental impact on the local population.22 He might have added a fourth: compatibility between local culture and democratization. It is one task to bring in a democracy formula; it is entirely another to have democracy sink in locally. For it to sink in, if the past is any guide, the results emerge gradually over a long period of time measured in generations, not instantly flashed by any survey or the establishment of an institution, or even appointments to positions democratically created. In the cases of divided societies like Afghanistan and Iraq, democratization also necessitates safeguards for minorities as well as checks and balances against the dominant group. Even broader still, in many developing countries of Africa, Asia, East Europe, Latin America, and Soviet-successor states, it further needs the firm but complete shift from a collective culture towards individualization. The voter needs to emerge as an independent actor shorn of connections or loyalties to elders, local chiefs, kins, and so forth. How these impact formulaic democracy, and what effects ensue, cannot be captured by snapshot appraisals. Comprehensive, long-term analyses alone offer some clues; and neither Afghanistan nor Iraq have been in the processes long enough to shed any long-term perspectives. Long-term perspectives arguably do not color the short-term calculations of intervention for regime change, as the third consideration posits. Equally plausible is the idea of not getting into a conflict without some immediate post-conflict expectations. Changing a regime implies much more than an abstract alternative,23 all the more so for Iraq, which had Afghanistan in its hindsight. Even with Afghanistan, the footwork of sustainable governance may be traced to the tumultuous Soviet withdrawal in the late 1980s,24 which paved the way for more concerted efforts in the early 1990s, and which were automatically resurrected once the Taleban was on the run. Thus, even before Karzai could land in Kabul at the head of a new Afghanistan, plenty

Ibid., 7. Michael A. Weinstein, “The eclipse of regime change,” Asia Times, June 29, 2004, from: http://atimes.com/articles/Front_Page/FF29Aa01.htm 24 Negotiations analyzed by Imtiaz H. Bokhari, “Internal negotiations among many actors: Afghanistan,” Elusive Peace: Negotiating an End to Civil War (Washington, DC: Brookings, 1995), chap. 10. 22 23

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of reconstruction and development activities were underway to install democratization. No stranger to post-Cold War democratization, Larry Diamond, after a visit to post-Saddam Iraq, proposed four pre-requisites for democratically rebuilding war-torn countries:25 (a) political reconstruction; (b) economic reconstruction; (c) social reconstruction; and (d) security. Although these do not spell out democratization, they clearly serve as building-blocks of democracy, especially in war-torn countries. In neither Afghanistan nor Iraq were these met, at least not to the satisfaction of the United States in Iraq. Yet, the ace of spade in furnishing them was the U.S. military presence: With the United States guaranteeing order, it was expected political, economic, and social reconstruction would flow routinely. Country differences, however, outweighed similarities. First, the United States was interested in Afghanistan only to avenge 9/11 and eliminate Taleban, but Iraq entailed a personal crusade against Saddam Hussein dating as far back as to 1991, when Operation Desert Storm stopped short of capturing Baghdad, thereby permitting Saddam to persecute the Kurds and Shi’as persistently in the subsequent decade, defy the coalition that defeated him, and in U.S. and British eyes, develop WMD. Second, Afghanistan was literally more backward than Iraq, with not only fewer infrastructures and no central authority, but also no resources, like oil in Iraq, to finance development and reconstruction with—a predicament multilateralizing aid in Afghanistan softened, thus reducing first-hand U.S. engagement, but pushing the United States to start completely afresh in Iraq, dismantling existing institutions, returning to the drawing board and recreating Iraq in its own image, much as Germany and Japan were recreated after World War II. Finally, democratization in Afghanistan predicted the shift of tribal rivalries from the trenches to the parliament, but in Iraq, where Shi’as not only had an absolute population majority but also shared mutual hostility with the United States, tribal rivalries were predicted to remain as much in local trenches as in the state’s parliament. Among the consequences: the U.S. military could play an off-shore Afghani role, but a central and direct leadership role through troop deployment across Iraq became necessary. Among the implications: Afghani circumstances predicted progress without making it inevitable,

25 Diamond, “What went wrong and right in Iraq,” Nation-Building, 176, but see chap. 8.

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but Iraqi circumstances, colored by energizing the oldest and most unsettled conflict within Islam—between Shi’as and Sunnis—and scrambling Kurd demands for autonomy from the 1990s, predicted the unsettled status quo, at best, or more likely, retrogression, at worst. U.S. and the Filtering Effect The fourth dimension addresses the veto-exerting role of the United States. Both Afghanistan and Iraq touched vital U.S. interests simply because 9/11 events and the Bush Doctrine touched vital U.S. interests. By virtue of extending state self-help, the United States made the reconstruction and development engagements of all other actors its own responsibility, with the duty for other actors to streamline their input through the United States. This was not a problem on the military front since the United Nations virtually invested commanding responsibilities upon the United States. With reconstruction and development, however, there were too many toes to avoid over-stepping. How democratization would unfold became an inevitable victim of too many cooks spoiling the proverbial broth. Whether Afghanistan would adopt a presidential form of government or Iraq’s legislature be constructed based on federally or provincially determined candidates, exposed the contentious issues pitting the United States on one side, and, for example, the United Nations, on the other. The U.S. filtering process also worked the other way, that is, based on the initiative of other actors, and not the United States. Corporations flooding to both, for example, sought, and continue to seek, secure operational environments—something only U.S. military presence can hope to supply. Similarly, reconstruction funds, for example, through the World Bank, also assume the security presence of the Untied States for any financial outlays. While the fourth dimension carries a retrospective flavor, that is, it reflects hindsight and a posteriori argumentation, one must also remember, even before embarking upon regime changes, rough reconstruction and development outlines must be in place. What replaces the undesirable regime must carry with it a vision of an alternative, and the mechanisms this alternative agency must first turn to in order to initiate the changed governance. It, therefore, is reasonable to argue, conflict was not the be-all and end-all of the intervention. The United States was a much more purposive actor, even without “giving legs” to all its plans, and even as these were being implemented, learning and adjusting along the way.

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Positioning Democratization Strategically A final dimension is the strategic role of Afghani and Iraqi democratization for the United States. Both cases offer the United States an opportunity to reclaim ownership of global democratization, thereby (a) reducing possible breeding grounds of terrorism; (b) promoting economic liberalism, expanding markets, sustaining domestic employment and keeping the United States competitive amidst the staggering industrial restructuring occurring; (c) meeting the Islamic challenge by extending democracy to Muslim countries as a step towards absorbing them more fully in the global comity; and (d) fulfilling the proclamation, of Wilson and Franklin D. Roosevelt of providing self-determination and freedoms to all. Combating terrorism has clearly been the dominant consideration in democratizing Afghanistan and Iraq. Ambiguous as the meanings of terrorism are, and ubiquitous as terrorists have been, the U.S. war on terrorism calls very much for what George F. Kennan’s apt recommendation against Soviet communism was in 1947: “a long, patient, and firm vigilance.”26 Just as few countries were able or willing to crusade against communism after World War II, so too after 9/11 against terrorism. If the United States is rising to the occasion because it alone was directly hit by 9/11 events, other motivations deserve attention. First, it has always been a U.S. mission to champion the forces of good against evil, a spirit inculcated from as far back as the Pilgrim Fathers searching their city on the hill. No other country has consistently pursued such a mission for so long as has the United States. Second, victory over communism adrenalized the United States to embark upon another such mission against another similar global threat. Finally, with continental U.S. hit for the first time during 9/11, a feeling of vulnerability may be pushing the United States to pursue a more determined campaign against hostile forces than during the Cold War, and therefore go beyond preventive measures towards curative formulas. Robert Jervis is not so convinced the United States will take up the mantle of establishing democracy abroad post-9/11.27 In addition to obvious risks, he argues, war engagement needed allies, which were now harder to come by. Rather than “strategic consideration,” Gaddis, Strategies of Containment: A Critical Appraisal of Postwar American National Security (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1982). 27 Robert Jervis, American Foreign Policy in a New Era (New York, NY: Routledge, 2005), 130–34. 26

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he argues, democratization was being “driven more by the politics of the regimes [the U.S. was dealing with] than by an abstract commitment to democracy.” Even though George W. Bush’s National Security Strategy advocated United States values of freedom, democracy, and free enterprise to be universal values, Jervis finds three sources of disturbance:28 (a) the very idea of believing values and beliefs can be shared; (b) the rational choice well-springs of Bush’s worldview which “sees actors as homogeneous and downplay the importance of varied histories and cultures;” and (c) regime-change as the route to some kind of a kantian peace, in the process elevating the domestic determination of foreign policy (second-image), as opposed to Kenneth N. Waltz’s systemic (third-image).29 Jervis is neither off nor alone. Premised upon the Bush Doctrine, the invasion and occupation of Iraq undermines the four elements of the doctrine, leading Geoffrey Kemp, staff member in Ronald Reagan’s National Security Council, to claim “three have failed, and the fourth—democracy promotion—is hanging by a sliver.”30 Major Isaiah Wilson III, a historian of the war and a war-planner, argued there were no “Phase IV’ plans “beyond regime collapse.” He believed a Phase IV plan evolved in November 2003 “for stability operations,” in succession to Phase I, which focused on preparations for the combat, Phase II the actual operations, and Phase III the combat itself.31 Behind these threats lie the constant post-Cold War concerns of the United States becoming economically uncompetitive. With trading blocs sprouting, protectionist countries exploiting access to the U.S. market, and U.S. exporters producing more than global markets could absorb, democratization enhances the prospects of more economic liberalization than trading agreements were able to offer. At stake is the manufacturing sector, with industries migrating abroad for production, taking with them jobs and resources. With the United States comIbid., 81–2. Kenneth N. Waltz, Man, State, and War: A Theoretical Analysis (New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 1959), chap. 4. 30 The three to fail include: (a) pre-emption against perceived threats; (b) unilateral U.S. policy approach; and (c) regime-change to prevent terrorism. See Jervis, “Understanding the Bush Doctrine,” Political Science Quarterly 118, no. 3 (Fall 2003):365–88; and ——, “Why the Bush Doctrine cannot be sustained,” Political Studies Quarterly 120, no. 3 (Fall 2005):351–78. Also see Robin Wright “Iraq occupation ends Bush Doctrine,” Washington Post, June 28, 2004, A01. Kemp’s quote from Wright. 31 From Thomas E. Ricks, “Army historian cites lack of postwar plan: Major calls effort in Iraq ‘mediocre’,” Washington Post, December 25, 2004, A01. 28 29

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petitively placed over agriculture and many types of communications industries, opening external markets is a growing inevitability. Although Afghanistan and Iraq offer limited markets, as stepping stones into their regions, both play a fundamental role in not just upholding U.S. competitiveness but also expanding markets and facilitating raw materials, such as oil.32 Extending this same argument, Afghanistan and Iraq serve as testcases of other Arab countries:33 If both could be democratized and liberalized, a string of other Muslim countries in the Middle East could be similarly transformed,34 in the process converting the United States into both crusader and facilitator roles,35 crusading for democracy and liberalism in the toughest of terrains and facilitating the spread of both by hook or crook. It would have a lot more to show on the democracy promotion scorecard in the 21st Century than in the 20th, and against the E.U., which, in fits and starts, is also converting autocracies into democracies along its perimeter.36 Finally, democratizing Afghanistan and Iraq would square the freedom circle first attempted by Woodrow Wilson with his self-determination proclamation, then by Franklin D. Roosevelt through his four freedoms. During the Cold War, the global perception of the United States became increasingly less associated with democracy and freedom, while immediately after the Cold War, U.S. unilateralism also

32 Focusing on the 1990–91 Gulf War, Dilip Hiro builds the case of oil being “the defining element of Iraq.” See Iraq: In the Eye of the Storm (New York, NY: Thunder’s Mouth Press/Nation Books, 2002), esp. chap. 8. 33 This seemed to have been George W. Bush’s intention at the 2004 NATO summit, when he spoke of “freedom [being] the future of the Middle East.” See Ehsan Ahrari, “Bush and the Muslim predicament,” Asia Times, July 8, 2004, from: http://atimes.com/ atimes/Middle_East/FG08Ak03.html. 34 “The Middle East underpinned much of the post-9/11 neo-conservative strategy and the Bush doctrine,” Nick Ritchie and Paul Rogers assert. From this view, they argue, “the status quo in the Middle East was no longer acceptable and that Iraq supported and contributed to that status quo more than most. The time had come for a new approach that would no longer confuse stability in the Middle East ‘with the longevity of anti-American dictatorships’.” See. Nick Ritchie and Paul Rogers, The Political Road to War with Iraq: Bush, 9/11 and the Drive to Overthrow Saddam (London: Routledge, 2007), 156. 35 On what he calls the U.S. “crusader” role specifically, but the two testaments consisting of eight historical and contemporary U.S. foreign policy traditions, see Walter McDougall, Promised Land, Crusader State: The American Encounter With the World Since 1776 (Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin, 1997), 10–11, and 203–22. 36 See, for example, Richard Youngs, European Union and the Promotion of Democracy (Oxford, U.K.: Oxford University Press, 2001).

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filtered out appreciation of both the country and the values it upheld. After 9/11, the United States gets a chance not just to avenge 9/11, but also, through the war on terrorism, by way of democratizing troubled societies, to reclaim leadership on these fronts. In the process, it would bring both the wilsonian and rooseveltian proclamations to their logical conclusions. “America’s interests in security and America’s belief in liberty,” spoke George W. Bush, “both lead in the same direction: to a free and peaceful Iraq.” If that was not enough, his Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, reaffirmed the message: “Iraqi regime change would,” she argued, “open new opportunities for peace in the Middle East and new opportunities for Arab countries to give greater liberty and greater awareness to their own people.”37 Thus, at the start of the 21st Century, the United States is out to fulfill what it could not in the 20th Century; and how it perceived democratization on both occasions may be the reason why.38 While previously pitched as a lofty goal, carrying with it all the propensities of a patronizing approach, today it is more rooted to ground-level forces, displaying its warts without embarrassments, and being utilized for real, rather than ideal, interests. Conclusions More generally, all five Table 3.1 dimensions reveal how a lot of time, effort, and personnel were galvanized to follow-up the displacement of rogue regimes than might at first sight be deducible. Nevertheless, they were not picture perfect nor reduced to a nitty-gritty level necessary at the implementation stage. A lot was dictated by chance, coincidence, and circumspection, and too little by local cultural considerations. Table 3.2 offers some of the implications of each.

Both quotes from Ritchie and Rogers, op. cit., 157. Alternately, how external threats were reinterpreted in the White House or Washington by die-hard neo-conservatives, like American Enterprise Institute’s Richard Perle, or Paul Wolfowitz at the Pentagon. Peter Bergen makes the case of Laurie Mylroie, an academic from Harvard and the U.S. Naval War College, as one whose changed views on Saddam might have influenced policy. See Peter Bergen, “Did one woman’s obsession take America to war?” The Guardian, July 5, 2004, from: http://www .guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,3604,1254003,00.html. 37 38

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Table 3.2 Prior U.S. Considerations & Implications Prior Considerations

Implications

Excluding the Old Taleban is not just an Afghani product, hence unlikely to Order: be forever unsaddled; given the Ba’athist-Sunni identity, Iraq’s new order only inverts the old-order malaise of excluding and discriminating against one group Selecting Democratization Vanguards:

The trial-and-error approach of selecting Karzai in Afghanistan was representative enough to give democracy a fair image; Iraq’s blind-folded choice of dubious Chalabi weakened the image of democracy of Iraq

Democratization and the Military Fulcrum:

Necessitates long-term U.S. military presence: Do-able in Afghanistan if all other democratization factors remain constant, given the off-shore U.S. role and the multilateralization of foreign troops; virtually impossible in Iraq, or any other country, since the longer foreign troops stay, the more unpopular they become.

U.S. and the Filtering Effect:

Possible culmination in the U.S. remaining committed to both countries, more so to Iraq than to Afghanistan; the longer the innings, the more likely other countries will leave

Positioning Democratization Strategically:

If strategy (war on terrorism) fails, so too will democratization, and earn a more cynical reputation; if strategy succeeds, no guarantee democratization will succeed

Turning to the first dimension, excluding the old order produced the expected consequences of tension and conflict almost immediately in Iraq and inevitably, after a hiatus, in Afghanistan. The implications threaten to be more far-reaching and disturbing. Whereas Taleban was evicted from power in Afghanistan, talebs continue to be churned out regularly in religious schools across Afghanistan, but particularly in Pakistani madrasas,39 clearly one reason why, in July 2008, U.S. fatalities were higher in Afghanistan than in Iraq. Not only that, their spiritual training can now be radicalized. Hitherto, their anti-western orientation was more rhetorical and general, and prompted more by protests 39 Jessica Stern, “Pakistan’s jihad culture,” Foreign Affairs 79, no. 6 (November– December 2000): 115–27.

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than sustained; increasingly now, they are likely to develop fangs against specific targets, with the United States leading the list. Punishing Taleban for al Qaeda actions, even if both were briefly associated, is akin to converting a terrorist trickle into, if not a flood, then certainly sporadic gushes. Similarly in Iraq. The dim decision to exclude Ba’athists in the new Iraq resonated with the oldest conflict in Islam, between Sunnis and Shi’as, since Ba’athists were also largely Sunnis. In societies where the old order is revered, upsetting it invites obvious and discrete repercussions. If that was not damaging enough for both countries, the second dimension worsens the democratization experiment in Iraq while offering more glimpses of hope in Afghanistan. How democracy is anchored matters, not just in the snapshot moment of initiation, but also over the long haul. Karzai’s selection, reflecting more debates and trials-and-errors, symbolized democracy, but Chalabi’s selection, because it was unpopular and unconnected with mainstream Iraqis, damaged the reputation of democracy—underscoring the contradictory and incompatible goals of establishing a representative government rallying around an unrepresentative leader. The third U.S. consideration before those experiments got underway, that is, of the military spring-boarding democracy, reflected more of an ideal than reality. Whether the ideal stemmed from Germany of Japan after World War II, or the glossy pictures painted by Chalabi for Iraq, the bottom-line considerations of how long the military would be deployed and in what capacity were simply ignored. The costs and protests back home,40 would obviously be lower if the troops performed off-shore roles rather than meticulously monitor every political and military development. Afghanistan benefited from an off-shore U.S. role, to which was added the deployment of soldiers from several other countries, making it easier, in the long-run and if all proceeded according to plan, for those troops to be withdrawn. Iraq, on the other hand, has become not only another Vietnam, but also a Vietnam for only the United States. Withdrawing U.S. troops would be the equivalent of Iraq falling apart, a damned-if-I-do, damned-if-I-don’t situation, not just in retrospective interpretation, but from the very beginning. Democ-

40 Zunes distinguishes between costs of occupation, U.S. global leadership, and world order after Iraq invasion. See “The United States: belligerent hegemon,” op. cit., 32–5.

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ratization cannot be pinned upon a questionable WMD-rationale and dubious leaders like Chalabi. On paper, Afghanistan could travel the same pathway as Germany and Japan, though it is unlikely to; Iraq, on the other hand, is expected to not just be another Vietnam for the U.S., but also a democracy Waterloo. Contributing to those outcomes is also a fourth consideration. The more a foreign country supervises democracy, the more local alienation is likely. Over the long-haul, it is unlikely any other country will partner the United States in Iraq, though Afghani engagement may be more salable. Not just that, those countries already partnering the United States in Iraq, such as Australia, Britain, Italy, Spain, and so forth, have either pulled out, placed limits, or begun the retreat process—a fate not yet evident in Afghanistan, and only recently fortified by leaders of Australia (Prime Minister Kevin Rudd) and France (President Nicolas Sarkozy) to dig NATO heels in for a while.41 If that does not destabilize Iraqi democratization, it certainly weakens the foundation of the third U.S. consideration of the military propping up democratization. Whichever way one looks at Iraq, it seems like a lose-lose proposition for all parties concerned, while Afghanistan still offers a more acceptable win-lose counterpart, to say the least. Finally, how democratization is strategically positioned in the two countries also casts diverse but deep implications. Associated as it has been with the unfolding war on terrorism, as in the Bush Doctrine, for example, if the strategy fails, democratization will become an inevitable, and probably the first, victim;42 yet, if the strategy succeeds, nothing guarantees democratization will survive. By putting all five prior considerations together, evidence suggests far better chances in Afghanistan than in Iraq, but even then tentatively, not irreversibly. An appraisal of prior U.S. considerations in democratizing Afghanistan and Iraq suggests two fairly distinctive orientations adopting similar procedures. For the lack of a better dichotomy, these might be called top-down and bottom-up approaches, though neither Afghanistan 41 Francis Elliott and Michael Evans, “France to bolster force in Afghanistan with 1,000 extra troops,” Times Online, March 22, 2008, from: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/ news/world/europe/article3599552.ece; and “Sarkozy and Rudd visit Afghanistan,” International Herald Tribune, December 22, 2007, from: http://www.iht.com?articles/2007/ 12/22/asia/afghan.1-193644.php. 42 Hegemony could be another. More on this by Raymond Hinnebusch, “Hegemonic stability theory reconsidered: implications of the Iraq war,” The Iraq War: Causes & Consequences, chap. 23.

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nor Iraq fully represents ideal versions of either approach. Iraq’s approach is clearly more top-down, but Afghanistan’s is an admixture of top-down, bottom-up, and laterally-swaying forces. In the relevant literatures, top-down democracy represents “the institutions of the state, along with political parties playing a vital role in the aggregation of interests,” while bottom-up refers to “the associational, non-office-seeking activity located in the space between the state and the family unit,” in other words, the civil society sphere.43 Other definitions remain consistent with these. Paul G. Buchanan, for example, sees top-down democracy reflecting “a gradual liberalization and political opening followed by competitive elections,” with bottom-up democracy appearing “when civil society mobilizes and expands the range of its demands while moving to secure a greater voice in the governmental decision making process.”44 Foregoing discussions show Iraq’s experiences to be state-centric and Afghanistan’s to be everywhere: Not only is Iraq state-centric, but the U.S. approach betrays a preference for centralized organizations under an authoritarian leader; while Afghanistan’s multiple ethnic groups, each one represented at Bonn, not only prevented an exclusively strong center but was also riddled with numerous societal groups, whether legitimate or not, in part reflecting the various ethnic tribes, but in part also reflecting influences from neighboring countries. Both had to have a strong leader, evident in the choices of Karzai for Afghanistan and Chalabi for Iraq, but given the vectors at play and balancing ethnic imperatives, the types of presidency in each could only differ. Top-down democracy, in turn, aligns with state-building, and bottom-up democracy with nation-building. Building upon Fukuyama’s earlier description, state-building is more concerned with “creating, strengthening such government institutions as armies, police forces, judiciaries, central banks, tax-collecting agencies, health and education systems, and the like,” while nation-building emphasizes “creating or repairing all the cultural, social, and historical ties that bind people together as a nation.”45 Youngs, op. cit. 14, but see ch. 1. Paul G. Buchanan, “From military rule in Argentina and Brazil,” Authoritarian Regimens in Transitions, eds., Hans Binnendijk (Washington, DC: Center for the Study of Foreign Affairs, Foreign Service Institute, U.S. Department of State, 1987), 224, but see 223–33. 45 Fukuyama, “Nation-building 101,” The Atlantic Monthly (January-February 2004):159–62; and ——, State-Building, Governance and Order in the 21st Century (Ithaca, NY: 43 44

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Again, the chapter reaffirms how the state-building approach was difficult to ignore in a badly divided and fragmenting Iraq and Afghanistan. However, nation-building efforts in both countries seemed to be producing different results: When attempted through the no-fly-zones to protect Kurds and Shi’as from Saddam’s Revolutionary Guards, they proved to be a stepping stone towards splintering Iraq; yet when attempted through simultaneous support for Tadjiks and Pashtuns in Afghanistan, it really helped bring the country together. One implication was to encourage Afghani nation-building while engaged in state-building, and to discourage Iraqi nation-building while enhancing state-building. How these played out in the formulas implemented and future electoral results remain the puzzles this volume turns to next.

Cornell University Press, 2004). Also see my “Democracy promotion & the EU-US: photo opportunities or potential rivalries?” Paper, European Union Studies Conference, Montreal, Canada, May 2007, 11–2.

4. BLINDFOLDING DEMOCRACY: BLUEPRINTING BALLOTS FROM BULLETS Introduction As the product of conflict, democratizing Afghanistan and Iraq was neither a local initiative nor the top-priority task of the occupation forces. Changing regimes may have driven the United States towards democratizing both, but the causal factor for Afghanistan began with the need to punish Taleban for the 9/11 events and for Iraq to punish Saddam Hussein for a string of flagrant violations.1 In part because the former proved a more compelling case, elicited wider global support and sympathy, produced direct U.S. responses, and created a democratization model, at least on blueprint, Iraq’s future was foretold. When George W. Bush met his advisors in Crawford, Texas, on August 21, 2002, to discuss Iraqi regime change, conflict received higher priority than democratization in the discussions. Five days later, at the Veterans of Foreign War Association convention, Vice President Dick Cheney alleged Iraq was building weapons of mass destruction (WMD). By then the president had established what he called the Future of Iraq Project (FIP), and under its aegis during September 3–5, 2002, the Democratic Principles Working Group (DPWG) held its first meeting. A more critical DPWG meeting, held between October 8 and 10 in Witton Park, Surrey, suggesting Great Britain was privy to U.S. plans, paved the way for the Iraq Opposition Conference in London from December 14, and coincided with the U.S.-U.K. sponsored U.N. Resolution 1441 imposing sanctions on Iraq. Clearly the Afghanistan engagement created an Iraqi opportunity and a democratization model for implementing. Beforehand, however, the conflict had to be concluded quickly, as in Afghanistan. Through “shock and awe” on the battlefront, U.S. troops reached Baghdad on the 20th day of April, and five days later, on

Saddam being “a guy that tried to kill my dad,” was one of the original reasons George W. Bush offered for the war. See John Lewis Gaddis, “A grand strategy of transformation,” Foreign Policy, issue 133 (November–December 2002), 54, but see 50–55. 1

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April 14, 2003, the Pentagon ended the war. Yet, when Ambassador L. Paul Brenner, III, replaced General Jay Garner as the Civilian Administrator in Iraq, unveiling the democratization blueprint failed to reproduce the military “shock and awe” politically—even by mid-2008. What happened? What led fractious groups to the negotiating table, no less under U.S. coordination? How was the United States able to shift so expeditiously from conflict to democratization? What distinguished the operationalized version of democratization from its generic counterpart? Ultimately, how did the Afghani experience compare with the Iraqi? Just as Chapter 3 accounted for a handful of prior considerations raising a number of questions, three sections below address some of those questions under three headings: (a) the nature of the blueprint developed; (b) identifying actors, interests, and cleavages; and (c) groundlevel developments from conflict to cooperation. Building a Blueprint As Table 4.1 suggests, since Iraq had a model to follow and Afghanistan did not, planning was tighter, initiated earlier, and bred higher expectations in Iraq than in Afghanistan. This is not to say George W. Bush treated the Iraqi war as the mother of all wars in the same way Saddam Hussein approached the 1991 Operation Desert Storm against George H.W. Bush. He had the 9/11 events to avenge in Afghanistan, but unfolding developments there fell within the margins of expectations. Iraq, on the other hand, had strayed into unpredictable zones several times since 1990, and just about every U.S. president since then had more than a few scores to settle with Saddam, not to mention new plans to fulfill. One of Bush’s plans, as noted in the previous chapter, was to utilize the post-9/11 atmosphere to replace dictatorship with democracy in the Middle East. But it was secondary to removing Saddam. In capturing these nuances, Table 4.1 conveys more light at the end of the Afghani democratization tunnel than the Iraqi. Thirteen Comparative Dimensions The blueprint for both differed, as the first dimension addresses. For Afghanistan, separate blueprints for conflict and democratization were supervised by the United States and the United Nations, respectively; but for Iraq, both dimensions were brought together and implemented

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Table 4.1 Pre-planning in Comparative Profile Dimensions

Afghanistan

Iraq

1. Nature of blueprint:

Conflict and democratiza- Both treated simultaneously tion treated separately, administered separately

2. Prior planning for Dictated directly by 9/11 conflict: events: brief, pointed, and successful

Directed both indirectly (accumulated grievances from 1990 war) and directly (targeting Iraq after Afghani war); Future for Iraq Project (FIP)

3. Prior planning for Influenced by U.N. efforts democracy: from 1989 Geneva Accords

Creation of Democratic Principles Working Group (DPWG) from September 2002

4. Resort to propaganda to pave the way:

Not necessary: retaliation was sufficient

Yes: Bush claims Iraq working with al-Qaeda, Cheney alleges WMD development

5. Resort to U.N.:

U.N.-mandated Bonn Conference, with U.S. keeping low profile

U.N. Security Council Resolution 1441 of November 8, 2002

6. Recruiting vanguards of democratization:

Abdul Sattar Sirat; Abdul Khaliq Noorzai; and Hamed Karzai

Ahmad Chalabi and Iraq National Congress through London conference, December 14–17, 2002; Chalabi airlifted to Iraq April 6, 2003

7. Sequencing conflict in chain of events:

Was the starting point: outcome determined all else

Came after at least 6 months of detailed planning

8. Critical conflict actors:

U.S., U.N., Northern Alliance

U.S., G.B., U.N.

9. Critical postconflict actors:

Northern Alliance, Rome Group, Peshawar Group, Cyprus Group

Coalition Provisional Authority

10. Role of U.N.:

Initiator, central in many ways

Facilitator, kept out of limelight

11. International responses and attitudes:

Sympathy for 9/11, general support for conflict

Divorced, ranks broken, very unpopular

12. Role of U.S. after Largely off-shore; conflict: uninvolved in civilian administration

Central to both military and civilian administration; more hands-on

13. U.S. agency for nationbuilding

Office for Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance (ORHA) under Office of Secretary of Defense

None created: only Zalmay Khalilzad diplomatically

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by the United States, at times in conjunction with Great Britain, at others oblivious of the United Nations. Planning took different forms. As the second and third dimensions show, planning for conflict in Afghanistan was determined by 9/11 events, proved to be focused, and delivered as expected, whereas in Iraq conflict was planned at least 6 months in advance, proved to be focused, but started unraveling after the conflict was over. On the other hand, democratization was planned under U.N. auspices for Afghanistan, picking up threads of initiatives from a decade ago, while for Iraq, planning was initiated at least six months previously, and in conjunction with the conflict plans. Whereas planning for the Afghani conflict did not need any propaganda, since it reflected retaliation, for the Iraqi conflict, plenty of feelers were emitted from at least six months previously. For example, President George W. Bush began publicly discussing Iraqi collaboration with al-Qaeda and Vice President Dick Cheney began his WMD argumentation on August 28, 2002 at the Veterans of Foreign War Association convention. On both occasions, the United States resorted to the United Nations. In the case of Afghanistan this was simply to multilateralize the war against terrorism, beginning with Afghanistan, but with Iraq it was simply to acquire legitimacy to invade Iraq. Both produced U.N. resolutions, but whereas the one for Afghanistan received unanimous support, the one for Iraq, U.N. Resolution 1441, divided the permanent Security Council members, with France leading the opposition much to British and US discomfort.2 In addition to the United Nations, the United States also recruited local vanguards to promote its interests, including post-conflict democratization. In Afghanistan this eventually turned out to be Hamed Karzai, though the influence of Khalilzad was enormous throughout. In Iraq, the United States rallied around Ahmad Chalabi, among other opposition leaders in exile. In fact, a December 14–17, 2002 conference in London suggested the British government was privy to the parley. Dimension 6 recognizes this. Dimension 7, on the other hand, places the actual conflict in the stream of other developments, depicting an important and interesting

2 See my “Doggone diplomacy? The Iraq war, North American bilateralism, and beyond,” Canada and the New American Empire: War and Anti-war, ed., George Melnyk (Calgary, AB: University of Calgary Press, 2004), 213–29.

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difference: Whereas conflict became, more or less, the starting point of U.S. Afghani engagement and whose outcome determined all other developments, in Iraq it followed six months of detailed planning, leaving increasingly unpredictable consequences. In both conflicts, the United States led a coalition, but the coalition was more diverse in Afghanistan than in Iraq; in fact, in Afghanistan, the Northern Alliance, a local combination, remained at the forefront of conflict, but in Iraq, there did not exist any local counterparts at the forefront. After the conflict, as the 9th dimension recognizes, the Afghani peace negotiations revolved around 4 Afghani groups, with the notable exception of the Taleban, while in Iraq, the critical post-conflict actor was the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), with the Ba’athists essentially ostracized from participation.3 As one might expect, the U.N. played a more central role in Afghanistan post-conflict negotiations than in Iraq: It had had prior experiences doing likewise in Afghanistan, but in Iraq, the United States alone remained in charge, utilizing the United Nations as a stepping stone, for example, to obtain a Security Council resolution, but otherwise leaving it merely to facilitate developments rather than initiate them. How the United Nations was treated by the United States essentially determined the nature of the international responses and attitudes. Dimension 11 shows how the Afghani case elicited near to unanimous sympathy and support for the United States, but the Iraqi counterpart exposed division, with former allies, such as France and Germany, deeply opposed, and the war itself generating deep and wide unpopularity. After the conflict, as the thirteenth dimension indicates, the U.S. role in Afghanistan has diminished, as responsibilities have been parceled out to the International Security and Advisory Force (ISAF), the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), and the Afghani government.4 Yet, in Iraq, the United States remains central to both military 3 As Andrew Rathwell observes, however, “the majority of senior Ba’athists had left their posts as the Saddam regime crumbled,” rather than being kicked out; and in fact, CPA’s de-Ba’athification, affecting only 1% of the party’s members, was “far less extensive than the Allied de-Nazification efforts in postwar Germany.” See Andrew Rathwell, “Planning post-conflict reconstruction in Iraq: what can we learn?” International Affairs 81, no. 5 (2005): fn46, but see 1013–38. 4 ISAF was established, as a follow-up to the Bonn Accord, in December 2001, to “serve as a multilateral force consisting primarily of European states committed to the provisions of security in and around Kabul for the Afghans [sic], United Nations staff, and aid workers from various NGOs.” Mostly under rotating European leadership, ISAF could only attract 5,000 troops (against 11,000 U.S. troops operating alone in

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and civilian administration, with hands-on engagement. Finally, the United States had more elaborate agency preparation for Iraq than for Afghanistan, with the Office for Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance (ORHA), created explicitly with Iraq in mind by the Office of the Secretary of Defense.5 There were no Afghani counterparts by the United States, though the United Nations and other agencies picked up the tab; by contrast, NATO made a quick retreat from Iraq, where the war was very unpopular within key NATO countries, but acceptable to the Vilnius-10, a group of Central and East European countries, seven of whose ten members had been invited to join NATO (Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovenia, and Slovakia). This led U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to distinguish between “old” and “new” Europe in a comment on January 22, 2003, when U.N. Resolution 1441 was being challenged by France and Germany.6 Actors and Actions Even the prelude to hammering out democratization details for Afghanistan and Iraq had a fairly deep background, only in Afghanistan did the past predict the actors and outcomes. For Afghanistan, that background can be traced to the 1989 Geneva Accords whereby the Soviet Union withdrew, followed by a brief communist tenure under Major General Muhammad Najibullah until 1992,7 the four-year Mujahedeen

Afghanistan at the same time), 90% of whom were from NATO countries under a Partnership for Peace program. During Belgium’s leadership in late 2003, NATO took control of ISAF from August 11, 2003. By the time of the October 2004 presidential elections, and especially under Interim Administration President Hamed Karzai, the number of troops increased to 6,500, then to 10,000. From October 2003, its compass extended beyond Kabul, and borrowing from the U.S.-established provincial reconstruction teams (PRTs) to provided security, NATO also established five of them (U.S. had nine), each consisting of 100–300 members, each PRT under the control of a different country supplying the troops. Quote from Richard E. Rupp, NATO After 9/11: An Alliance in Continuing Decline (Houndsmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire, UK: Palgrave Macmillan 2006), 155, but see chap. 5. 5 See Rathwell, “Planning post-conflict reconstruction in Iraq,” 1022–30. 6 See Rupp, op. cit., 132–38; and my “Doggone diplomacy,” op. cit. 7 A Pashtun, he joined the communist People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan, which staged the 1978 coup successfully, though his Parcham faction was subordinated by the Khalq counterpart, leading to his exile; after the Soviet invasion, he returned to head the secret police, KHAD, later becoming president in 1986, a position he retained until 1992, when he resigned in favor of a transitional government. The Tale-

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government under the Tadjik president, Burhanuddin Rabbani of the Jamat-i-Islam, culminating in the Taleban theocracy until 2001. Likewise for Iraq, that background goes to Operation Desert Storm in 1990 and the subsequent imposition of no-fly zones, permitting the Kurds and Shi’as to develop a stronger sense of autonomy than ever before. In fact, the United States had encouraged the 1992 formation of Chalabi’s INC, bought his four-phase “The end game” war plan in November 1993, then awaited his simultaneous anti-Saddam movements in Basra, Mosul, and Kirkuk. These never appeared, and Chalabi’s “rolling coup” was overpowered by Saddam’s troops during 1994–95. Still President William J. Clinton authorized $100m worth of support from 1998, indicating Chalabi’s fabrications about a “spontaneous combustion” were still selling. Disillusioned by Clinton, he took his message to the Republicans, and in February 1998, Caspar Weinberger, Frank Carlucci, and Rumsfeld wrote a open letter to the president about Saddam building WMDs.8 Among the consequences, the United Nations, which brokered the 1989 Geneva Accord, continued to play the leading role in Bonn, 2001, while the United States, which led Operation Desert Storm, seemed to have been building up for another Iraqi invasion as soon as Operation Enduring Freedom against the Taleban after 9/11 was concluded in December. It was not that the United States neglected Afghanistan, but the United States played more of an offshore role, focused, as Ahmed Rashid noted, only on getting Osama bin Laden and the Taleban, not in nation-building;9 and neither was the United Nations absent in Iraq, since several U.N. resolutions invested authority on the United States to be in Iraq.

ban brutally executed him in 1996. Although he worked with Ahmad Shah Massoud, Burhanuddin Rabbani’s commander-in-chief and Chairman of the Shura-i-Nazar political faction, and General Abdul Rashid Dostum, both deserted him, and left him at the mercy of the Taleban. 8 Seymour Hersh, Chain of Command: The Road From 9/11 to Abu Ghraib (New York, NY: Harper, 2005), 163–65. 9 “Afghanistan’s elections must be postponed—leading expert,” Eurasia Insight, February 24, 2004, from: http://www.eurasianet.org/departments/recaps/articles/eav022404 .shtml/. Leading expert was Ahmed Rashid. See his “Afghanistan: breaking the cycle,” Far Eastern Economic Review, December 6, 2001, from: http://www.feer.com/2001/0112_06/ p016region.html. Another relevant piece: “Britain ‘to head Afghan peace force’,” Guardian, December 11, 2001, from: http://www.guardian.co.uk/afghanistan/story/0,1284, 617017,00.html.

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Nevertheless, in the immediate pre-negotiations phase, whereas Afghanistan could point to several actors, Iraq basically pointed to the United States. Table 4.2 profiles those actors and their key goals. Table 4.2 Actors, objectives, thresholds Cases

Actors and Objectives

Afghanistan:

* Northern Alliance (combination of largely Tadjiks (Qanooni,

*

*

* *

*

*

Iraq:

Fahim, Abdallah—also known as Tadjik Trio) and Uzbekis (Dostum): received grudging US support; sought controlling power in Kabul; wanted parliamentary government; supported by Russia and India Rome Group: supporters of restoring monarchy, led by king’s grandson, Mostapha Zaher in Bonn, where a delegate of eight included two women Peshawar Group: support-base among refugees in Pakistan, under Sayyid Hamid Gilani, whose father, Sayyid Ahmed Gilani, headed National Islamic Front of Afghanistan; believed power-sharing was “unjust” for Pashtunis; pro-Pakistani royalists Cyprus Group: former mujahedeens in exile; Iran-backed royalists Burhanuddin Rabbani: Mujahadeen President, 1992–96; split with Tadjik trio, met with Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI); wanted conference in Afghanistan, not Bonn. U.N.: Under Special Envoy Lakhdar Brahimi from 2001 (also between 1997 and 1999); and Francesco Vendrell (2000–01). Spokesman at Bonn was Ahmed Fawzi U.S.: Special Envoy to Afghanistan and envoy to Bonn: James Dobbins; he effectively sidelined Rabbani and king from contention Great Britain: willing to lead multilateral force

* Pre-planning: Future of Iraq Project convenes Democracy

Principles Working Group (DPWG), September 3–5, 2002; U.N. Security Council Resolution 1441 adopted unanimously on November 8, 2002; Iraqi opposition groups meet in London December 14–17, 2002; and Office for Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance created January 21, 2003 * U.S. CPA: L. Paul Bremer, III, as Civilian Administrator from May 11, 2003, replaced General Jay Garner (who entered Baghdad from April 20, 2003); “shock and awe” war (March 19-April 14, when Tikrit fell); Ba’ath dis-established May 16, Iraqi army disbanded May 23, and Chalabi’s INC begins operations in Iraq * Intergovernmental Council (IGC): Established July 13, with 25 members (13 Shi’ites, 5 Sunnis, 5 Kurds, 1 Christian, 1 Turk) * U.N.: Mandates invasion (Res. 1441); Security Council endorses IGC through U.N. Resolution 1500; and on October 16, authorizes U.S. to head international force and IGC to submit timetable and plan to draft constitution and hold elections by December 15, 2003)

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Cluttered though the table is, some highlights help steer the comprehension. First, whereas Afghanistan’s prelude involved competing domestic groups, Iraq’s did not, thus enhancing legitimacy claims in the former but not in the latter. Second, although both cases excluded groups (Taleban and Ba’athists), since these groups aligned with significant ethnic/religious groups (Pashtuns and Sunnis, respectively), severe ethnic imbalance clouded the democratization experiment. Third, the United States responded to this imbalance differently: selecting a Pashtun vanguard leader in Afghanistan (Karzai), but a Shi’ite in Iraq (Chalabi). Fourth, Afghanistan’s prelude involving diversified actors, from the United Nations to neighboring countries, made meaningful contributions, but Iraq’s less diversified actors, restricted largely to the United Nations, essentially rubber-stamped U.S. initiatives. Fifth, Afghanistan’s experiment invited more support and sympathy, and received greater legitimacy than Iraq’s. Finally, since Afghanistan could correctly claim greater peace after the fall of Kandahar than Iraq could claim after Baghdad fell, Afghanistan’s ability to divert more attention and resources to democratization contrasted to Iraq’s inability to do likewise, predicting smooth sailing and encumbered progress, respectively. Table 4.2 points out at least four prominent Afghani groups engaged in the democratization dialogue, as opposed to one for Iraq, even then created from a motley background. Of the four Afghani groups, the Northern Alliance dominated the initial proceedings,10 in part because its stronghold, the Tadjik province, was never controlled by the Taleban, thus its opposition attracted outside support, even from the United States, albeit grudgingly within the NA. Many of its leaders, living largely in exile and reflecting more westernized styles than their counterparts in other groups, jumped to the occasion. These included Younis Qanooni, the Tadjik leader of the Northern Alliance delegation at Bonn; Abdallah Abdallah, another Tadjik, entrusted with the foreign affairs portfolio; and General Mohammad Qasim Fahim, also a Tadjik, 10 Northern Alliance stands for the National Islamic Unity Front for the Liberation of Afghanistan ( Jabha-i Muttahid-i Islami-i Nijat-I Afghanistan) whose most effective military partner was General Rashid Dostum’s National Islamic Movement of Afghanistan ( Jumbish-i Milli-i Islami Afghanistan) until displaced by Ahmad Shah Massoud’s Shura-i-Nazar. See Michael Pohly, “Perceptions of state and organization of the Northern Alliance,” Afghanistan: A Country Without a State? Eds., Christine Noelle-Karimi, Conrad Schetter, and Reinhard Schlagintweit (Frankfurt, Germany: IKO, Verlag Interkulturelle Kommunikation, 2002), 179–89.

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who led all anti-Taleban forces. This young Tadjik triumvirate, part of Ahmad Shah Massoud’s Shura-i-Nazar group sidelined the 61-year Burhanuddin Rabbani,11 another Tadjik who headed the Jamat-i-Islami party and served as Afghanistan’s president between 1992 and 1996 for the Mujadeen government. His tenure would be the most rapacious in recent Kabul history, when over 10,000 residents were killed just in the first five years—a far cry from the ten years of Soviet occupation which barely disrupted Kabul. The implications were considerable: First, it directly led to the Taleban upsurge and success; second, arguing the Bonn conference “should be the last meeting held outside of Afghanistan,”12 he literally disqualified himself from post-9/11 consideration;13 and third, it led U.S. envoy to the conference, James Dobbins, to support the Northern Alliance position, and thereby its dominance. The Tadjik Trio teamed up with a powerful Uzbeki warlord, General Abdul Rashid Dostum. His brutal, bloodthirsty nature scandalized the pre-negotiations phase when, on November 9, 2001, up to 500 captured Taleban fighters, mostly foreign, were killed in Qala-e-Jhangi Fort near Mazar-i-Sharif, his own stronghold.14 Like Dostum, several other powerful warlords including Ismail Khan, the pro-Iran warden of Herat, posed one of the most formidable threats to the democratization process. Democracy entails a government, meaning his power to tax trade in the region would evaporate, thus diluting the loyalty of inhabitants under his control. Together with the Tadjiks, Uzbekis, and Hazaras, both warlords feared the dominant ethnic group: Pashtuns. Representing about 38% of the Afghani population, Pashtuns accounted for a bulk of the refugees in Pakistan during the Soviet occupation and the 1990s; and although the Taleban consisted largely of Pashtuns, not all Pashtunis shifted to the

11 Rabbani was the first Tadjik to reach Kabul, which offended the Triumvirate; he then met the new leader of Pakistan’s ISI, Lt. General Ehsan-ul-Huq, in Dubai, which incensed the Trio further. See “Rabbani defied alliance: Fahim,” Dawn, December 6, 2001, from: http://www.dawn.com/2001/12/06/htm. 12 See “US arm-twisting forced Rabbani to step aside: official,” Dawn, December 6, 2001, from: http://www.dawn.com/2001/12/06/int2.htm. 13 “Rabbani says Bonn talks not expected to yield results,” Times of India, November 28, 2001, from: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow.asp?art_id=769454588. 14 Angus Roxburgh, “Bloodbath at Afghan fort,” BBC News, November 27, 2001, from: http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/south_asia/newsid_1679000/1679654.stm.

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Taleban.15 In Bonn, they were known as the Peshawar Group, a proPakistan outfit weakened after 9/11 by the Taleban association and loss of power in Kabul. Their support for a return of the monarchy was articulated by Sayyid Hamed Gilani, whose father, a Pir, Sayyid Ahmad Gilani, thought power-sharing, especially with the ascendant Tadjiks, was “unjust.” The elder Gilani, like many other Pashtunis, strongly believed in retaining Islamic traditions in the constitution, articulating this through his National Islamic Front of Afghanistan (NIFA), and even demanding, on Pakistan’s behalf, the inclusion of Taleban in the Bonn negotiations.16 The Rome Group rallied behind the king, Muhammad Zahir Shah, and was named after the city where the monarch took refuge when ousted by his cousin, Daoud Khan, in 1973. Also bringing a western flavor to the Bonn Conference, the Rome Group’s 8-member delegation consisted of two women and campaigned for a return of the monarchy to Afghanistan. This was not acceptable to many, especially since the king was himself 88 years old; but his symbolic nature appealed to both Afghanis and Bonn stakeholders across the lines. Out of this respect, the search for an interim Afghani leader shifted from Abdul Sattar Sirat to Hamed Karzai. As the king’s last justice minister in the early 1970s, Sirat had the credentials; but he was old and an Uzbeki.17 Hamed Karzai, on the other hand, was a Pashtuni belonging to the same Popolzai clan as the king himself.18 Although Karzai served as a deputy foreign minister to the Mujahedeen government of Rabbani from 1992 to 1994, and briefly supported the Taleban in its early years, 15 Rashid traces Taleban leadership to the Durani section of the Pashtuni tribes, “drawn from the three most backward and conservative southern Pashtun provinces of Kandahar, Hilmand and Uruzgan . . .” See; “Tribe and state in Afghanistan after 1992,” Afghanistan: Country Without a State?, 175. 16 Jill McGivering, “Pakistan’s fear of exclusion,” BBC News, November 27, 2001, from: http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/south_asia/newsid_1678000/1678745.stm. 17 Rory McCarthy and Even MacAskill, “King’s aide is favorite to be next leader,” The Guardian, December 3, 2001, from: http://www.guardian.co.uk/afghanistan/story/ 0,1284,610717,00.html. 18 See Marcus George, “Cautious optimism in Kabul,” BBC News, December 5, 2001, from: http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/south_asia/newsid_1693000/ 1693379.stm; “Karzai: link between old and new,” Dawn, December 6, 2001, from: http://www.dawn.com/2001/12/06/int4.htm; and Pam O’Toole, “Karzai: king’s powerful Pashtun ally,” BBC News, November 2, 2001, from: http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/ english/world/south_asia/newsid_1634000/1634618.stm. See Nick B. Mills’s almost official Karzai biography, detailing the new president’s accomplishments, Karzai: The Failing American Intervention and the Struggle for Afghanistan (Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons., Inc., 2007).

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he migrated to Quetta in Pakistan, found his father killed by the Taleban in 1999, and joined the war against Mullah Muhammad Omar’s troops in Kandahar from October, and eventually cut a secret deal to let Omar escape.19 His ascendancy was made possible by virtue of a quid pro quo with the NA: If the NA could control the key ministries, which it did, it had no problems with the relatively low-keyed Karzai becoming interim leader.20 As with the Northern Alliance and Peshawar Group, the Cyprus Group reflects the interest of a neighboring Afghanistan country, in this case Iran. Named after the island where a number of mujahedeens took refuge and found exile, the Cyprus Group also became a royalist supporter in Bonn, reflecting the uneasiness of working with either the Northern Alliance or the Pashtuns. Its client group inside Afghanistan, the Hazaras, found mostly in Herat and the western suburbs of Kabul, have long lived a marginalized existence.21 In spite of the three Afghani groups reflecting the interests of three Afghani neighbors—Russia through the Northern Alliance, Pakistan through the Peshawar Group, and Iran through the Cyprus Group— the three neighbors, though influential at Bonn, played only a secondary role. In the final analysis, given the intricacies of Afghani politics, to which their own contributions were not insignificant, they were happy to see the movement towards reconciliation and stability. Pakistan would have liked to see the Taleban be included, but it could play for time since no major Afghani development could occur without the Pashtun—a group divided by the Afghan-Pakistan border. Russia’s influence diminished after the Soviet breakdown, and serving a minority community, Iran’s better option was to favor the king’s return. All neighboring countries were also kept in check by the United Nations, perhaps the most important non-Afghani group at Bonn. Secretary General Kofi Annan’s Special Envoy, Lakhdar Brahimi, resigned from that post in 1999, protesting undue Taleban and Pakistani disrup-

19 Chidapand Rajghata, “US opposes Karzai-Omar deal on Kandahar,” Times of India, December 7, 2001, from: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow.asp?art _id=317833448. 20 J. Alexander Thier, “The politics of peace-building: year one: from Bonn to Kabul,” Nation-Building Unravelled? Aid, Peace and Justice in Afghanistan, eds., Antonio Donini, Norah Niland, and Karin Wermester (New York, NY: Kumarian Press, 2004), 46, but see chap. 3. 21 Peter Greste, “Hazaras demand to be heard,” BBC News, November 21, 2001, from: http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/south_asia/newsid_1668000/1668327.stm.

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tions of the peace discussions. Until he was reappointed on October 3, 2001 to supervise the Bonn Conference, Francesco Vendrell served as the seventh U.N. envoy to Afghanistan over the previous ten years. This background served to keep the U.N. behind the Bonn steering wheel, and especially after the United States showed disinterest in hands-on engagement. The road to Bonn was directly paved by a U.N. Secretary Council Resolution 1378 on November 14, 2001, calling for a “broadbased multi-ethnic government” in Afghanistan,22 one day after Kabul fell. Brahimi himself called it “a home-grown solution”, a claim largely supported by the presence and participation of contending Afghani groups, pushing even the U.N. to play a supporting role. This was perhaps the critical difference with Iraq. Even though the United Nations provided the enabling resolutions behind U.S. engagement and supervision, the United States did not want the United Nations, or any other international organization or country, impeding its interests. Those interests were clearly military, sanctioned no less by U.N. Resolution 1441 in November 2002, and unlike Afghanistan where the United Nations was also the military standard bearer, Iraq was going to be disconnected with the Ba’athists first, then put on the road to democracy—a regime change more specific in the end-product desired than in Afghanistan’s case. Since no WMDs were subsequently found, WMDs do not explain this unusual U.S. stance: After all, even without finding Osama bin Laden and Mullah Omar in Afghanistan, the United States was perfectly willing to play an off-shore role, but finding the Iraqi ace of spade, Saddam Hussein, became the defining feature of U.S. engagement. It was not just the low U.N. profile in Iraq. Even Iraqi groups were kept in the dark—unless they could really deliver the goods as the United States saw them. Two features common with Afghanistan produced entirely different tracks—and ultimate results. The first was the role of exilees, the second the U.S. emphasis on selecting the leader rather than permitting the leader be selected by others or elected by the people. All four Afghani groups were filled with exilees, whether westernized or refugees; and they themselves shaped the conference agenda and results. Nevertheless, through envoy Dobbins, the United

22 Greg Barrow, “UN passes resolution on Afghani rule,” BBC News, November 15, 2001, from: http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/south_asia/newsid_1657000/ 1657288.stm; and Thier, “The politics of peace-building,” Nation-Building Unravelled, 45.

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States clipped the wings of Rabbani and the king, and was influenced in selecting Karzai as the interim leader. In Iraq, exilees were fewer, more westernized than refugees, and all anti-Saddam, whereas in Afghanistan they were all anti-Soviet. It was from this group of dissidents disconnected with concurrent Iraqi dynamics that the United States chose Ahmad Chalabi as the vanguard of Iraqi democratization, even though he was more at home in Lebanon or in Iran than in Iraq. Chalabi was commensurate to the occasion, fabricating information of Saddam developing nuclear WMDs in contravention of U.N. sanctions, and how U.S. intervention would be hailed by Iraqis for liberating them from tyranny. As noted, his music struck chord with various U.S. neoconservatives intent upon an Iraqi regime change.23 George W. Bush was more interested in eliminating Saddam for filial reasons.24 Right after the Labor Day holiday in September 2002, he convened a Future of Iraq Project (FIP), based on a high-level meeting he had had in his ranch, Crawford, Texas, on August 21, to change the Iraqi regime. Unlike Afghanistan, where regime-change was decided collectively in Bonn, Iraq had its own future chalked out in a Texan ranch. The FIP convened a Democratic Principles Working Group (DPWG) in September 2002, which met again in Washington, DC, one month later. Four other simultaneous developments sealed the fate of Iraq. The first was a rhetoric campaign targeting Saddam’s Iraq and conducted at the highest level. Bush himself alleged, at the Cincinnati Museum Center on October 7, 2002, Iraq was reconstituting nuclear weapons and working with al-Qaeda. Earlier, before the 2002 Labor Day weekend began, on August 26, Dick Cheney, the Vice President, informed the Veterans of Foreign War Association convention Iraq was building WMDs. Chalabi’s ploy had worked, though to be fair, not all U.S. agencies, such as the State Department and the CIA, bought into his WMD argument, or even in him at all. Second, the United States mobilized the United Nations to pass a resolution to sanction Iraq for building WMDs. Great Britain quickly lined up behind the United States, but France, Germany, and Russia, among the permanent Security Council members, questioned the argument, delaying the vote, which was eventually passed, unani-

23 24

Hersh, Chain of Command, 163–5. From Gaddis, “A grand strategy,” op. cit., 54.

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mously at that, on November 8. Thus, the idea of an Iraq regime change now found an Iraqi entry point through the U.N. resolution. All that remained were the joyous Iraqis Chalabi had promised to welcome the liberators and the new regime leaders. The third development took care of these concerns. With the help of Chalabi, an Iraqi opposition conference was held in London between December 14 and 17. It was a fitting location since many Iraqi exilees lived in the area, Britain had bought into the regime change idea hook, line, and sinker. As Rosemary Hollis points out, Prime Minister Tony Blair “had privately committed to US President George W. Bush by early 2002 that Britain would support military action to effect regime change in Baghdad . . .”25 He permitted the United States to argue this was not a one-country show. Thus, as the guns were being readied, visions of roaring spectators cheering U.S. troops filled the air. The final piece of the strategy was to prepare for the long-haul. All three of the other elements captured snapshot moments, but these had to be galvanized to shape the future. In other words, not only had the new regime to be prepared, but also given a long enough leash of life. Towards that end, postwar Iraqi reconstruction planning was assigned by no other office than the Secretary of Defense to create an Office for Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance. This was on January 21, 2003. On March 19, the much heralded “shock and awe” war was declared, and ground invasion commenced the very next day. One of the interesting statistics of the 26-day war was the absence of any U.S. fatalities. Baghdad fell on April 9, and when Saddam’s hometown of Tikrit fell five days later, the Pentagon ended the war. Meanwhile, Chalabi was airlifted to Nasariyah on April 6, alongwith his Free Iraq Force, a haphazardly assembled groups under the supervision of his own bodyguards. No spectators awaited him, but many cheered the arrival of U.S. troops in Baghdad under General Jay Garner on April 20. The message missed in the momentous developments was not of the absence of a brutal dictator in the lives of

25 Rosemary Hollis, “The United Kingdom: fateful decision, divided nation,” The Iraq War: Causes and Consequences, eds., Rick Fawn and Raymond Hinnebusch (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2006), 37, but see chap. 3. Also see a more scathing attack on Tony Blair’s secretive and deadly Iraqi war campaign by Alex Danchev, “The reckoning: official inquiries and the Iraq war,” Intelligence and National Security 19, no. 3 (Autumn 2004):436–66.

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ordinary Iraqis, but of a replacement government, for there was none in place. When Ambassador L. Paul Bremmer replaced Garner as the Civilian Administrator of Iraq in the CPA on May 11, he quickly outlawed the Ba’ath Party on the 16th, and one week later dismembered the Iraqi army, including the shock troops in the Revolutionary Guards. In between, Chalabi promoted the Iraqi National Congress, and awaited the announcement of the election timetable. For this to be executed, a local civilian authority run by Iraqis had to be in place and the United Nations had to offer some claims of legitimacy. The former was fulfilled through Security Council Resolution 1500 endorsing IGC on August 14. Of the 25 IGC members, 13 were to be Shi’ites, five Sunnis, five Kurds, one Christian, and one Turk—a breakdown conforming to the population distribution. By September 2, all 25 slots were filled, prompting the U.N. Security Council, on October 16, to ask the IGC to submit a timetable and plans for holding elections and drafting a constitution. The CPA imposed its own deadline for a transitional plan—November 15, 2003, requiring an interim constitution by the end of February 2004, and caucus-based elections to choose an interim government by June 30, 2004, to which CPA to would hand authority. From one Labor Day to another, the Bush administration had pulled off one of the most remarkable transformation in Middle East history, and as Chalabi awaited his own pot of gold, the United States and IGC were left to scoop up the residue of Iraqi politics. Given the absence of any meaningful party politics under Saddam’s brutal reign, the demolition of the Ba’athist Party structure destroyed the only infrastructure available; and given the disbanding of the highly trained military, the ranks and files of opponents swelled overnight.26 Of course, the U.S. and IGC were not to notice these until what they were scooping up turned out to be, as expected, pure mud—bucket after bucket relentlessly.

26 Among the initial targets of upstart militants were international civilians, CPA collaborators, and IGC members (one IGC member was killed September 2003, another May 2004). For more, see Bathsheba N. Crocker, “Iraq: going it alone, gone wrong,” Winning the Peace: An American Strategy for Post-Conflict Reconstruction, ed., Robert C. Orr (Washington, DC: Center for Strategic and International Studies, 2004), 269–77, but see chap. 16.

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From Conflict to Cooperation Democratization does not necessarily depend on conflict. By creating opportunities to democratize, conflicts create a new and different ballgame, as this chapter highlights. If conflict-driven democracies survive, Immanuel Kant’s democratic peace argument may be entirely upturned.27 Exploring it would be drifting too far from the current investigation. Based on the blueprints developed, and the nature of the actors and their actions, in the pre-negotiations phase, what does the study say about the transition from conflict towards cooperation? At least three themes of theoretical relevance beg attention: (a) the juxtapositioning of two Herculean tasks—democratization and statebuilding; (b) the forbidding atmosphere of ethnically divided societies; and (c) the more developed international context impinging domestic developments in an unprecedented way. As evident, none of these reflect any cumulative effect, but as I argue, they unleash even more powerful cumulation triggers capable of undoing whatever democratization already recorded in other countries. Democratization and State-building Regime-change may be necessary for democratization, but also formidably constrains democratization. It is not like a leadership-change or government-change. Regime-change is akin to a cultural change, with culture broadly defined as adaptation to the environment. Interestingly, both cases depict two entirely different dimensions of Islam, chosen here as an illustrative example of the changes expected and necessary. Whereas Afghanistan, being the traditional country it still is, clings ferociously to its Islamic roots, Iraq, secularized ever since it was created in the 1920s, more so under Saddam than any other ruler, suddenly seeks an Islamic identity, as much for endogenous reasons as exogenous. Since the state serves a transient, temporary set of arrangements under Islam, democratization is left rudderless. Table 4.3 presents a list of cursory Islamic issues any attempt at democratizing and state-building in a Muslim society must confront at some point. Inherent in the comparisons are the numerous stumbling

27 Michael Doyle, “Liberalism and world politics,” American Political Science Review 80, no 4 (December 1986):1151–70.

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blocks Afghanistan and Iraq will most likely face whether they wish to or not (if they haven’t done so already). Table 4.3 Democratization and Islam in Afghanistan and Iraq Islamic Issues amidst Democratization

Afghanistan

Iraq

1. Role of Islam in expected constitution:

Explicit

Explicit

2. Place of Shari’a:

Implicit

Implicit

3. Islamic division

Yes, but ethnic divisions have been more preoccupying

Yes, sharply so; and feeds ethnic divisions, creating an explosive setting

4. Treatment and place of women:

Subordinated; background positioning, in spite or a bold desire to incorporate women in the new political system

One of the most emancipated among Muslim countries until the conflict; jihadist climate predicts longterm regression

5. View of the state and state institutions:

Illegitimized by coups, wars, greed, and heavyhandedness

Illegitimized by brutal dictatorships and puppet governments

7. External affinity based on Islamic affiliation:

Sunnis: Pakistan Shi’ites: Iran

Shi’ites: Iran Sunnis: Jordan, Sa’udi Arabia, Syria

8. Worldview based on Islamic affiliation:

Sunnis: encompassing ummah Shi’ites: circumscribed ummah

Shi’ites: circumscribed ummah Sunnis: encompassing ummah

9. Place of politics:

Sunnis: coexist with religion Shi’ite: subordinate to religion

Shi’ite: subordinate to religion Sunni: coexist with religion

10. Dialogue across religious differences:

Not attempted; unlikely to be prioritized; blurring in the face of other divisions

Deteriorating to a point of no-return, given the suicide bombings and targeting of mosques

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The constitutional role Islam was expected to play was already made part of the ground-rules even in the pre-negotiation phase: It would play an explicit role in both countries, and placed in a non-negotiable trajectory. This was clear in the prelude to the Bonn Conference, and though the CPA did not mandate it, with Shi’ites accounting for 60% of the Iraqi population, and currently facing the ripe occasion to institutionalize doctrinary Shi’ite tenets, it is very unlikely Shi’ite Chalabi, CPA, or the IGC can do much to contain a robustly overflowing Shi’ite sentiment. Although the place of Sharia, in the second dimension, was not formally adopted in the Bonn prelude, or with the IGC, no sensible Muslim leader will close the door to utilizing its provisions. It is implicitly available for usage, even if the ruling is amputating a limb or stoning a person. No conquering army can erase these theoretical possibilities, even though utilizing them has diminished in both countries. While the third dimension acknowledges the divided nature of Islam in both countries, with simultaneous ethnic divisions demanding more attention in Afghanistan but threatening to compound religious divisions in Iraq, the fourth dimension submits the subordinated position of women in Afghanistan but the rapid evaporation of women emancipation in Iraq. For all his brutalities, Saddam gave Iraqi women the pride of place among Muslim women worldwide and snuffed out religious conflicts by de-emphasizing religion. Reversing the treatment of women and reviving religion in his aftermath may be a function of both the popular reaction against his regime and the global growth of neofundamentalism—with the CPA and IGC as inevitable targets of both trends.28 Afghanistan faces similar threats on a lesser scale for as long as Taleban can be contained and Pakistan’s madrasas controlled. In the fifth dimension, we find the state off to a rocky start, in part due to the illegitimate reputation it previously had in both countries for a variety of reasons. How they can anchor democratization without militarizing remains perplexing, but even more troublesome is how the mood of the masses can be altered to give the state a chance. Dimensions 6, 7, and 8 expound the Islamic affiliation theme. With Sunnis predominant in Afghanistan and Shi’ias in Iraq, we find

28 On the post-Saddam Islamic revival, see Beverly Milton-Edwards, “Faith in democracy: islamization of the Iraqi polity after Saddam Hussein,” Democratization 13, no. 3 ( June 2006): 472–89.

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Afghanistan and Iraq torn in their external affinities: Iran alone tugs away the loyalties of Shi’ites in both, Pakistan the loyalties of Afghanistan’s Sunnis, and Jordan, Sa’udia Arabia, and Syria those of Iraq’s Sunnis. With loyalties becoming so transnationalized, the state not only has an uphill battle to fight, but also struggle to win a more domestic legitimacy. Without a strong state apparatus, Afghanistan and Iraq face too tall a task of democratizing while reining in Islamic extremism. It is of little surprise, then, that politics is unlikely to rise above religious considerations; they may coexist, as currently in Afghanistan, but Iraq’s fate of subordinating politics to religion could easily become Afghanistan’s if quick progress is not made. Cementing this ninth dimension observation is the tenth dimension observation of how dialogues across religious divisions have not really been attempted on a meaningful basis in Afghanistan, and may even be deteriorating beyond the point of no-return in Iraq with the Shi’ite restoration, since that provides a rare opportunity to redress injustices of a long past and to institutionalize much-needed future safeguards. In the overall, Afghanistan and Iraq show how countries democratizing today face much more diminished prospects of fulfilling their goals because of the incomplete statehood undermining them. While regime-change may be the solution, at the time of democratization or as the catalyst of democratization, the overloading involved is more likely to be detrimental to both than to help any one. On the other hand, if an Islamic country pursues these tasks, even more complications would arise, especially escaping any analytical plane simply because Islam is a collection of both written and oral traditions. Democratization in Ethnically Divided Societies Pursuing both above tasks in ethnically divided societies sends shudders as to where to begin, how to proceed, and when to stop before it is too late. Both Afghanistan and Iraq fall in this third category of predicaments. Applying Barry Buzan’s terminologies,29 whereas the first democratic wave put nation-states under the microscope, from the second to the fourth waves, state-nations have increasingly accounted for the subjects under the democratization microscope. The result: increasing disorder, and with it another illustration why democratic 29 Barry Buzan, People, State and Fear: An Agenda for International Studies in the Post-Cold War Era (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 1991, 2nd ed.), 36–72.

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cumulation may not be enough to complete democratization, or even adequately jumpstart the process. Every country, seemingly, brings in its own warts and beauty spots, and utilizing the same democratization formula is more unlikely to produce similar results than likely. Afghanistan and Iraq illustrate. Created as state-nations, Afghanistan and Iraq were never able to create Afghanis or Iraqis, that is, their own subjects. Ironically, the closest was under the most brutal of dictators: Saddam Hussein in Iraq. Otherwise, just as Afghanistan was, and still remains, that arena where Pashtunis, Tadjiks, Uzbekis, Hazaris, Turkomens, and Baluchis have been amalgamated, so too has Iraq been, and continues to be, the box where Sunnis and Shi’as, Kurds, Arabs, and Persians proclaim these identities over any other. Depending on relative numbers, these groups within the two countries may or may not prefer the status quo state, and if they do, disagree on the choices between parliamentary or presidential governance or federal versus centralized structures. If logic dictates a presidential, centralized system for divided, war-torn countries, if only to permit democratization—something Hamed Karzai and the CPA actually sought—without integrative infrastructures, the system is exposed to collapsing. According to Robert C. Orr, external help for governance in Afghanistan, Iraq, and generally, should be directed to five areas:30 supporting ‘constituting’ processes in divided societies; mobilizing broad peace constituencies and civil society actors to progressively marginalize spoilers; building state capacity, particularly civil administration; addressing corruption; and crafting a coherent system of conditionalities to support good governance and peace. Given the conflict preceding reconstruction in both countries, perhaps it was too presumptuous to expect these to merge so soon after conflict and before a democratically elected government was in place. Yet, the scope for them to emerge simply did not exist, and even if it did, other priorities, such as the deteriorating security climate in both, simply halted any serious considerations of them. Based upon these, Orr offers ten ‘building blocks’ for U.S.-supervised reconstruction: defining national interest and triage cases; assist allies and provide international public goods, such as investments; balance high-end and low-end capabilities; ensure basic agreement on goals

30 Orr, “Governing when chaos rules: enhancing governance and participation,” Winning the Peace, 61–70.

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for each reconstruction; build and maintain bipartisan consensus; design flexible instruments and use an adaptive strategy; focus on speed; ensure sustainability of interventions; pursue multilateralism first, not as a last resort; and prioritize and master hand-offs.31 Again, we find these strategies either neglected in the drive to satisfy military goals (against WMDs, possible terrorists, and against insurgencies), or hijacked attention-wise by the very insurgencies these strategies were meant to quell. Though well-intentioned, Orr’s strategies presume there will be many more ‘reconstruction’ instances created by, and for, the United States. Based on experiences in Afghanistan and Iraq, just the opposite expectation should be encouraged. The net result is a clash between centralizing sentiments and centrifugal traditions. In illustrating these, Table 4.4 suggests Afghanistan and Iraq may be slithering closer to break-point even as they embark upon democratization—a predicament only sustained enlightened leadership can prevent. Table 4.4 Actors, Preferences, & Predilections Country: Domestic Groups

Preferences and Predilections

Afghanistan: Pashtuns

* Monarchy, presidency, centralization: These

Tadjiks Uzbekis Hazaras

as stepping stone towards controlling all of Afghanistan * Parliamentary, federal: Only safeguard against Pashtuni domination * Parliamentary, federal: Only safeguard against Pashtuni domination * Parliamentary, federal: Only safeguard against Pashtuni domination

Iraq: Shi’as

* Centralization: Only opportunity at controlling all

Sunnis

* Federation: Shifting from centralization to

Kurds:

of Iraq

federalism is like moving to the frying pan; and Iraqi breakdown means moving to the actual fire * Federation: 10-years of autonomy creating momentum for independence

31 Orr, “An American strategy for post-conflict reconstruction,” Winning the Peace, ch. 17.

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In both Afghanistan and Iraq, the story was the same: The largest group sought centralized power, and with it a presidential form of government; the minority groups preferred federal power, embodied through a parliamentary government. Thus, as the Pashtunis and Shi’as clamor for central control, Shi’ites can automatically get it but Pashtunis will be severely resisted, as evident thus far, by Tadjiks and Uzbekis. With the king playing more than a symbolic role in state unification, that the president is also his relative gives Afghanistan a rare window of opportunity to build those much-needed state institutions and integrative infrastructures: incorporating Tadjik and Uzbeki provinces should be more important than incorporating Tadjik and Uzbeki leaders. Shi’ites, on the other hand, will face fierce Sunni resistance, resourceless and marginalized as they have become, and unlike the Pashtuni dynamics with Tadjiks, Uzbekis, and Hazaras which show more light at the end of the statehood tunnel, Shi’as and Sunnis have too much blood spilt between them to expect hope. This is tragic and ironic: Centralization serves both better than federalization, but is likely to become the first victim of their rivalries. Kurds could be the wildcard. The only group to relish autonomous existence over the last ten years in both countries, they stand on the threshold of full autonomy. Any Kurd independence push might bring Sunnis and Shi’as together to save Iraq, though that is not inevitable; but most of all, it would spread instability to Iran, Syria, and Turkey—other countries with Kurd minorities. As this possibility becomes more and more visible each day, the one counter-measure could the international context of power politics. International Relations Complexities and Democratization Yet, the international relations context itself is double-edged: On the one hand, it presumes Iran, Syria, Turkey, and the United States will cooperate to prevent an Iraqi breakdown triggered by Kurd separation; on the other, it encourages those very transnational movements and spillovers as the Kurds and Shi’ites enjoy in Iraq and the Pashtunis and Hazaras have benefited from in the past. In other words, external forces exert greater influence on the domestic front, whether it is in terms of state-building or democratization, than they ever did before. Here too the cumulation thesis breaks down. Whereas the first democratization wave turned out to be an insulated experience, responding to and impacting primarily the domestic context though external implications were never halted, subsequent waves profited immeasurably from

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external stimuli and ramifications: the second wave from Woodrow Wilson’s self-determination proclamation, institutionalized as it was by the League of Nations; the third Catholic wave from the Cold War dramatizing the blessings of an open society in East Europe but also exposing the limits of import substitution industrialization across Latin America; and the fourth wave from the breakdown of the Soviet Union coinciding with the transnational flows of Central Asian oil, mobility across the entire Euroasian continent, whether as tourist or jihadist, and the European/NATO movement eastward. As Table 4.5 shows, porous Afghani and Iraqi borders do not permit state fortification or accountable democratization: Controlling the borders would strengthen the state apparatus, but neither Afghanistan nor Iraq have the recourse or capacities to do so effectively; and for democratization to work, it must both receive local demands and supply policy responses from the center, tasks impossible to fulfill (a) without registering every citizen in terms of a fixed address, and (b) when transborder kinships adds or subtracts the population constantly. Table 4.5 Transborder Ethnic Overlaps Country: Group

Country of Group Overlap

Afghanistan: a. Pashtuns: b Tadjiks: c. Uzbekis: d. Hazaras:

a. b. c. d.

Iraq: a. Shi’as: b. Sunnis: c. Kurds:

a. Iran b. Jordan, Sa’udi Arabia, Syria c. Iran, Syria, Turkey

Pakistan Tadjikstan Uzbekistan Iran

Conclusions Democratizing Afghanistan and Iraq outside the drawing board faces a triple-headed monster: (a) representative government is left in the hands of unrepresentative leaders, especially in Iraq, or threatened by unrepresented forces, like warlords in Afghanistan; (b) both countries remain too ethnically divided to quickly develop a sense of the com-

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mon good; and (c) democratization must also compete not just with reconstruction but also ethnic overlaps across state boundaries. Representative Mismatches On the first obstacle, democracy by selection normally slips undue attention, since top-down democracy is not only more common than bottom-up, but also the type the United States is most familiar and at peace with. Yet, choices were made to fit U.S. interests rather than Afghani and Iraqi interests. Afghanistan made it better, but only by playing politics the Afghani way; Iraq did not really get to the batting mound, wrecking the very reputation of democracy. Since both Karzai and Chalabi were filtered through U.S. interests, the obvious question arises why the former grabbed the democracy baton better than the latter. Evidence suggests Karzai was better anchored, not just in Afghanistan but in Afghani politics, than Chalabi was in Iraq and with Iraqi politics. Both were exilees at some of their lives, yet Chalabi was not only in exile from 1958 when he barely became a teenager, but in the time since, apart from getting a doctorate in mathematics from the University of Chicago, he also fled indictment and a 17-year prison punishment for fraud in Lebanon at the same time he was successfully canvassing for money in Washington to implement his “The end game” project in Iraq. Made a vanguard of democratizing a country he did not know, Chalabi in all likelihood polluted Iraqi democracy irrevocably. Karzai, on the other hand, had stellar credentials and connections within Afghanistan while briefly in exile, and benefited from his low-profiled presence at the time of the Bonn Conference. Evidence suggests the fate of Afghani and Iraqi democracy rests to a large extent on the personality and inclination of these two individuals. Helpless but Fateful Ethnic Divisions The second obstacle of democratizing ethnically divided societies was not resolved, and could not be resolved in all fairness, on the drawing board. Planners and negotiators, however, took the logical exit route: incorporate them all in the electoral process, as democracy demands they must, according to their relative population proportion. Afghanistan again escaped lightly compared to Iraq. None of its ethnic groups were large enough to command absolute majority, as the Shi’as did

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in Iraq; but while Pashtuns had to be restored in some way, Karzai not only fitted the bill of an anti-Taleban, anti-al-Qaeda leader, but was also adept in reclaiming Pashtun leadership across Afghanistan from the maverick Tadjiks. Afghanistan’s entry into a fortuitous virtuous cycle contrasted with Iraq’s entry into a vicious cycle. Chalabi was preferred, not because he was a persecuted Shi’a, but owing to his charm and designs; but this blinded democracy planners into believing Shi’ites would praise and reward the United States for liberating them from Saddam. Ever since Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini depicted the United States as a ‘Great Satan’ in 1979, Shi’ites were set on a collision course with the United States—a factor completely neglected in the democracy planning phase. It does not take retrospection to argue, with their majority population proportion, Iraq’s Shi’as were destined not just to rule democratic Iraq, but to also reverse the discriminations and persecutions faced over the centuries. In this, Sunnis were as much the obvious targets, but Kurds also drew their own conclusion of not reneging on their new-found autonomy for a Shi’ite-led united Iraq. Democracy and Wary Neighbors References to Afghanistan’s Pashtuns, Khomeini’s Shi’ite leadership, and Kurd autonomy open up the Pandora box of the third obstacle. Pakistan, Iran, and Turkey, to say the least, remain deeply concerned with democratizing developments in their embattled neighbor. Even the Durand Line could not separate Afghanistan’s Pashtuns from their Pakistani counterparts; while the holy Shi’ite places might be in Iraq, Shi’ite leadership has historically come from Iran; and any Kurdish autonomy in Iraq automatically aggravates the Kurdish plight in Turkey, perhaps Syria and Iran. Making matters worse, Iran is central not just to any resolution of Iraq’s Shi’ite problems and Kurdish predicament, it has its fingers deep within Afghanistan too. Given its Great Satan orientation, Iran is least likely to face global criticism of its own democracy when Afghanistan or Iraq earns applause for theirs. Likewise for Pakistan with regards Afghanistan, while Turkey seems more likely to choose repressing its own Kurds to fill autonomy from snowballing even if this prevents European Union membership than to ease up on the Kurds to join the Brussels crowd.32 Democratizing 32 “Turkey, Syria worried over Iraq’s integrity: Asad in Ankara,” Dawn, January 7, 2004, from: http://www.dawn.com/2004/01/07/intl.htm.

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Afghanistan and Iraq comes face to face with realpolitik considerations of a different kind—one more locally generated than that engineered by Washington neoconservatives. This was the third missing blank not filled by democracy planners.

5. SINE QUA NON DEMOCRACY: AFGHAN-IRAQ SYMMETRIES & C.P.A. AS ODDBALL Introduction Democratization unfolds to a global audience today, invoking all sorts of international relations. International observers even displace actual voters as the election legitimizing force, in the process elevating policies of other countries into quid pro quo instruments, making them yet another source of electoral legitimacy. Not surprisingly, the arena for negotiating democracy and democratizing processes themselves also shift from the domestic legislature, or any other domestic fora, into an international setting. For at least three reasons, the shift is profound: (a) it widens the audience, increases safeguards, converts routine politics into brinkmanship exercises, and ultimately dilutes the fundamental voter-politician bond in favor of an entrepreneurial politician-manager relationship; (b) it streamlines new or transitional democracies with mature democracies, creating pressures for one-size-fits-all outcomes, even though the number of obstacles and expectations constantly increases; and (c) because local peculiarities shape electoral values, methods, dynamics, and institutions differently, when the end-product diverges from the one-size-fits-all model, complaints of democracy or democratization falling short arises. In short, democracy of whatever stripes seems to be acquiring a sine qua non orientation rather than its staple quid pro quo format. Negotiating democracy/democratization internationally expands not only the electoral scope but also the checks and balances. Political leaders of neophyte democracies may be pushed to the edge from satisfying expectations, to the point of having to worry more about facilitators and arbitrators in negotiations than those who actually cast votes. What is promised to external negotiators cannot be promised to domestic voters, and vice versa. If the politician reneges abroad but delivers at home, he or she must then trade-off between domestic popularity and external ostracism In this sense, then, placing elections or democratization on any external agenda increases obligations the new practitioner may not be able to fulfill. Even if he or she can, a second difficulty arises. By satisfying external criteria, the politician may end up replicating electoral processes,

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and thereby electoral systems. This might not pose a problem, and in fact could easily appear as a sign or symbol of modernization. If, however, domestic voting practices and habits have to be reoriented, what seems like maladjustment might actually disguise a cultural shock. Voting, for example, is an individualized experience consistent with cultures promoting individualism, such as in the west, but in the collective cultures across Africa, Asia, and Latin America, such behavior is not easily instilled as quickly as electoral monitors from abroad would like. If, indeed, the adjustment is made, over time, the practice of discussing the vote with an elder or a patron in collective cultures may eventually be threatened or displaced by the new individualized behavior, thus opening the door as much to cultural adjustment as to flux or evaporation. Introducing formal political parties where informal associations or movements have been the norm adds to the confusion. Indigenous groups particularly face this nightmarish prospect every time an election comes around, in the process slowly finding their own norms eroding on every occasion. Finally, much is being said of late of democratic breakdowns or reversals. If they reflect the above two problems, the question arises if such categorization is indeed accurate when democracy is placed or projected in zero-sum terms. A Tale of Two Negotiating Tables Both Afghanistan and Iraq sought a new order once conflict ceased. Given the repressed past leading up to the conflict, democracy was made the catalyst and the goal. Yet, as natural as the hope was, it was not automatic. On the one hand, various vested interests of the old order had to be transformed, even eliminated, on the other, the appropriate inclusive approach adopted had only been done previously through force, if at all. Overriding these were the interests of the United States in democratizing both countries, how to begin the process, who to rely upon, what methods to utilize, and why the urgency needed quick articulation and dissemination demanding immediate attention. Both experiments unfolded with plenty of parallels and convergences, but as the nuts and bolts of democratization were addressed, divergences and differences dominated. Table 5.1 shows these parallels and convergences. Although Afghanistan’s conflict won more global legitimacy than Iraq’s, both sprang

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from prior plans. Towards that end, Afghanistan’s Northern Alliance (NA) and the Iraqi National Congress (INC), created in exile by Ahmad Chalabi in 1992, supplied both the local leaders to initiate the transformation and a very rough blueprint to specify and implement. This blueprint was larger in aspirations than in methods, but not entirely chimerical: Afghanistan’s was to pick up the U.N.-sponsored threads going as far back as the 1989 Geneva Accords by which the Soviet Union withdrew, and Iraq’s to INC’s abortive attempt during 1995–96 to mobilize the people around Irbil against Saddam Hussein with the $100b U.S. President Bill Clinton provided to bankroll such efforts.1 In part because of its symbolic nature, the blueprints were vulnerable for many reasons. Even the problems their authors anticipated were strikingly similar in both cases: working out the details suitable for each country, then rallying the rival factions to consolidate the plans, keeping vigil against disruptions, particularly those sparked by the fallen groups, and establishing the necessary infrastructures for democratization, among others. Both countries found confidence in getting the needed resources, Afghanistan by way of foreign reassurances, Iraq from its own backyard from its oil revenues; and in spite of the ravages of battle, a general atmosphere of optimism prevailed. On paper, then, the blueprints echoed each other; but nuances and peculiarities in the trenches produced two different outcomes. By delegating Afghanistan’s democratization to the Untied Nations and keeping Iraq’s all to itself, different U.S. treatments created different tracks leading in opposite directions. Whereas the United Nations convened a conference in Bonn, which would last for nine days and eight nights from November 27, 2001, the United States established the Iraq Governing Council (IGC) in July 2003 to initiate the democratization process. As expected, the Afghani Northern Alliance representing the minority groups of Tadjiks, Uzbekis, Hazaras, and Baluchis, in that order of importance, but also including Pashtunis, were already in the saddle when the United Nations made its announcement on November 14, while Chalabi and his INC were airlifted into Nasirriyah just as Baghdad fell in April 2003. Whereas the open-ended and transparent U.N. approach produced the desired results in Afghanistan, the more privatized and clandestine U.S. approach produced more intrigue in “Ahmed Chalabi: Pentagon placeman?” BBC News, April 11, 2003, from: http://news .bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east?2939585.stm 1

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Table 5.1 Afghani-Iraqi Parallels & Convergences for Starters Dimensions

Afghanistan

Iraq

1. Democracy as a Yes pre-conflict plan:

Yes

2. Indigenous involvement molded that plan:

Yes

Yes

3. Availability of a democratization blueprint when conflict ceased:

Yes

Yes

4. Availability of Yes potential leaders to steer blueprint:

Yes

5. Problems anticipated:

(a) Adjusting blueprint parameters to local needs (of a divided society); (b) eliciting participation of rival groups; (c) preventing disruptions; and (d) establishing the necessary infrastructures

(a) Adjusting blueprint parameters to local needs (of a divided society); (b) eliciting participation of rival groups; (c) preventing disruptions; and (d) establishing the necessary infrastructures

6. Availability of resources:

Yes: promised from abroad

Yes: locally available (oil)

7. General attitude: Optimistic

Optimistic

delivering its own results in Iraq. Each is examined separately through similar prisms. Table 5.2 and summarizes these contrasts. The Bonn Accord Springing directly from the November 14 U.N. Security Council resolution “to form a broad-based multi-ethnic government in Afghanistan,”2 2 “UN passes resolution on Afghan rule,” BBC News, November 15, 2001, from: http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/south_asia/newsid_1657000/1657288.stm

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Table 5.2 Different Structures from Negotiation Parallels Bonn Process

Iraqi Counterparts

Foundation (negotiations phase): Bonn Accord leads to Interim Administration under Hamed Karzai from December 22, 2001 to June 22, 2002

Foundation (negotiations phase): Coalition Provisional Authority established in April 2003 for cleaning the system, which then established the Iraq Governing Council in July to formulate an interim constitution and interim government by June 30, 2004

Construction (negotiations phase): Emergency Loya Jirga in June 2002 appoints Transitional Government under Karzai to produce constitution; this then leads to the Constitutional Loya Jirga in October 2003, the preparation of a constitution

Construction (negotiations phase): Interim Constitution by IGC prepared by June 30, 2004, but elections to form Interim Government postponed to January 2005 on U.N. recommendation

Consolidation (post-negotiations phase): Adoption of constitution leads to elections

Consolidation (post-negotiations phase): Constitution created by IG and ratified, leading to elections in December 2005

Experimentation (post-negotiations phase): Slow Pashtuni restoration and Tadjiks reshuffled to the sidelines

Experimentation (post-negotiations phase): Nur al-Maliki’s mortally wounded government faces security and coalition-sustenance as ghosts

the Bonn Accord lasted nine intensive and eight excruciating nights from November 27 amidst the Muslim fasting month.3 Held in the historic Petersberg government guesthouse overlooking the Rhine in Koenigswinter, some 14 kms from Bonn,4 the conference revived old fears, offered new hopes, and brought rival Afghani groups, next-door 3 Month is Ramadan. Agreement was reached on the 20th in the 1422nd year of the Islamic calendar. See “The unseen side of Afghan side,” Dawn, December 6, 2001, from: http://www.dawn.com/2001/12/06/int6.htm 4 Mike Woolridge recounts how Konrad Adenauer accepted the instruments of the new German state from envoys of the Allied powers in this building, where the Allied High Commission was headquartered after World War II; and where British prime minister, Neville Chamberlain, lived in that fateful 1938 visit, crossing to the Rhine to meet Adolf Hitler over the Sudetenland crisis, then crossing the English Channel back to London to utter those utterly unreal words: “peace in our time.” See Woolridge,

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neighbors, international organizations, and global powers together. Figure 5.1 captures the cast of players and their lines of possible alignments amidst discussions about them. Agreement was not automatic, but the points of agreement, shown in Table 5.3,5 spelled out the Bonn framework for Afghanistan’s democratization, applied later in modified form to Iraq by the United States. The most powerful Afghan group, the Northern Alliance, did not get all it wanted, and even faced U.S. restrictions; the second most powerful group at Bonn, the Rome Group, acquiesced on the first day to the nature of an interim administration;6 and the muted roles of the Peshawar and Cyprus groups signified the need to keep a distance from Taleban influences, particularly Pakistan’s foreign minister Abdul Sattar’s proposal to include the Taleban in the conference.7 Western governments assumed both Pakistan and Iran were “more supportive of the concept of a government reflecting all Afghans, rather than just the groups they support[ed].”8 Table 5.3 Problems & Products Problems

Products

a. Size of delegation b. Presidential or parliamentary direction c. Role of king

a. 29 member interim authority (for 6 months): Chairman, 2 vice chairmen; 21 member special independent commission to invoke an emergency Loya Jirga to elect transitional government b. Presidential c. King as symbol

Welcoming delegates, U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan hoped “history will record this day as the beginning of a new age for Afghanistan,”9 built upon what his concurrent Special Envoy to that country, Lakhdar

“Mystique of the Afghan talks hotel,” November 26, 2001, from: http://news.bbc.co .uk/hi/english/world/south_asia/newsid_1677000/1677859.stm 5 From “Seven steps to democracy,” The Times (of London), December 6, 2001, from: http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/0,2001560010-2001563364,00.html 6 “Progress reported at Afghan talks,” CNN, November 28, 2001, from: http://cnn .com/2001/WORLD/europe/11/28/gen.afghan.bonn/index.html 7 “Pakistan aims to widen Afghan talks,” BBC News, November 23, 2001, from: http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/south_asia/newsid_1672000/1672130.stm 8 “UN hopes for new Afghan dawn,” BBC News, November 27, 2001, from: http:// news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/south_asia/newsid_1678000/1678375.stm 9 “Seize change of peace, says Annan,” BBC News, November 27, 2001, from: http:// news/bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/europe/newsid_ 1678000/1678778.stm

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Soviet successor states

127

Russia

Uzbekistan Turkey

Tadjikstan

China

Pakistan

India

Uzbekis

Turkmenistan

Tadjiks Turkomans

3

2

1 Hazaras

Arab world

Iran

United States

Pashtunis

United Nations

Figure 5.1. Afghanistan’s Groups & Their External Loyalties

Brahimi, called “a home-grown situation.”10 Opening the conference over a 36-seat roundtable, German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer called on the delegates “to forge a truly historic compromise” since the rest of the world had “clear expectations” to enhance the rule of law and human rights; while the U.N. spokesman, Ahmed Fawzi, also from Afghanistan, foresaw “a timeframe of three to five days for

10 Greg Barrow, “UN passes resolution on Afghan rule,” BBC News, November 15, 2001, from: http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/south_asia_newsid_1657000/ 1657288.stm

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the Afghan groups to decide on an interim authority.”11 Interestingly, behind the steering wheel, one NA delegate, Hussein Anwari, leader of the Shi’a Muslim Harkat-i-Islam faction of the NA and a delegate at Bonn, hoped to wrap things up in 3 days;12 while Pashtuni Governor Haji Abdul Qadar, another NA delegate, walked out after two days because Pashtunis were “insufficiently represented” (only to return two days later).13 Both the U.N. and the German foreign minister insisted Afghanis would “not be left on their own when the conflict with the al-Qaeda terrorists and the Taleban regime” ended.14 Intermingling hopes and hurdles cautioned against immediately fulfilling “the kind of plan we have put forward in the Security Council,” but any breakthroughs at Bonn “could be later translated into agreements.”15 Shifting the conference venue from Berlin to Bonn facilitated private negotiations between the Afghan groups. More than fifty delegates descended into Koenigswinter to decide their country’s future. That future hinged upon at least six issues: (a) the role of the king: (b) participation of Burhanuddin Rabbani; (c) use of a multilateral force to secure Kabul and its surroundings; (d) utilizing a transitional government to reconvene a loya jirga to legitimize a constitution; (e) formation and composition of an interim government; and (f ) who should head this interim government. Table 5.4 lists them, with pertinent information on the battle-lines drawn, the real and apparent alignments, and resolution efforts, while Table 5.5 captures how each Afghani groups positioned itself. Role of the King It was clear even before the Koenigswinter gathering, King Muhammad Zahir Shah would play a role but his monarchy would not be restored to its pre-1973 status. The role he would play would be symbolic, but his 28-year absence from a country in serious turmoil virtually predicted nothing more: An entire generation was not only born and lived without any reference to him or his monarchy, but also devel11 “Afghan peace talks open in Bonn,” Guardian, November 27, 2001, from: http://www .guardian.co.uk/afghanistan/story/0,1284,607713,00.html 12 “Afghan deal within three days: Alliance,” Times of India, November 27, 2007, from: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com?articleshow.asp?art_id=1726725015 13 “Unseen side of Afghan talks,” op. cit. 14 “Afghan talks opening hopes,” BBC News, November 27, 2001, from: http://news .bbc.co.uk./hi/english/world/south_asia/newsid_1676000/1676608.stm 15 “Pakistan aims to widen Afghan talks,” op. cit.

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oped deeper loyalties to other individuals and institutions; and besides, to get Afghanistan democratized, the onus had to shift to building new institutions and which could only be done in the conference. Interestingly, though the 8-member Rome Group wanted nothing more than the return of the king to his homeland, they would use this increasingly as a bargaining chip, more in the aftermath of Bonn than in the conference. In this, the Rome Group reflected the desire of both the United Nations and the Untied States. The United States played an active role to ensure this. Two weeks before the Bonn Conference, the U.S. Special Envoy to Central Asia, James Dobbins, who would anchor U.S. efforts in Bonn during the conference, met with the king in Rome and other Afghani opposition in Islamabad “to bring together the broadest and most inclusive coalition,” suggesting how hands-on governance Table 5.4 Issues at Bonn Issues at Bonn, with Perspectives * Role of king: consensus reached, since at least 14 of 28 delegates supported his involvement; U.S. and U.N. agreed he should play a role, albeit symbolic * Participation of Rabbani: Northern Alliance, his own group, not too keen; Joschka Fischer of Germany and Igor Ivanov of Russia appealed to him; U.S. not enthusiastic with his participation * Use of a multilateral force: NA not keen, but not opposed to this at first * Broad agreement on: (a) interim supreme council, perhaps for the first six 6-months; (b) finalizing interim government; and (c) a loya jirga to chart course after these 6 months. * Most contentious issues: list of candidates for the interim administration: Talks expected to end by December 1, but could not because of this; U.N. spokesman Ahmed Fawzi called it the “nitty-gritty” stage * Who the leader should be: Original preference for Abdul Sattar Sirat had to shift subsequently to Pashtuni Hamed Karzai, who the NA accepted as quid pro quo for controlling the key ministries Sources: “Consensus reached on role for Zahir,” Dawn, November 28, 2001, http://www .dawn.com/2001/11/28/int5.htm; “The unseen side of Afghan talks,” Dawn, December 6, 2001, from: http://www.dawn.com/2001/12/06/int6.htm; “Afghan groups agree path to peace,” BBC News, November 27, 2001, from: http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/ world/south_asia/newsid1679000/1679147.stm; “Afghan talks suffer setback,” CNN, November 30, 2001, http://www.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/europe/11/30/gen.bonn .talks/iindex.htm; and “US arm-twisting forced Rabbani to step aside: officials,” Dawn, December 6, 2001, from: http://www.dawn.com/2001/12/06/int2.htm; and “Uzbek warlord rejects Afghan accord,” CNN December 6, 2001, from: http://www.cnn.com/ 2001/WO...ral/12/06/afghan.dostum/index.html

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Table 5.5 Groups & Issue Configuration Issues

Northern Alliance

Rome Group

Peshawar Group

Cyprus Group United States

1. Role of king

Symbolic

More than symbolic

More than symbolic

More than symbolic

Symbolic

2. Participation of Rabbani

Limited at best

Limited at best

Open to restoration

Limited at best

Limited at best

Needed

Needed

Needed

Needed

3. Deployment Accepted of multilateral only in force principle 4. Legitimizing constitution through loya jirga and transitional government

Accepted in Accepted in Accepted in Accepted in Accepted in principle principle principle principle principle

5. Formation To be and composi- under NA tion of control interim government

Accepted in Accepted in Accepted in Accepted in principle principle principle principle

6. Leader of interim government

Sympathy Sympathy Sympathy To be for return to for return to for return to based on monarchy monarchy monarchy democracy; no monarchy

NA to decide

would be under monarchical control.16 He reiterated then, as too during the conference, why the king’s presence was still needed: For one thing, he could serve as a rallying point for ordinary Afghanis at a time of intense division and no legitimate institutions; being a Pashtun, he would help restore the country’s dominant group in the limelight, but this time with more dignified associations; and finally, since Northern Alliance opponents promoted a royalist alternative, the king had to be persuaded to relinquish any substantive role for the king himself by himself.

16 “World gears up to form interim Afghan govt.,” Times of India, November 14, 2001, from: http://www.timesofindia.com/articleshow.asp?art_ID=3554534

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Participation of Burhanuddin Rabbani As the last Afghani president before the 1996 Taleban take-over, Burhanuddin Rabbani was still recognized by the United Nations, though by the time of the Bonn Conference, other options and considerations weakened his status. Among them, first, his 4-year presidency produced the worst civil war in Kabul, sparking the growing popularity of the Taleban—but raising concerns about his rule among many Kabul residents after the Taleban collapse. Second, as the first prominent leader to reach Kabul after the Taleban was driven out, even his support-group, the NA, felt uncomfortable as to what he might do. Third, though as a Tadjik president he placed other Tadjiks in high office, including General Ahmad Shah Massoud as his Commander-in-Chief, his decision to meet Pakistan’s Inter-Service Intelligence (ISI) chief in Dubai during the Bonn Conference, virtually ousted him from NA favor.17 Fourth, Rabbani even went on to say in Dubai he did not “expect decisive results from the [Bonn] meeting,” insisting the future of Afghanistan had to be decided within Afghanistan.18 Finally, as the nominal head of the Northern Alliance, prospects of him becoming a catalyst of dividing NA, and thereby all Afghani factions, had to be prevented. While the Panjshiri Troika moved to sideline him, other players joined in. The United States directly urged warlords Ismail Khan in Herat and Abdul Rashid Dostum in Mazar-i-Sharif, as well as the Hazara leader, Karim Khalili, to persuade Rabbani to not just step down,19 but also support the interim arrangements being worked out at Bonn. President’s National Security Council special assistant, Zalmay Khalilzad, of Afghan origin, personally contacted Rabbani, suggesting both a carrot and a stick. The carrot, paradoxically though it was, utilized his reputation, Khalilzad proposing how this would suffer if he advanced his candidacy, since that could threaten donors from supplying reconstruction money. The threat came in the form of “serious [but unspecified] consequences.”20 In addition to the United States, the host foreign minister, Fischer, also appealed to his Russian counterpart, Igor Ivanov, to persuade

McCarthy and MacAskill, “King’s aide is favorite to be next leader,” op. cit. “Rabbani says Bonn talks not expected to yield results,” Times of India, November 28, 2001, from: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow.asp?art_id =76945488 19 “US arm-twisting forced Rabbani to step aside,” op. cit. 20 “US arm-twisting forced Rabbani to step aside,” op. cit. 17 18

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Rabbani to drop out,21 while Jack Straw, the British Foreign Secretary, visited Pakistan and Iran to get the same message across.22 Just as Rabbani became the first Afghani leaders to visit Kabul after the Taleban was driven out, Russia too became the first outside country to enter Kabul once the Taleban was driven out. A full 12-member delegation, under Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov, went to see how Russia could help the new government.23 Fortunately for the negotiators at Bonn, Russia did not connect with Rabbani to pursue its goals in Kabul nor conspire Afghan’s future to him. Through Igor Ivanov, Russia joined Fischer to also appeal to Iran to not advance Rabbani’s cause.24 Like the question mark over the king’s role, Rabbani’s participation in the new Afghanistan also dissolved quickly at Petersberg, by the second day, Wednesday 28. Rabbani contributed to his own downfall. As leader of Afghanistan’s Jamiat-i-Islam party, he criticized the Organization of Islamic Countries (OIC) for not helping Afghanistan at a time when he should have been mending fences to strengthen his candidacy. Pakistan did not advance his cause, and without at least this link as a platform, his chances were virtually nil. Even if Pakistan’s ISI parleyed with him, when his Mujahedeen government was ousted in 1996, since the ISI specifically instructed the Taleban to ground all pro-Soviet and pro-Panjshiri leaders, it is unlikely any Pakistani honeymoon would have taken Rabbani far. When Younus Qanooni, the NA leader at Bonn, threatened to shake Rabbani, Fischer and Brahimi had to intervene on behalf of Rabbani—and actually push Rabbani to accept the fait accompli.25 At age 61, Rabbani had no options left but to leave and wait. Deployment of Multilateral Force Talks of a multilateral force to secure post-Taleban Afghanistan were in the air even before the conference began, and with reason: It was needed not only for protection against an invisible threat, as connection with al-Qaeda had transformed Taleban into, but to also ensure the fractious Afghani groups at Bonn did not turn upon each other, espe-

“The unseen side of Afghan talks,” op. cit. “Pakistan aims to widen Afghani talks,” op. cit. 23 “Hopes rise for Afghan conference,” op. cit. 24 “The unseen side of Afghan talks,” op. cit. 25 “Rabbani defied alliance: Fahim,” Dawn, December 6, 2001, from: http://www .dawn.com/2001/12/06/int3.htm 21 22

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cially as they had done before Taleban took power in 1996. Besides, the U.S.-led forces zooming in on Mullah Omar’s stronghold in Kandahar at the very moment the future of Afghanistan was being chalked out in Bonn were in no hurry to abandon the country. Multilateralizing this force, as opposed to turning it into a U.N. peacekeeping force, had several advantages. First, it kept the United States at the steering wheel, thus dispensing of time-consuming U.N. approval of any urgent action, as well as possible opposition in the United Nations. Second, it would convert U.S. input into a broader and more collective format, at least on paper: by pulling strings from the back, the United States would escape public backlash, especially within Afghanistan and its neighboring countries. Third, as the first battle in the new war on terrorism, a multilateral force could more easily identify which countries were on board and which were not, essentially exposing what Bush had himself demanded more succinctly, of countries being with the United States or against it. Finally, U.S. leadership was the most legitimate response to 9/11, and sympathy for 9/11 was still high across the world at that point. The idea was popular both inside and outside Afghanistan, but could not automatically be resorted to. Outside Afghanistan, both Britain and France jumped to it.26 “We will not abandon Afghanistan this time (get original),” Tony Blair said, as his Defense Secretary Geoff Hoon added Britain would take the lead in dispatching a peace force;27 Jacques Chirac, too, proposed sending a multilateral force “to demilitarize Kabul,” while host Chancellor Gerard Schroeder promised reconstruction funds.28 Informal contacts to include Muslim troops also produced positive responses from Bangladesh, Indonesia, Jordan, Malaysia, and Turkey.29 Inside Afghanistan, all but the NA welcomed it en toto. While in principle a supporter of the proposal, the NA had serious reservations. First, it alone wanted control of Kabul, which it had between 1992

26 “Major powers welcome Afghan deal,” BBC News, December 5, 2001, from: http:// news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/south_asia/newsid_1693000/1693281.stm 27 “Britain ‘to head Afghan peace force’,” Guardian, December 11, 2001, from: http:// www.guardian.co.uk/afghanistan/story/0,1284,617017,00.html 28 Simon Jeffery, “Afghan factions sign Bonn deal,” Guardian, December 5, 2001, from: http://www.guardian.co.uk/afghanistan/story/0,1284,612417,00.html 29 Michael Richardson, “Malaysia, Indonesia ready to send troops,” CNN, November 19, 2001, from: http://www.cnn.com/2001/WO...east/11/19/ret.malaysia.indo/index .html

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and 1996; otherwise, it was felt, the momentum gathered from successfully defending Panjshir against the Taleban, then pushing it back to Kabul and beyond, would be lost. Second, there were apprehensions of a multilateral force being softer on Pashtuns than the Tadjiks would have liked; since the multilateral force could only target al-Qaeda and Taleban, the former fully, the latter selectively, to claim any legitimacy, it left a gap the NA felt would provide Pashtuns the leeway to return to power in Kabul. Finally, tied with the multilateral force issue was the division of labor of the expected interim government: It was believed, with the interim administration summoning a transitional government and constitutional loya jirga, local forces, rather than multilateral, could and should wield the axe, an issue I return to. Governance: From Transitional to Constitutional Another early agreement was the broad outline of Afghanistan’s democratic future. It would come in three very general phases, beginning with a 6-month interim administration until June 2006, then a transitional government for 2 years, before a constitution was formulated and adopted prior to elections, by the end of 2004. Legitimizing the process would be Afghanistan’s traditional and widely-respected institution of representation: the loya jirga (LJ).30 Disrupted during the decades of war, the LJ would be restored in phases, with an emergency convention summoned by the interim administration, then a constitutional loya jirga (CLJ) to ratify the constitution. Members of both would be selected by appropriate committees, thus invoking the very agencies of democratization. Spelling out the details predicted problems. Both the remaining issues in Table 5.4 almost stumped the conference in Koenigswinter. The first had to do with membership of the interim administration, the second the form of government to be adopted. Formation and Composition of Interim Administration Just as with leverage over the multilateral force, the NA also wanted to shape and control the interim administration. How many positions to fill it with, and which group to allocate each one to, became See Christine Noelle-Karimi, “The Loya Jirga: an effective political instrument? A historical overview,” Afghanistan: A Country Without a State?, eds., Noelle-Karimi, Conrad Schetteri, and Reinhard Schlagintweit (Frankfurt, Germany: IKO, Verlag für Interkulturelle Kommunikation, 2002), 37–50. 30

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contentious. As the dominant Afghan group in the immediate 9/11 aftermath, the NA wanted many more positions than the others, and Tadjik control over the critical portfolios. These were rejected, particularly by the Peshawar Group, a stand non-associates of the conference sympathized with. For example, the United States made it clear the NA would not be left as the dominant group, even though it was the group the United States turned to first in hunting down the Taleban.31 Since the NA was itself a collection of other groups—Tadjiks, Uzbekis, and Hazaras, in particular—the issue also threatened to break NA itself. Fighting between ambitious warlords within the IA was only to be expected, since the recent history of inter-group relations was full of it. When eventually positions were allocated, General Dostum renounced the entire conference for being given only the petty portfolios of mining, agriculture, and industry when he desperately wanted foreign affairs. “We are very sad,” he said on the day the agreement was signed on December 5, and promised “not to go to Kabul until there is a proper government in place.”32 “This is humiliation,” Dostum continued, a sentiment echoed by his Pakistani counterpart in the Peshawar Group. Sayyid Hamed Gilani, leader of the Peshawar Group at Bonn, also complained of the power-sharing formula being “unjust.” “Injustices have been committed in the distribution of ministries,” proclaimed Pir Sayyid Ahmed Gilani, his father. Anticipating such outcomes, Gilani joined the other royalists for a return of the king with slightly more than symbolic powers. What complicated negotiations was the inability of sponsors, mediators, and facilitators to offer any solutions other than to urge for compromises. As outsiders, they had less leverage over such allocations than over proposing the positions. This was advantageous since it prevented the negotiations and outcomes from being forced upon Afghanis or determined by outsiders. It was an example of actual nitty-gritty negotiations between Afghanis, which was not new, but within a facilitative environment, which was new. Context mattered as much as content, a factor to produce quite different dynamics and conclusions in Iraq.

“US opposes recognition for Alliance government,” Dawn, November 28, 2001, from: http://www.dawn.com/2001/12/06/int3.htm 32 “Uzbek warlord rejects Afghan accord,” CNN, December 6, 2001, from: http:// www.cnn.com/2001/WO...ral/12/06/gen.afghan.dostum/index.html 31

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One of the reasons for the stalemate was the NA demand to increase its allocation of positions. As many as 150 was demanded at first,33 which, as the United Nations expected, had to be halved before a marathon 10-hour session led by Brahimi produced a smaller list of chosen candidates appeared.34 At least one feature remained consistent: The NA had the largest delegation at Koenigswinter, but seeking the largest IA portfolio share as well as the critical position obscured the minority status of the NA in terms of the Afghani population distribution. Only on December 4, 2001 did the NA agree too whittle down the size and propose its own candidates. Even then, the 20-member IA was riddled with NA’s strategic claims. On that day, Abdul Sattar Sirat, an Uzbeki, was expected to lead the IA; and in exchange for the NA not occupying that particular position, the NA received almost all the other critical portfolios. Of the 30 positions, Pashtuns were placed in charge of 11, Tadjiks kept eight, Hazaras five, and Uzbekis three, with others for smaller groups.35 The foreign, defense, and interior portfolios went to Tadjiks, Abdallah, Fahim, and Qanooni. Similarly, the NA controlled 17 of the positions, Rome Group nine, leaving the others for largely independent candidates.36 Almost all of the Rome Group were Pashtuns, with Abdul Rehman, a lone Tadjik in charge of Transport and Tourism. Also noteworthy was the appointment of 3 Shi’as, with Seyyed Mustafa Kazem in charge of Commerce, Mohammad Hanif Hanif Balkhi in charge of Hajj, and Seyyed Hussein Anwari in charge of agriculture; and 2 Uzbekis, with Shaher Kargar in charge of Water and Electricity, in addition to being a vice-chairman, and Abdul Rahim Karimi in charge of Justice. As some form of a breakthrough, 2 women were included, Sima Samar, who was allocated Women’s Affairs, represented not only Hazaras but also the Rome Group, while Tadjik Suhaila Seddiqui was placed in charge of public health. The notable exception of the Peshawar Group led to charges of Afghanistan becoming “panjiristian” (sic),37 33 Simon Jeffery, “Afghan factions sign Bonn deal,” Guardian, December 5, 2001, from: http://www.guardian.co.uk/afghanistan/story/0,1284,6124,00.html 34 “King’s aide is favorite to be next leader,” CNN, op. cit. 35 “At-a-glance guide to Afghanistan,” BBC News, December 5, 2001, from: http://news .bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/south_asia/newsid_1693000/1693304.stm 36 See “The Administration,” The Times, Deceber 6, 2001, from: http://www.thetimes .co.uk/article0,,2001560010-2001563363,00.html 37 Richard Beeston and Stephen Farrell, “Bonn peace deal marginalizes the old guard,” The Times, December 6, 2001, from: http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/ 0,2001560010-2001563363,00.html

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but the deal was cast in much more fanfare at home and abroad. As some sort of a master-stroke, the key position of the leader was kept for Pashtun, but as we will see, of a different stripe. Leadership Only in the penultimate moment, that is, December 5, was Sirat’s name as the favorite to become leader replaced. Although Hamed Karzai belonged to the Rome Group, as a Popalzoi relative of the king, three factors enhanced his sudden candidacy and acceptance in the final stretch: (a) he was a Pashtun, like the king; (b) with the king, he was expected to help assuage the larger Pashtuni population, even bring them on board; and (c) at that very moment, instead of negotiating at the Petersberg hotel, he was leading 4,000 NA troops to win Kandahar from Mullah Omar by persuasion (through Taleban defection). He was young and westernized, reflecting the very qualities of the Panjshiri Trio; and he had enough of a reserve against Pakistan to appeal to the United States. Yet, what clinched the issue on his behalf was a quid pro quo with the Tadjiks, specifically the Shura-i-Nazar faction. Since the NA got control of the strategic ministries, it agreed to make the then fairly uncontroversial and largely conventional Karzai the president.38 Designing Iraqi Democracy In spite of the DPWG being established in September 2002, the nuts and bolts of Iraqi democratization were left as post-Saddam tasks. As in Afghanistan, regime-change was not just the top-priority, but also the precondition of all other goals. Whereas Afghanistan’s regime-change goal was accomplished by a Plan B laying the grounds of democracy and building upon at least a decade of peace-seeking, U.N.-motivated efforts involving a wide variety of actors, the bulk of Iraq’s democratization became an a posteriori regime-change function supervised by the United States and inviting very few other players. Afghanistan’s approach reflected more bottom-up engagement while Iraq’s remained largely top-down: True, the vanguards of democratization had to be filtered through U.S. interests, but more Afghani groups and external actors had a say in Afghani outcomes than in Iraq’s.

38 J. Alexander Thier, “The politics of peace-building: year one: from Bonn to Kabul,” Afghanistan: A Country Without a State?, 48.

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Softening the contrasts and exposing the common blueprint underbelly were the roles of precedence and infrastructures. By precedence is simply meant Afghanistan’s functional paradigm becoming an Iraqi role model. This argument is supported by (a) Lakhdar Brahimi influencing both cases, though in far different capacities to shape similar outcomes; and (b) the increasing legitimacy Afghanistan’s transitional institutions were acquiring in a very divided society.39 Whether these led the United States to de-emphasize the democratization design functions in Iraq or not is difficult to say, but whereas the Bonn process was negotiable for Afghanis, the CPA arrangements were a fait accompli Iraqis had to adjust to. Complicating matters, the very group to have constructed and operated Iraq’s political mechanisms before the war was quickly disbanded after liberating the country. Without the Ba’athists, Iraq’s other groups had to, and probably wanted to, start from scratch to adjust to the governance framework supplied by the United States. Ba’athist exclusion imposed a harder blow on Iraq’s Sunnis than Taleban exclusion on Afghanistan’s Pashtuns. Though there were key defectors in both, Iraqi Sunnis were simply unable to match Afghanistan’s symbolic counterpart in the king or its functional counterpart in Hamed Karzai. Among the consequences: Iraq’s majority group was left adrift, threatening Iraqi centralization; but dividing Pashtunis strengthened Afghani centralization and Taleban opposition. The difference of Afghanistan having one foot in the democratization camp and Iraq having neither may be subtle, but the implications are far-reaching: With the healing process being nurtured in divided Afghanistan but not in divided Iraq, insurgents and terrorists can play a defensive role, at best, in the former, but adopt a more offensive role in Iraq if they happen to be indigenous, or gravitate to Iraq if they happen to be outsiders. Democratization survives in one but falters in the other at a critical stage. If disbanding the Ba’athist and dismembering the military pulled the democratization plug, anchoring democratization on questionable offshore vanguards added illegitimacy. Ahmad Chalabi may have been a quicker anti-Saddam wit than other Iraqi exilees, but the caution the United States demonstrated against similarly inclined Afghanis, like Rabbani and the Panjshiri Trio, was conspicuous by its Iraqi absence.

39 Subsequently, Zalmay Khalilzad would shift from Kabul to Baghdad as U.S. ambassador.

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What was more vivid in Iraq than in Afghanistan was a timetable sin negotiations. A CPA press packet traces “Iraq’s path to democracy” only to the country’s liberation in April 2003, highlighting the establishment of IGC by July 2003.40 Entrusted with two critical tasks, explained below, the 25-member IGC was the most representative Iraqi agency to date, as Table 5.6 shows. With 13 members representing Shi’as, five Sunnis, five Kurds (all of Sunnis), one Christian and one Turkoman, the IGC mirrored the country’s population distribution—another plus in a country boasting few administrative or political positives. The third positive feature was the construction of an equally representative cabinet, with 12 portfolios for Shi’as, 10 for Sunnis (including Kurds), two for Turkomans (including one Sunni ), and one Christian. The fourth positive element was the inclusion of both partisan and professional, dominant parties and unsung ones (including the Communist Party), locals and exilees, as well as secular and religious representatives. Finally, Adnan Pachachi, the first of the rotating presidents, was a former foreign minister, indicating CPA’s attempt to not only ethnically balance the IGC, but to also bring cooperation between the different rival factions. Several weaknesses were also evident. First, the Ba’ath Party was excluded, but also there were too many parties, thus demonstrating too divided loyalties for decisions to be conveniently made. Second, only one woman belonged to the IGC, Ms. Aquila al-Hashimi, but her September assassination exposed the ghost to haunt almost all subsequent leaders of the country: Without security, there was no guarantee of life, and therefore full-fledged faith in the CPA/IGC purpose of democratizing Iraq—a fate Afghanistan would not be immune too, although, with many warlords, the fear is mitigated for a number of leaders. Third, the dominant portfolios remained under Shi’ite control, including oil and the interior; though Foreign Affairs was allocated to Hoshyar Zebari of the Kurdish Democratic Party, all appointments and policy pursuits had to be appraised by Bremer and the CPA. Fourth, making Ba’athist exclusion its driving philosophy, the CPA barely employed safeguards, or checks and balances, against the privateering behavior of IGC members, a loophole leading to strong charges against Chalabi printing fake currency before the currency

40 CPA, “Iraqi interim government: announcement ceremony press packet,” from: http://www.cpa-iraq.org

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5. sine qua non democracy Table 5.6 Iraq Governing Council & Cabinet Membership

IGC Members

Cabinet

Shi’a (party affiliation): Ibrahim al-Jaafari (Da’wa Islamic Party) Ezzedine Salim (Da’wa Islamic Party) Iyad Allawi (Iraq National Accord) Ahmad Chalabi (Iraq National Congress) Mohammad Bahr al-Ulloum (Najaf cleric) Hamid Majid Mousa (Communist Party) Ahmed al-Barak (human rights activist) Raja Habib al-Khuzzai (southern tribal leader) Wael Abdul Latif (Basra governor) Mouwafaq al-Rabii (doctor, human rights activist) Abdel-Karim Mahoud al-Mohammedawi (Hezbollah from Amarra) Ms. Aquila al-Hashimi (foreign affairs expert: assassinated in September) Sunni: Adnan Pachachi (former foreign minister; first rotating president) Naseer al-Chaderchi (National Democratic Party) Gazi Mashal Ajil al-Yawer (northern tribal figure) Samir Shakir Mahmoud Kurds: Massoud Barzai (Kurdish Democratic Party; Sunni) Jalal Talabani (Patriotic Union of Kurds, Sunni) Salaheddin Bahaaeddin (Kurdistan Islamic Union, Sunni) Mahmoud Othman (Kurdish Socialist Party; Sunni) Dara Noor al-Din (judge, Sunni) Assyrian Christian: Younaden Kana (Democratic Movement, Assyrian) Turkoman: Sondul Chapouk (teacher and engineer)

Shi’a: Agriculture: Abdel Amir Abdur Rahima (National Democratic Party) Communications: Haidar al-Abbadi (Daawa Party supporter) Culture: Mufid Mohammad Jawad ul-Jazairi (Iraqi Communist Party) Education: Alaa Abdessaheb al-Alwass (former WHO officer) Health: Khodayyir Abbas (Da’wa supporter) Immigration: Mohammad Jassem Khodayyir (SCIRI/Da’wa) Labor and Social Affairs: Sami Azara al-Majun (tribal leader, formerly Iraq National Congress) Oil: Ibrahim Mohammad Bahr al-Ulloum (s/o cleric Mohammad Bahr al-Ulloum) Planning: Mahdi al-Hafex (Iraqi Independent Democrats) Trade: Ali Allawi (businessman) Youth and Sports: Ali Faek al-Ghadbass Sunni: Electricity: Ayham al-Samarrai (Iraq Independent Democrats) Finance: Kanulal-Kilani Human Rights: Abdel Basset Turki Higher Education: Ziad Abderrazzak Mohammad Aswad (Iraq Islamic Party) Justice: Hisham Abderrahman Shibli (National Democrat Party) Foreign Affairs: Hoshyar Zebari (Kurdish Democrati Party) Public Works: Ms. Nisrin Mustafa al-Barwari (former Kurdish regional government minister) Environment: Abderrahman Sadik Karim (engineer) Industry and Mines: Mohammad Tufiq Rahim (Patriotic Union of Kurds) Water Resources: Latif Rashid (Patriotic Union of Kurds) Turkoman: Reconstruction and Housing: Bayan Baquer Sullagh (SCIRI) Technology: Rashad Mandan Omar (Sunni Turkoman) Christian: Transport: Bahman Zaya Bulos (engineer)

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conversion to make a profit—and an eventual CPA/IGC warrant for his arrest.41 Finally, by unwittingly bringing Shi’ites together for the first time, the CPA provided them a platform to both consolidate their interests and single-handedly pursue them, bringing clerical support into the political agency,42 whether against the other groups or not, but certainly giving them the chance to unite before any elections just as the Kurds could consolidate their own interests and loyalties during the no-fly-zone-triggered era of autonomy. Before the CPA’s mandate expired on June 30, 2004,43 the IGC had to fulfill two consecutive tasks: complete a transitional administrative law (TAL)—a temporary body of rules, regulations, and rights until the interim constitution; and to prepare an interim constitution. With a November 15 completion target, the first task was 3 months late. The only serious democracy-related development in between was the airlifting of Chalabi and his cohorts to Nasirriyah to begin the much-needed political mobilization from mid-April. That Chalabi and his INC did not survive even as long as the imposed CPA framework symbolizes the leaky Iraqi democratization boat. Based on a legal document, the CPA was a misnomer and the comparative wildcard. The legal document was U.N. Resolution 1483 of 2003, which recognized the CPA as the final Iraqi authority by placing Iraqi’s oil revenues at its disposal. Although spending was to be transparent and audited by an International Advisory Board, consisting of international financial experts, the funds and many other CPA decisions went beyond reconstruction into private pursuits. For example, C-130 planes dropped $12b in cash to win friends, but as the U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform noted in a report, this could also “have enriched criminals and insurgents.” Congressman Henry Waxman questioned: “Who in the right mind would send 363 tons of cash into a war zone?”44 Such narrow interpretations stemmed from the coalition component of CPA referring to a narrower set of interests than the 34 countries participating in CPA 41 Roger Hardy, “The Chalabis:victims or villains?” BBC News, August 9, 2004, from: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3548444.stm 42 Jennifer Bremer, “Electing chaos,” Washington Post, January 18, 2004, B07. No relation of Paul Bremer. 43 A date scheduled just before the U.S. Democrat Party convention, prompting many to question Bush’s motives. 44 See “Coalition Provisional Authority,” Wikipedia, from: http://en.wikipedia.org/ wiki/Coalition_Provisional_Authority. Accessed April 6, 2007.

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would suggest.45 Among the 34, only the United States and the United Kingdom dominated, developed vested interests, and stayed the duration. Of the two, the United States called the shots from Baghdad, while Britain influenced decisions in and around Basra. Against this set-up, the CPA became a largely military vehicle determining Iraqi democracy. By contrast, the Afghani military was largely disconnected from the Bonn Conference and democracy-building, though the place and role of warlords create many ambiguities if the military is really a meaningful factor. This is not to say Afghanis undertook the tasks independently, but the external influences upon these tasks were diplomatic and multilateral, operating through the United Nations, and not military-driven. CPA’s first leader was a retired military general, Jay Garner, from April 21, 2003.46 On My 11, he was replaced by a former US ambassador to the Netherlands, L. Paul Bremer, III, serving as the U.S. Presidential Envoy and Administrator. The quick replacement exposed a policy difference: Garner opposed the de-ba’athification proposal from the White House, believing, in fact, that Iraqis should determine their own future themselves.47 Bremer’s approach to bringing Iraqis in was through the IGC, established on July 22, much like Afghanis were summoned to Bonn to begin the process of wrestling control of their own country. Like those Afghanis, the Iraqis brought in by Bremer were largely exiles and Ba’athist dissidents. The critical differences, however, related to the independence of the invitees (exilees) and the treatment of excluded groups. The multiplicity of exiled groups attending the Bonn Conference producing a deliberate IA contrasted with the singularity IGC view of toeing the U.S. line and producing Iraqi democracy as they saw fit. One might argue Iraqi democracy was envisaged by IGC just as Afghani democracy was envisaged at Bonn, but whether the vision is by a single or multiple group sets the Iraq and Afghani experiences apart. Strengthening this dissimilarity was the nature of the treatment

45 These included Eritrea and Ethiopia from Africa, Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Japan, Kazakhstan, Republic of Korea, Mongolia, the Philippines, Uzbekistan, and Turkey from Asia, Albania, Armenia, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Georgia, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Republic of Macedonia, the Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Slovenia, Spain, and the U.K. from Europe, Colombia, El Salvador, Nicaragua, and the United States from the western hemisphere, and Australia. 46 He was Director of Office for Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance (ORHA) before. 47 Names and dates from “Coalition Provisional Authority,” Wikipedia, op. cit.

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of exclude groups: Ba’athist exclusion alienated more Sunnis than Taleban exclusion alienated Pashtuns from the electoral process. In formalizing an Iraqi division initiated after Operation Desert Storm ended in 1991, Bremer and the CPA unwittingly stoked ethnic rivalries. To protect Kurds and Shi’as from Saddam’s persecution, the United States, United Kingdom, and France, in order of importance, imposed no-fly zones (NFZs) from the 36th Parallel northwards for Kurds from April 1991, and 33rd Parallel southwards for Shi’as from August 1992.48 CPA structured itself accordingly, creating northern, central, and southern zones of administration, virtually encouraging Kurds to convert the no-fly protection into desires for autonomy and Shi’as to claim an Iraqi leadership role based on its majority population status. The already excluded Sunnis, stranded in the resourceless central zone, would begin their resistance shortly after the IGC became functional, a cause attracting external jihadists, fueling Shi’ite countermeasures, and plunging Iraq into a bottomless arena of bloody confrontations. Structuring CPA and staffing IGC fed into these fears. The CPA created a Program Review Board (PRB) which did not keep minutes and records, privatized the centrally-planned Iraqi economy by reducing taxes for foreign enterprises from 40% to 15% of income, established inspector generals in all ministries to root out corruption, thus opening a debate if an occupying force could legally authorize these, and assumed control over the Development Fund for Iraq (DFI), which managed the oil-for-food exchanges, and the U.S. Iraqi Relief and Reconstruction Fund. Since many of these did not have Afghani counterparts, how Iraq was being democratized under the United States clearly differed from U.N.-supervised democratization of Afghanistan. Once established, IGC was itself staffed by complying exilees and Saddam dissidents, again subordinating Sunnis. Among the prominent members was Chalabi, who had convinced the Washington, DC,

48 The southern limit was 32nd Parallel originally, but extended to 33rd in 1996. Also see “Containment: the Iraqi no-fly zones,” BBC News December 29, 1998, from: http:// news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/events/crisis_in_the_gulf/forces_and_fir . . . Accessed April 6, 2007. France withdrew in 1998, but the Northern NFZ facilitated Operation Provide Comfort to Kurds from 1991 and facilitated Operation Northern Watch for the U.S. from January 1997, while the Southern NFZ was also known as Operation Southern Watch. Iraq never recognized these, claiming infringement of its sovereignty and following the U.S. Operation Desert Fox in December 1998, Saddam even announced rewards for shooting U.S. or U.K. aircraft down.

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neoconservative crew of Douglas Feith, William Luti, Abraham Shulski, Paul Woltow, and David Wurmser, Saddam had WMDs when he didn’t.49 Perhaps the most important task assigned IGC was to develop a transitional administrative law, providing “a historic bill of rights for the Iraqi people and a roadmap to a permanent and elected government in 2005.”50 Entrusting such enormous tasks on questionable individuals vividly exposes the difference between contending and vested interests determining the future of Afghanistan and Iraq. Even the Bonn Accord was determined by a number of questionable leaders, but because it involved deliberations, checks, and balances were also placed and proceedings could not help but reflect transparency; with Iraq, none of these qualifications or safeguards existed. Democracy was being designed in both, but by questionably qualified experts in Iraq. In the final analysis, Iraq fitted the U.S. pattern more than it did the United Nations. How Germany and Japan were democratized after World War II under U.S. occupation sets the standards for Iraq today, but given its broader mandate and stakeholders, the United Nations cannot but prevent democratization from being so narrowly evolved, with Afghanistan as its example. Comparisons and Contrasts Table 5.7 elaborates further how the Bonn framework was adapted to Iraq, and under what categories being analyzed in this work. For analytical purposes, the democratization flow-chart envisaged at Bonn for Afghanistan and the modified form adopted in Iraq can be placed into four operational phases. Based on the underlying purposes, these are simply called foundation, construction, consolidation, and experimentation, although these do not have to be the only labels applicable. Foundation essentially refers to laying the groundwork of democracy and democratic structures. It involves the initiation process from the moment conceptualization entered the negotiation table. Once the formula is adopted, the foundational task ceases, and constructing

49 For more on this, see Nick Ritchie and Paul Rogers, The Political Road to War With Iraq: Bush, 9/11 and the Drive to Overthrow Saddam (Abington, Oxon, OX, U.K.: Routledge, 2007), 128–33. 50 The White House, “Fact sheet: the transition to Iraqi self-government,” May 24, 2004, from: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/05/20040524-4.html. Document summarizes U.S. President George W. Bush’s speech to the U.S. Army War College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, May 24, 2004.

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the institutions begin: Given the conflict preceding the foundational phase, construction involves invoking a legitimizing element, such as the Emergency Loya Jirga in Afghanistan and the IGC in Iraq. Until the efforts are eventually legitimized, which, under democracy of any stripe, demands elections, the construction phase remains interim— the term made official in Afghanistan for the immediate post-Bonn agency, but which had to await other functions in Iraq before becoming official. Since interim carries many of the same connotations and denotations of transitional, comparing Afghanistan and Iraq raises a semantic problem. For Afghanistan, the Interim Administration created the Transitional Government, but for Iraq, the Transitional Government created the Interim Administration. Since both these labels can be incorporated under the construction label for comparative purposes, the construction phase covers the wide array of events under both administrations. Lest the key task of this phase be obscured, it is simply to pave the way for drafting a constitution, putting in place such institutions as and when needed. Once accomplished, the next phase of consolidation begins. This is where the nuts and bolts of democracy take institutionalized identity, the most dominant medium being the constitution chalked out. Finally, when the constitution is drafted and ratified, and election results produce a government, the experimentation phase takes over. Under the microscope is the democratization originally envisaged. How the elected governments performs informs us if democracy is sinking in or not, and if not, what the constraints might be; and even if it is sinking in, what adaptations have had to be made. In theory, the tightly-compressed two-year schedule may be demanding but not flawed. It spells out key democratization thresholds, remains consistent with shifts from authoritarian rules elsewhere, befits the needs of sharply divided societies, and admirably buries the traces of recently-concluded conflicts. In practice, it elevates the sentiments of democracy over those from inter-ethnic cleavages, assumes the establishment of institutions is more important than their maturation, and ignores both endogenous variables, such as the lower profile of individualizing voting behavior in collective-minded cultures, and exogenous developments, like the secular growth of Islamic neo-fundamentalism threatening women participation in elections. On the one hand, the presence of threats such as these should not deter model-making or electoral experimentation, yet on the other, transplanting democratic formulas from one society with a facilitative culture to another with

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5. sine qua non democracy Table 5.7 Bonn Framework, Iraq’s Adaptation

Democratization Stages Bonn Conference

Iraqi Adaptation

Foundational

* Multiparty negotiations under U.N. leading to creation of Interim Administration (effective December 22, 2001) * First cabinet formed as part of multiparty negotiations and functional since that date * Summoning of Emergency Loya Jirga ( June 2002) * Shift to Transitional Government shifted to June 2002

* Selective negotiations under U.S. leading to creation of 25-member Iraqi Governing Council (effective July 2003) * First cabinet formed through IGC by September 2003 * IGC acts as ELJ counterpart

Constructionist

* Invoke an emergency session of loya jirga (ELJ), after lengthy hiatus and conflictual past, * Mobilize would-be ELJ representatives for support over contentious issues at ELJ (about monarchy, centralization, presidential government)

* Transitional administration (and return of sovereignty to Iraq) postponed to July 1, 2004 from November 2003 * Transitional administrative law (or Interim Constitution) announced first week of March, a one-week delay

Consolidationalist

* Finalize constitution (and especially find support over contentious issues) * Prepare for two elections (presidential and parliamentary, both in terms of mobilizing

* National Conference convened July 2004, and National Council established then * Transitional government elected democratically January 2005 to prepare final constitution

Experimentational

* Put elected government into practice: rein in warlords, sustain ethnic balance, and remain alert over possible Taleban resurgence

* Constitution ratified by October 2005 * Constitutional government elected December 2005

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an entirely different cultural orientation should also become more of a drawing-board than a ground-level consideration. Whether a struggling Afghanistan succeeding or a resistant Iraq worsening becomes the model may shed more democratic light than one-size-fits-all approaches to the same goal. In these senses, Afghanistan may very well be ahead of Iraq without either showing any signs of irreversibility. Comparing Iraq’s equivalent of the six dominant issues discussed at Bonn polarizes even more the two cases of democratization. Parenthesizing these equivalents in the first column, Table 5.8 portrays a relatively bleaker Iraqi picture. Without a symbol as the Afghan king, Iraq’s ability to centralize authority and unify the country against centrifugal tendencies is not just weaker but also a formidable impediment. In the second dimension, whereas both rabble-rousers Rabbani and Chalabi, for Afghanistan and Iraq, respectively, were eventually sidelined, keeping Rabbani out of the Bonn Conference paid handsome Afghani dividends but not keeping Chalabi out of the CPA’s inner circle and IGC reduced popular trust in both, thus adding to the legitimacy problem from the very beginning instead of minimizing it, as in Afghanistan. How the multilateral force configured in democratizing a conflict-ridden country also produced diverging implications. To be sure, it was needed in both Afghanistan and Iraq, but its aloofness from the unfolding political developments in Afghanistan contrasted to its intricate engaged in Iraq, even then from behind the steering wheel, permitted politics-as-usual to return to Afghanistan but reinforced the politics-by-stealth or politics-out-of-fear pattern so rampant during Saddam’s regime. Turning to restructuring during the transition upto adopting a constitution, Afghanistan could already claim greater stability than Iraq owing to the symbolic presence of a state-wide figure, the sidelining of a trouble-maker, and the independent role of the multilateral force, as elaborated above. In addition, Afghanistan could resort to its traditional agency of legitimacy, the loya jirga, ultimately in two forms— raising questions if democratization must largely be an endogenous movement or exogenously influenced, and broader still if democracy must conform to a one-size-fits-all pattern at the expense of local styles. If these were not enough to depict the Afghani-Iraqi comparisons structurally, the nature and composition of ad hoc post-conflict agencies clearly show both countries headed in different directions with regards maintaining an ethnic balance. Both agencies relied on exilees, with diverse groups for Afghanistan and Iraq, as observed before. Yet, the

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Table 5.8 Bonn Issues Compared for Afghanistan And Iraq Bonn Issues

Afghanistan

Iraq

1. Role of the King (or some unifying Iraqi figure)

Symbolic and crucial for unity

No counterpart: no symbol for unity, and crucial only by absence

2. Role of Rabbani (or Chalabi for Iraq)

Minimal: sidelined through persuasion

Influential: sidelined after the damage had been done

3. Resort to Yes, and helpful by Multilateral Force: remaining aloof of political developments

Yes, but as determinant of political development

4. Restructuring Governance, from Transition to Constitution:

Resolved through Emergency Loya Jirga and Constitutional Loya Jirga (and king)

Concentrated during the critical initial years on CPA, thereafter with CPA serving as ghost

5. Nature and Composition of Interim Administration:

Concentrated on Northern Alliance and Rome Group, but king dilutes factionalism

Concentrated on exiles, mostly without representative domestic anchors or audience

6. Leadership:

Division of labor: king or symbol, Hamed Karzai over substance, both in harmony

Unclear and disharmonious

lack of solid domestic anchors exposed the Iraqi exilees much more vividly than their Afghani counterparts, to which the king’s symbolic statist role continued immeasurably in Afghanistan, as did his compensational role for the demoralized and subordinated Pashtuns in Bonn. Ultimately, as the last dimension notes, Afghanistan emerged from Bonn with a leadership division of labor in which the king remained the symbol while Karzai took charge of the substantive developments, both resonating off each other, not in their familial relationship, but through official responsibilities. Iraq’s was just the opposite: competition to be the leader between both legitimate (established) and illegitimate (exilee) claimants, ethnic rather than state identities tightening those chains, and either confluence or discord with the CPA.

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Conclusions As the chapter’s central finding, whether democratization is negotiated or imposed makes a difference. That difference is not the format of democracy itself: The chapter clearly finds several parallels between the structures envisaged at Bonn and by the CPA, between the endproduct and several of the thresholds leading up to the projected goal. That difference is more about the rationale behind invading a conflictridden country to democratize it, the suitability of the players brought on to engage in this task, and the spins the notion of democracy must go through to create representative governments. In short, the difference is George W. Bush: Whereas Afghan democratization sprang from a legitimate background, automatically engaged more authentic representatives and institutions than not, and invoked a blueprint as consistently as was humanly feasible, Iraqi democratization sprang from false information by Iraqi dissidents, to a gung-ho neoconservative Washington group determined to not only eliminate Saddam Hussein, but also make a model out of their efforts, thus resorting to devious representatives, creating and abandoning institutions for Iraqis instead of by Iraqis, and distorting fairly functional CPA arrangements to serve narrow interests in Washington and Iraq. No matter how messy they may get, where there are negotiations, as the chapter reveals, there is hope; where imposition substitutes for negotiations, hope is still-born. The difference between Afghanistan and Iraqi democratization boils down to three letters twice over: (unnecessary) war and CPA.

6. AD HOC DEMOCRACY: TROUBLED WATERS TOO DEEP, BRIDGES TOO FEW Introduction Crafting institutions is both rare and protracted even in advanced countries. For countries untutored in democracy, the generally Herculean task of constructing democratic constitutions became extra perilous for Afghanistan and Iraq without fully extinguishing cinders from recent clashes. Inter-ethnic dialogue and crossing religious barriers became tentative at best, stifling at worst. Completing the job in the tightest of time testifies to how sincerely and earnestly many Afghanis and Iraqis wanted their countries to become normal—but also expose windows of vulnerabilities minority groups face or opportunities for jihadist groups to exploit to disrupt those efforts. Both Afghanistan and Iraq ultimately met their deadlines in fulfilling almost identical goals, though diverging spirits and methods produced different results in the immediate aftermath of the maiden democratic elections: cautious optimism in Afghanistan, increasing pessimism in Iraq. Exogenous threats pushed Iraq into the frying pan while Afghanistan’s struggle to stay out of one got off to a promising start. Constitution-making did not create or provoke exogenous forces, but both became intertwined anyway. Afghanistan had six months from December 22 to convene an Emergency Loya Jirga (ELJ), which would then give the green signal to constitution-making; but Iraq, on the other hand, failed to meet the November 2003 deadline for developing a Transitional Administrative Law (TAL) by over the three months. What were the contentious issues? Five are listed in Table 6.1 for each country. A discussion about each leads to comparisons, contrasts, and conclusions. Afghanistan’s Road to First-base At stake for Afghanistan immediately after Bonn was to assure continuity in governance, a task necessitating Hamed Karzai to continue as head of the transitional government the ELJ would vote for after serving, for six months, as the interim government. Between December 22,

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Table 6.1 Interim Administration and Pitfalls Afghanistan: * Resurfacing royalism * Growing desire to check and balance Tadjiks * Converging warlord-jihadist threat * Parliamentary versus presidential inclinations * Emergency Loya Jirga, June 10–16, 2002 Iraq: * Role of Islam * Majority-based caucus-driven election * Return of the U.N. * Interim constitution * Governance gap between July 2004–January 2005

2001 and June 2002, a number of developments, listed in Table 6.1, suggested this would not be automatic.1 Resurfacing Royalism Afghanistan increasingly faced, throughout early 2002, not a desire for the return to pure monarchism, which was essentially buried at Bonn, but the adoption of some kind of a royalty-based variation. This sentiment was driven by at least three factors, the last two of them listed among the contentious issues in Table 6.1: (a) perception of Karzai as an ineffective leader; (b) mounting tensions between ethnic groups; and (c) jihadists responsible for ousting the Soviet Union thirsting for the restoration of the monarchy. Karzai’s task was not easy, since balancing the ethnic groups was in itself a full-time job. Making decisions was stymied, often elicited discordant reactions from within his own administration, and added to a growing sense of state-wide uncertainty. He was not unpopular as a person, and many were beginning to openly discuss if working together with the king might even help stabilize decision-making. Pashtuns were mostly in favor of the king as both the nominal and executive head of the country, but Tadjiks would accept him only in the capacity of ‘Father of the Nation,’ a position Karzai and outside inter1 See Ahmed Rashid, “Uncertainty hovers loya jirag [sic],” Eurasia Insight, June 10, 2002, from: http://www.eurasianet.org/departments/insight/articles/eav061002. shtml

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ests embraced, while the Rome Group introduced the prime minister position, to which Zahir Shah, as president rather than king, would appoint Karzai. Behind these propositions lay the unfolding concern of abandoning the old system for the new—an apprehension largely kept at bay since too much water had flown under the bridge during the three decades of the king’s exile. Historical rivalries fed into these emerging concerns. With the Tadjiks in the saddle in early 2002, strenuous efforts to sustain the status quo disenchanted other minority groups. Chief among these was General Dostum, the Uzbeki warlord. He was dissatisfied with the Bonn Accord, did not get his desired portfolio at Bonn, and felt his Northern Alliance (NA) participation had come to naught. Along with other warlords, Dostum’s anti-Tadjik cross-current rippled across the country, albeit only through sentiments and in relative silence. Together, they could wreck any loya jirga. Finally, mujahedeens like Burhanuddin Rabbani, continued to feel their participation would add stability. Even better, if these were anchored in the good offices of the king, whose symbolic role had by now become some sort of a masterpiece political ploy, jihadists would acquire greater legitimacy and return closer to the fountains of power. Under these circumstances, western interests to keep Rabbani out would dissolve. Western interests in keeping the king out of any political position actually trumped all of these developments. Those interests prevented the monarch’s restoration from wrecking their vision of producing a framework for democracy through negotiations between the rival groups at the Bonn Conference. They succeeded then, and when Zahir Shah declined to accept any political position during his ELJ inauguration speech on June 10, 2002, those interests triumphed again—squashing (a) the jihadi hope of a royalist alliance, (b) Pashtuni desire for a president-premier duality, and (c) the warlord quest of bringing in the Tadjiks. Both the Tadjik Trio and Karzai won, but tensions between them did not dissipate. Perhaps the biggest loser was the Rome Group, which triumphed as much in Bonn as the Tadjiks. The king’s decisions did not sweeten the group’s relations with the Tadjiks. Most of all, it exposed the sublime intervention of the United States—not through its military presence, but fortuitously through an ambassador who was himself of Afghan origin: Zalmay Khalilzad.2 2 From Michael R. Gordon and Bernard E. Trainor, Cobra II: The Inside Story of the Invasion and Occupation of Iraq (New York, NY: Pantheon, 2006).

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Tadjiks at Arm’s Distance Ernst Renan’s famous quip of power corrupting, but absolute power corrupting absolutely, aptly explains the Tadjik predicament in early 2002. Behind its elevated positioning was military power: Tadjiks alone had more military power than any Afghanistan armed force, which was still being formed, let alone any other faction. Through the Shurai-Nazar at the Bonn Conference, they demonstrated their trigger-happy desire to institutionalize their power across the country; and when they joined U.S. troops to hunt Osama bin Laden and other al-Qaeda in Tora Bora, Pashtuni chiefs in the region feared Taleban reprisal for their neutrality less than of institutionalizing Tadjik power across Afghanistan. It is one logical step from there to bin Laden’s miraculous escape from Tora Bora. His getting away just in the nick of time became the top U.S. concern, but for the local chiefs hitherto helping U.S. troops, it was a defining moment in preventing Tadjik authoritarianism. Yet the fear lurked, and not just in the Pashtun districts. This spelled trouble for the Tadjiks in any loya jirga. Since their monopoly of critical portfolios would be challenged, even threatened, they held on even more closely to them, as if creating bargaining chips at the ELJ. The more adamant they became, the more Karzai’s position was weakened by association. Among the lessons he drew prior to the ELJ was to configure a coalition to chip Tadjik power away without entering any confrontation. This was politics the Afghan way; and not only were Pashtuns adept at it, but also Karzai was exceptionally well-placed to spearhead the campaign given his connections, credentials, and far less controversial background. Converging Royalist-Jihadist Threat Very much like the Tadjiks, jihadists also opposed the monarchy before the Bonn Conference, one reason why love was not lost for the king during his three-decade absence. Even if strange bedfellows come out of politics, fewer can be stranger than those in Afghanistan.3 Tadjiks may have relaxed their position on the king at Bonn, but the jihadists 3 “War never ends here,” observed Ben Macintyre, “but merely evolves and mutates, always on a local level, sometimes nationally, never simply.” See Macintyre, “The bloodstained history of Afghanistan,” The Times, October 5, 2001, from: http://www .thetimes.co.uk/article/0,,2001340009-2001344913,00.html. Also of note, Mountstuart Elphinstone of the East India Company, visiting the country in 1809, spoke of the dual Afghani mind: being “trained by their unhappy situation to fraud and violence, to rapine, deceit and revenge,” but also finding “the rudiments of many virtues. . . . .”

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completed a full about-turn. As previously observed, the king opened opportunities for them. In addition to Rabbani were Afghanistan’s Wahhabi leader, Abdul Rayyaf Sayyaf and Gulbuddin Hekmatyar’s fundamentalist Hizb-i-Islam party—a collection worth some weight at any loya jirga. Of course, the king’s disinclination to accept any political role thwarted the envisioned jihadist entry-point, but it did not dissolve the weight jihadist groups could throw around at the loya jirga. Any possible alliance would very emphatically indicate once again the return to Afghani politics-as-usual, epitomizing the machiavellian tenet of one’s enemy’s enemy becoming one’s best friend. Another political option was the rebalancing-of-forces imperative, by which the weak bandwagons against the all-powerful. Since the majority Pashtunis were on the outside looking in after Bonn, these earlier jihadists couldn’t have a more conducive return to the center-stage of politics, that is, the loya jirga: They could team up with other Pashtunis, Hazaras, Uzbekis, and Baluchis on the issue of Tadjik domination, then using this issue as a platform, advance other core and obvious issues reflecting their vital interests, for example, greater emphasis on Islam, lesser role for women in the new Afghani government, and reducing roles for foreign troops. Although fulfilling these would boost the Taleban stock market value in Afghanistan, former jihadists were not thinking of the new jihadists, the Taleban. Yet, since the Taleban was stained by al-Qaeda connections after 9/11, jihadists of the 1980s would actually be softening the Taleban return to mainstream politics. Nowhere else would this be more eagerly encouraged than in Pakistan, whose Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) enjoyed a symbiotic relationship with Taleban after the Soviet troops withdrew and the Mujahedeen was evicted from Kabul. Most pertinently, Taleban could be resurrected without al-Qaeda connections. Clearly, the Bonn Accord did not wipe the slate of nemeses entirely clean. Democratization was, for all practical purposes, on new territory in Afghanistan. Yet, no external recommendations, experimentations, conditions, or impositions can survive, certainly not in their generic form, without adjusting to idiosyncratic styles and instincts, whether defective or effective, ugly or attractive. Afghanistan’s Interim Administration (IA) enhanced democracy by opening up an active arena of

See “Afghanistan, 1774–1879: The great game,” The Times, October 5, 2001, from: http://www.thetimes/co/uk/article0,,2001340009-2001344917,00.html

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positive experimentation, but it also vaulted slippery jihadist stakes by inculcating politics-as-usual: Once in the limelight, no one was sure if jihadist sentiments would remain mainstream or slide into radicalism. As Afghanistan’s history testifies, such politics obscures party lines and personal loyalties in favor of the same short-term needs both political realists and rational choice theorists would be familiar with. Most of all, it exposes jihadi sentiments to be more of a political rather than religious instrument, a bargaining chip more than a sine qua non. Parliamentary versus Presidential Inclinations Though not a debate at Bonn, and certainly not one the United States would remain silent about, Afghanistan after Bonn faced another mainstream political deliberation: whether to have a presidential, parliamentarian, or a mixed government. Certainly not a front-burner issue, not yet at any rate, the presidential-parliamentary options emerged as a possibility to clarify other concerns, for example, refitting the monarch into a political role somehow, as previously discussed. Nevertheless, it was an issue whose time was clearly coming. It was theoretically relevant for at least two reasons: (a) democratization assumes a functional center, which Afghanistan was only just scrambling to establish; and (b) Afghanistan’s history of decentralized power suited a parliamentary governmental structure. It was pragmatically imperative for two similar reasons: (a) Hamed Karzai’s Interim Administration could only survive within a presidential format, given the bickering warlords and ethnic groups; and (b) though a presidential government is in the long-term interests of all major warlords and ethnic groups, their short-term political calculations were better served by parliamentary procedures. Clearly the long-term warlord interests favor a presidential system in a centralized Afghanistan: Pashtuns wish it, being the largest group; and Baluchis, among others, have no choice under the changed circumstances of Afghanistan’s greater exposure to the external world, facing both global flows and transnational movements, but to accept it in order to remain relevant and meaningful. Dostum, for example, showed unusual interest in a central position in Kabul, rather than in Mazar-i-Sharif, his headquarters; and Ismail Khan, too, had no choice but to cultivate alignments at the central level, through loya jirga, now his provincial alignments had been either broken or weakened (for example, his son being killed by forces from the central government

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in a stand-off with provincial armies). In January 2005 he would join the central government as energy minister. Most upset would be the Tadjiks. The December 7, 2004 presidential election producing a clear-cut Karzai victory also led to the exclusion of several Tadjiks from the cabinet—Mohammad Fahem in defense, Yunus Qanooni from education, leaving only Dr. Abdallah Abdallah, among the heavyweights, in charge of the foreign ministry. Qanooni, who lost to Karzai in the presidential elections, was not allowed to return as education minister, prompting him to form a political party in time for the legislative elections.4 However, the story is running ahead of its focus on the Interim Administration. One kind of an Afghani dilemma predicting tragedy is the prevalence of local groups without claims to power at the center. As evident by those groups illegitimized since 9/11, relative power positions can only be enhanced by nibbling away at the local level. Their route to the center, where they wish to be, begins in provincial municipalities. How this trade-off is manipulated through coalitions at the loya jirga remains one of Afghanistan’s emerging priorities. With the ELJ providing the first opportunity to draw swords, victory might be neither at the June ELJ nor at any specific future LJ congregations, given the nature of Afghani politics-as-usual just discussed. The only exception visible at this point, before the ELJ, was how Karzai manipulated those coalitions. If, in addition, he went on to win future elections, the presidential option would become an Afghani feature. Emergency Loya Jirga, June 10–16, 2002 Assembled to elect the head of the country’s Transitional Administration (TA), and influence its structure, as stipulated by the Bonn Accord, the ELJ was partly convened by the Special Independent Commission (SIC), also established by the same accord. Of the 22 SIC members, ethnically six were Tadjiks, eight Pashtuns, three Hazaras, two Uzbekis, one Turkoman, one Ahmedzai, and one Sayed. Interestingly, seven lived abroad at the time of the Bonn Accord, five in Pakistan, one in Iran, and one in the United States. Of the rest, nine lived in Kabul, reaffirming the centralization theme Karzai went to the ELJ with. Qasimyar Ismael,

4 Camelia Entekhabi-Fard, “Afghan government attention turns to upcoming parliamentary elections,” Eurasia Insight, January 8, 2005.

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who lived in Tehran, Iran, was appointed chairman, while one of his two vice-chairpersons was a woman, Mahbooba Hoquqmal—one of three women in the group.5 The centralization bias was accented, and deliberately so, by inviting the king to inaugurate the session. As it transpired, the last one he opened, in September 1964, to ratify his constitution, brought 452 members: 176 were appointed by the National Assembly, 176 were sent by the provinces, and 100 were appointed by the king or represented the senate, cabinet, court, and constitutional commissions, with only six women in the total tally.6 In June 2002, he faced 1,501 delegates, from both inside and outside Afghanistan.7 External delegates, from as far away as the United States, also added more weight to the centralization theme, as too the king’s proposed constitutional government.8 By the time Afghanistan would have its first democratic elections in 2005, this very proposal would acquire its own legs. At the conference, though, the king declined to accept any political positions, but was, instead, crowned the Father of the Nation—a honor by which Karzai achieved two critical goals: capitalize on the king’s popularity and symbolic role to pitch him as an official representative of the center, that is, the entire Afghanistan, not just any province of it; and utilizing this as a quid pro quo to soften the Tadjik weight in the Transitional Administration. As previously observed, the Tadjiks had no interest in the king or the position of the monarchy, but in adjusting to his popularity both within and outside Afghanistan, they agreed to make him a Father of the Nation. Karzai, who had deftly proposed this ceremonial position himself, presented this accomplishment as a concession to the Tadjiks; in turn, he utilized the opportunity to reshuffle the Tadjik component of the Interim Administration for the Transitional Government. To get

“Afghanistan government: members of the Special Independent Commissions for convening Emergency Loya Jirga,” Eurasia Insight, February 5, 2002, from: http:// www.eurasianet.org/loya.jirga/commission.shtml 6 Christine Noelle-Karimi, “The Loya Jirga: an effective political instrument? A historical overview,” Afghanistan: A Country Without a State? (Frankfurt, Germany: IKO, Verlag für Interkulturelle Kommunikation, 2002), 45, but see 37–50. 7 Halima Kazem, “Emergency Loya Jirga: strength in numbers,” Eurasia Insight, June 5, 2002, from: http://www.eurasianet.org/departments/insight/articles/eav060502a. shtml 8 “Proposed constitutional government by Mohammad Zahir Shah, the former king of Afghanistan,” World Afghani Jirgah, from: http://www.afghanology.com/jirgaflowchart.html Accessed April 6, 2007. 5

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the votes he needed from other ethnic groups, he increased their share at the expense of the Tadjiks. With Karzai as president, the tone of the three vice-presidents changed significantly. All three were warlords and representatives of the former Northern Alliance; but only one was a Tadjik (General Fahim), another a Hazara Shi’a (Karim Khalili), and the third a Pashtuni (Haji Abdul Qadar). The other two members of the Panjshiri/Tadjik Trio, Younis Qanooni and Abdallah Abdallah, were reallocated as ministers, the former in charge of education, the latter retained as foreign minister. Qanooni, the NA chief at Bonn, was also made a Special Advisor on Internal Security to the President, a new position to reaffirm General Fahim’s efforts to keep the military under Tadjik control. Balancing this was the allocation of Qanooni’s former portfoflio in the Interior Ministry to a Pashtun, Taj Mohammad Khan Wardak. One of the warlords, Ismail Khan’s son, Mir Wais Sadeq, was made Minister for Civil Aviation and Tourism, a position consistent with the warlord’s past practice of managing tourists from Iran by collecting his own personal tax. Six cabinet members from the IA had dropped out, and although Sima Samar also dropped out, the number of women remained at two, with Raihalla Sarabi, a Hazari, taking over the Women’s Affairs Ministry alongwith with Suhelia Siddiq remaining the Pashtun Health Minister.9 The nature of the changes is truly breathtaking for an increasingly unpopular president. He reduced the Tadjik clout without dispensing of key personnel, and subtly expanded Pashtun participation without making them too dominant. There were now 12 Pahstuni cabinet members, 10 Tadjiks, three Uzbekis, two Hazaras, one Nuristani, and one Turkoman, for a total of 29. Dostum continued to be kept out, but Uzbekis had one more representative than before. Just as he managed to permit Mullah Omar to go free without pushing the United States over the brink, so too did he curb Tadjik arrogance without enhancing Pashtuni’s. Iraq’s Rubber-stamp Start Surprisingly for a country with more developed political infrastructures, resources, and democratic desires than Afghanistan, Iraq’s quest for democracy after the 2003 war not only started from scratch, that 9 “Afghanistan government: key posts in new Afghani cabinet,” Eurasianet, from: http://www.eurasianet.org/loya.jirga/cabinet.shtml. Accessed April 6, 2007.

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is, by returning to the drawing board rather than consolidating its endowments, but also under direct U.S. supervision. If regime change was the objective, as Robert S. Litwak reminds us, the change was to be of the regime, not within it (as, he points out, took place in Libya), “the first instance,” he continues, “in which regime change was empowered as a means to achieve the goal of non-proliferation.” With WMD elimination as the rationale, the question arises if these WMD represented “the manifestation of the megalomania of one man,” or Iraq’s “strategic personality.”10 At least five issues imposed themselves upon the Iraqi Governing Council (IGC). Listed in Table 6.1, each is discussed below in the same order. Role of Islam Islamizing Iraq had a puzzling origin. It both stemmed from the reaction to Saddam’s rule and meshed with a more global post-Cold War spike in neofundamentalism. Saddam had secularized Iraq so significantly and had repressed Iraq Shi’as so mercilessly, it was only natural to expect some religious restoration in his aftermath. The intensity and extensiveness of this transformation, however, took alarming proportions. It was too sudden, had more Iranian fingerprints than was immediately evident, and motivated leaders in the Shi’ite citadels of Najaf and Karbala to pick up the mantle with more meaning than ever before. All these against the incisive influence of two countercurrents: (a) not only the return and revival of many secular Shi’a exiles but also their U.S. sponsorship; and (b) the slow growth of Sunni reaction, which, compounded by free-lance terrorists from abroad,11 suddenly made religious claims more lethal than anti-Saddam claims during his reign. Just as L. Paul Bremer, III, and the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) miscalculated the religious spin-off glaringly, especially the popularity of Moqtada al-Sadr and the power of his Mahdi army,12 the IGC he established became a lame-duck from its very inception. 10 Robert S. Litwak, Regime Change: U.S. Strategy Through the Prism of 9/11 (Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press/Woodrow Wilson Center, 2007), 87, 90, but see ch. 3. 11 See Peter S. Canellos, “Broader vision on Iraq would serve Bush well,” The Boston Globe, February 7, 2004, from: http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/ 2004/02/17/broader_vision_on_iraq_would_ . . . 12 “Bremer warns of ‘ewxplosive’ Najaf,” BBC News, April 25, 2004, from: http:// news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/middle_east/365751.stm

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In his desire to give the IGC a legitimate face, a hard task to pursue for a hand-selected group chosen to set a country on the road towards democracy, Bremer not only kept a Shi’ite majority but also permitted the group to throw in a cleric or two. His assumption of a vocal secular majority, such as Ahmad Chalabi, would suffice to keep the clerics at bay. What he did not realize was the silent, subtle, but see-saw change within Iraq’s religious domain: power not only shifted rapidly to the Shi’ites, but within the Shi’ite camp, also gravitated towards the clerical pole than the secular. At the clerical pole, two competing camps surfaced by 2004, one led by Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani based in Najaf, the other marshaled by Moqtada Sadr from Baghdad’s sprawling slum, Sadr City. The one is learned, reticent, and respected across the country, the other is a firebrand, vengeance-driven, and warlord replicate in Baghdad’s outskirts with his Mahdi army.13 Whereas the latter had ugly brushes with Saddam, the former maintained a dignified distance from Saddam during his reign. When both were fighting for Shi’a allegiance in 2004, it was not to control the faith itself, but “to see who can stand up to the Americans more vociferously and appeal to Shi’ite fears.”14 There emerged what Ali A. Allawi calls the “Moqtada problem” and the “Sistani factor”.15 As the most respected of Najaf ’s four grand ayatollahs, al-Sistani issued a fatwa on July 1 against the right of any unelected expert to write the constitution, proposing elections for a constituent elections instead, which Paul Bremer completely ruled out. Almost as soon as the IGC was established, a strained relationship between Sistani and Bremer also highlighted the transition to democracy.16 Sistani’s influence had crept deep into the IGC, to the point of possible inclusion of Islam in the interim constitution draft. “It can’t be law,” replied Bremer when asked if Sharia law could become the source of Iraq’s law,17 but once the Shi’ite tide began, there was little he could do to 13 Tony Karon, “Iraq: anyone got a plan?” Time, February 18, 2004, from: http:// www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,591704,00.html?cnn=yes 14 Fareed Zakaria, “An absence of legitimacy,” Washington Post, January 20, 2004, A19. 15 Ali A. Allawi was Minister of Finance for Dr. Ibrahim al-Jaafari and a senior advisor to the Iraqi prime minister who returned to Iraq after going into exile in 1958. See his magisterial account, The Occupation of Iraq: Winning the War, Losing the Peace (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2007). Terms used on pages 167, and xii, respectively. 16 Allawi, op. cit., 168–9. 17 “Bremer could veto Islamic law in Iraqi constitution,” The Scotsman, February 17, 2004, from: http://news.scotsman.com/international.cfm?id=189202004

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stem it. When the interim constitution draft was submitted, Iraq was identified as an Islamic state. The “Moqtada problem” stemmed not only from Bremer’s “visceral dislike for the person,” but also Moqtada launching the only Shi’a movement “that voiced not only an uncompromising position on the occupation, but one that called for an alliance across sectarian boundaries to confront it”—with tacit support of the Najaf Marji’iyya (the “grouping of the most learned mujtahhids of the Shi’a world, in the modern political life of both Iran and Iraq”).18 Since this was precisely the direction Bremer, Bush, and the Washington neoconservatives did not want to take from much earlier, there was little any of them could do against the awesome power of Sistani. His ability “to marginalize the handpicked [Iraq] Governing Council,”19 and demonstrate “the overwhelming support for his position on the streets,”20 seriously threatened Bremer’s plan, to the point he spoke less of the veto he would impose should sharia be included and pondered more of the day he himself would have to go, June 30, 2004. Yet, getting there with an interim constitution looked impossible in the opening months of 2004, in large part due to Sistani; luckily for Bremer, Sistani himself eased the road for Bremer’s exit. At stake was another, even more contentious issue. Majority-based or Caucus-based Elections To his credit, Bremer wanted to avoid ethnic in-fighting if not Shi’ite domination, by rejecting a one-person, one-vote or majority-based elections in the interim constitution. Through the IGC, he proposed a caucus-based alternative on November 15, 2003, but when Sistani dismissed it as “illegitimate” and demanded direct elections, almost all members of the IGC who had supported Bremer’s proposal reneged.21 Even the Sunni and Kurd IGC members, whose constituencies would benefit the most from the caucus plan, voted against it—exposing the divergence between the CPA and the IGC and the true width and depth of Sistani’s influence. The U.S. hoped the caucuses “would cre-

Allawi, op. cit., quotes from 168 and 25, respectively. Bremer, “Electing chaos,” op. cit. 20 Karon, “Iraq: anybody got any plan?” Op. cit. 21 Rajiv Chandrasekaran, “Iraq panel pivots on U.S. plan,” Washington Post, February 17, 2004, A01, from: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A46176– 2004Feb16.htm?nav=headlines 18 19

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ate a more representative and accountable group of Iraqis than the council,” more significantly, how they “would allow new political talent to emerge and challenge the clique of former exiles who now effectively control[led] the council,” allowing them “unrivalled political influence in the months before the vote, allowing them to engage in patronage and skew balloting rules.”22 The caucus plan boils down to appointing a transitional national assembly on the basis of caucuses held in Iraq’s 18 regions, or provinces. The assembly would then choose a cabinet and appoint a head of state by June 30, 2004, after which Iraqis would get back their sovereignty.23 When it appeared Bremer was supporting the proposal on behalf of Sunnis and Kurds while Sunnis and Kurds were not, the IGC and Bremer’s CPA also came apart. By February, a string of other developments confirmed Iraq could not be salvaged: Kurds demanded recognition of their autonomy from Arabs more urgently; the Jordanian terrorist Musab al-Zarqawi announced his arrival to exploit the deteriorating conditions; Sunni raids on a Fallujah police station in February, dramatically spiking fatalities and casualities, marked the start of even worse killings and bombings to come; and a Kurd-Shi’a rapport threatened to derail the CPA and IGC while also cornering Sunnis further.24 Among Bremer’s responses was to bring back the United Nations, and especially Lakhdar Brahimi for his own assessments,25 what Barry Schweid called “a philosophical shift.”26 But the real philosophical shift to bail Bremer out was a U.N. report recommending the caucus plan be shelved. Based on a Brahimi visit and parley with Sistani, the U.N. envoy left the United States with another somber thought: a civil war brewing.27

Chandrasekaran, “Iraq panel pivots on U.S. plan,” op. cit. Colum Lynch, “U.N. election team to be sent to Iraq,” Washington Post, January 27, 2004, A12. 24 Jeffrey Gettleman and Dexter Filkins, “Shi’ite plan exludes Sunnis in Iraq elections,” Houston Chronicle, February 17, 2004, from: http://www.chron.com/CS/CDA/ ssistory.mpl/world/2407350 25 Robin Wright, “U.S., Britain detail Iraq plan at U.N.,” Washington Post, January 22, 2004, A17. 26 Barry Schweid, “U.S. reliance on U.N. signals philosophical shift,” Baltimore Sun, February 19, 2004, from: http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/nationworld/iraq/balus-iraq0219,0,4583146.story?co . . . 27 Karon, “Iraq: anybody got a plan?” Op. cit. 22 23

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UN Mediation and Brahimi: Delivering the Goods? If it took the CPA-IGC breach to suggest all was not well in the Iraqi democratization road-map, it took Sistani’s rare intervention over the election proposal to point out how only U.N. intervention could bring home the democratization bacon. Refusing to meet Paul Bremer, Sistani opened his door to Lakhdar Brahimi, whose mediation at U.S. request underscored the very logic how the United Nations should have managed post-Saddam democratization from the very start, just as it was doing post-Taleban democratization in Afghanistan. As the United States officially grumbled elections could not take place by June 30, as originally stipulated, Sistani again offered the United States an exit door: He could wait until the end of 2004 for the elections, provided this was announced through a U.N. resolution.28 It was a Brahimi proposal; and it stuck, indicating once again how unnecessary the U.S. political role was becoming. Following a U.S. invitation in January, the United Nations sent a factfinding team to Iraq led by Brahimi in February. Its candid report highlighted three themes:29 (a) sovereignty transfer by June 30, as planned, was feasible, but the caucus proposal had to be shelved;30 (b) any IraqU.S. bilateral agreement on the presence of U.S. troops needed to be delayed; and (c) expecting an interim constitution by the end of February 2004 was not feasible. In an editorial, the Washington Post chastised the Bush administration’s plan for wanting “to move forward without forging a broad consensus or seeking a popular mandate,” how “such shortcuts won’t work,” why the IGC “lacks the practical political authority to approve an agreement on U.S. forces,” and simply an IGC constitution “also risks rejection.” “While preserving its relationships with Iraq’s secular democrats,” the editorial proposed “the Bush administration must focus on how to quickly draw more Iraqi leaders into the process of deciding on a transitional administration . . . . but,

28 Anthony Shadid, “Cleric would accept interim government in Iraq: Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani calls for elections by the end of the year,” Washington Post, February 26, 2004, from: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A8053-2004Feb26. html 29 “Another try in Iraq,” Washington Post, editorial, February 24, 2004, A20. 30 There would be no voting lists available, political parties would not have time to canvas, and no constitution would be ready by then, argued Brahimi. In addition was the worsening security climate. See “Q&A: Iraqi elections and power handover,” BBC News, February 19, 2004, from: http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/middle_east/3504751.stm

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the more it does to as part of a coalition, and in partnership with the United Nations, the greater the chance of success.” Bringing back the United Nations following a fatal bombing attack on its Baghdad mission in October 2003 satisfied the criteria of “a broad consensus,” “popular mandate,” and “quickly draw[ing] more Iraqi leaders into the process.” It would have salvaged the U.S. democratization plan, which was not all that flawed, but leaving it in the hands of an illegitimate IGC doomed its prospects. Sistani’s intervention had the effects of both providing ad hoc legitimacy to the IGC and making its functions beyond submitting an interim constitution irrelevant. U.N. presence further legitimated the process and marshaled the constitution to its logical conclusion of staging elections, then leaving Iraqis to take it from there. Six Iraqi neighbors, meeting on February 15, 2004, also asked for a greater U.N. and lesser U.S. role.31 Its presence also bailed the United States out, cutting its spiraling human losses. The ambivalent U.S. response approved the U.N. input but refused to pull its own chestnuts out of the Iraqi fire. It found quick vindication through the submission of the interim constitution on March 1. Interim Constitution and the Vital Breakthrough As the interim constitution, TAL was signed by the IGC on March 7,32 bringing to an end disagreements and delays. Again, only when Sistani withdrew his opposition to a clause inserted by the Kurds could this happen. The controversial clause demanded any referendum on a permanent constitution would fail if rejected by two-thirds of the electorate within any of Iraq’s three zones, rather than by two-thirds of a single Iraqi electorate.33 In addition to safeguarding Iraq’s minorities, as Sistani saw it, “an unfair veto” for the minority over the majority, the 25-page, 62-article constitution provided for a president and two vice presidents who would choose a prime minister and a cabinet in a federal system of government, created a 275-member legislature to 31 “Iraqi neighbors want big UN role,” BBC News, February 15, 2004, from: http:// news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3490331.stm 32 Also called the Fundamental Law. 33 “Iraqi politicians sign interim constitution after resolving political squabble,” MyTelus, March 8, 2004, from: http://www.mytelus.com/news/article.do? pageID=world_home&articleID=1545668; and Matt Moore, “Shiites look to resolve Iraq constitution,” Miami Herald, March 6, 2004, from: http://www.miami.com/mld/ miamiherald/8117625.stm

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draft the permanent constitution, and provided autonomy to the Kurds and other minorities.34 Through a bill of rights, it would provide freedoms and protections, while 25% of the legislature would be reserved for women. It would utilize Islam as a source of law, but also resort to other sources. As IGC member Mowaffak al-Rubaie claimed, “We started to learn a new trade called compromise.”35 As in Afghanistan, compromise became critical, demanding coalitions rather than resorting to conflict at loggerheads. In addition to the Shi’ite opposition to the minority veto clause just discussed, Shi’as also wanted a rotating 5-member presidency. Among the IGC members who delayed the constitution because of these demands was Chalabi,36 hitherto a U.S. favorite. In addition to a bill of rights providing freedoms of expression, assembly, demonstration, privacy, thought, conscience, and religious belief—but not the right to bear arms—it offered a social contract “far more extensive than some in the Bush administration favor . . . health care, education[,] and the right to strike.”37 Although this bill of rights could not be repealed by any future legislation,38 women did not receive complete equal treatment, since family law (covering marriage, inheritance, and children citizenship) was not protected.39 Even though the Kurds got the minority veto, their militia, the pesh merga, was not converted into a national guard, as they had expected, in fact, a provision to ban all militias pushed Kurd representatives to seek a future legislation to legitimize the pesh merga.40 The interim constitution called for elections to be held by January 31, 2005, leaving unclear how Iraq would be administered between July 1 and elections, since the CPA authority ran out on June 30, nor who the CPA would hand Iraqi sovereignty to from July 1. If, 34 Michael Howard, “Iraqis hail signing of historic outline law,” Guardian, March 9, 2004, from: http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1165295,00.html 35 Jo Floto, “Iraq draft deters hard decisions,” BBC News, March 2, 2004, from: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/3523979.stm 36 Others included Abdel Aziz al-Hakim, Ibrahim al-Jaafari, Moumafak al-Rabaie, and Mohammad Baker al-Alim, the concurrent president. See “Iraqi council adjourns without signing constitution: Shiites on council raise last-minute concerns, sources say,” CNN, March 5, 2004, from: http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/03/05/ sprj.nirq.main/index.html 37 Rajiv Chandrase Karan, “Iraqis hail compromise on interim constitution,” Washington Post, March 2, 2004, A16. 38 Hiwa Osman, “Historic Iraqi concord,” Washington Times, March 1, 2004, from: http://www.washingtontimes.com/op-ed/20040301–085720–3006r.htm 39 “Iraq council adjourns without signing constitution,” CNN, op. cit. 40 Chandrasekaran, “Iraqis hail compromise on interim constitution,” Washington Post, op. cit.

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as Michael E. O’Hanlon and Stephen J. Solarz cogently point out, an Iraqi majority sought direct elections while minorities sought safeguards against the majority, then we have a recipe for conflict without involving some critical constitutional adjustments first.41 Michael Howard may be right “the transitional constitution is the Middle East’s most liberal,” but as Jo Floto reminds us, it also “defers hard decisions.” Henry Kissinger and Geroge P. Schultz, two former managers of U.S. foreign policy, not only anticipated the problem, but also offered a 4-feature proposal to offset them. These called for the United States to (a) prevent the type of dominance the Sunnis previously had; (b) pre-empt any slips or slides into Taleban-type conditions of terrorism; (c) prevent Shi’ite theocracy; and (d) promote regional autonomy.42 As will transpire, they captured some of the forthcoming pitfalls and promises. In spite of a meaningful start, Iraq’s day of reckoning still remained left for the future.43 Civil War Prospects In addition to pointing out the logistical problems of staging elections by June 30, Lakhdar Brahimi and BBC correspondent Barbara Plett also raise security as a growing problem.44 As early as January 22, 2004, the CIA issued a warning to the U.S. administration of Iraq heading towards civil war. “Both the Shiites and the Kurds think that now’s their time,” according to that warning. “They think that if they don’t get what they want now,” it continued, “they’ll probably never get it. Both of them feel they’ve been betrayed by the United States before.”45 The Kissinger-Schultz proposal also viewed the elections “as inaugurating a civil war.”

41 Michael E. O’Hanlon and Stephen J. Solarz, “Iraq’s timely vote,” The Washington Times, February 16, 2004, from: http://www.washingtontimes.com/commentary/20040216–083055–3450r.htm 42 “Results, not timetables, matter in Iraq,” Washington Post, January 25, 2005, A15. 43 Michael Howard, “Iraqis hail signing of historic outline law,” Guardian, op. cit; and Floto, “Iraq draft defers hard decision,” BBC News, op. cit. 44 Brahimi’s U.N. Report of February 2004 identified three problems, Plett makes security one of her four election-related hurdles to staging elections, the other three being incomplete voter registration, developing a pluralistic political culture, and the June 30 date itself. See “Obstacles on road to Iraq elections,” BBC News, January 21, 2004, from: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3416793.stm 45 Warren P. Stroebel and Jonathan S. Landry, “Iraq may be on path to civil war, CIA officials warn,” Seattle Times, January 22, 2004, from: http://seattletimes.nwsource. com/html/nationworld/2001841528_cia22html

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The three triggers of a civil war just mentioned deserve more elaboration. Shi’ites, after decades of persecution, grabbed the first opportunity at leading the country, based on their majority population status. Not only the desire to lead, but also the possible institution of future safeguards prompted them, given the past. In addition was Iran’s encouragement, since a Shi’ite-controlled Iraq would help create, for the first time, a Shi’ite arc, curving from Iran and Iraq to possibly Lebanon through a sympathetic Syria, with the Hezbollah as flag-bearer. This picture was unacceptable to neighboring Sunni Arabs, especially in Saudia Arabia and the Gulf states, thus creating a regional tension smacking right into the nuts and bolts of Iraqi democratization: Marginalizing Iraq’s Sunnis would be the first step towards concretizing the Shi’ite arc, and if not stopped in Iraq, the tension would spill over into those Sunni Arab countries. Democratization became the hostage not only of an ill-fated U.S. plan, through the CPA and IGC, to bring west-friendly Shi’ites in, but also of a brewing regional tension, based on the oldest and most unresolved schism within Islam. These were not new concerns. Even under a no-fly zone, Shi’as could not forge the kind of unity rival Kurd factions could, nor develop the sense of autonomy, backed by a well-trained army, as the Kurds did. The consequences were detrimental for the Shi’ites: the Mahdi army displacing the logical, legitimate, and respectable Shi’te democratic drives from Najaf; Iran putting its paws into every Iraqi corner, up in the north in Irbil, in Baghdad through the Mahdi army, and in Najaf. Unlike the Kurds, Shi’ites did not have to worry about autonomy owing to their majority status; thus the need for an armed militia dissipated. With civil war becoming irreversible, it was too late for Shi’as to take cover, with the result the rag-tag armies of Moqtadar and others, capitalizing on the uncertainties, sprouted everywhere, and particularly at the expense of the legitimate forces behind democratic Iraq, whether under Shi’a control or a cohabitational government. Unlike the Shi’as, Kurds had both purpose and plan. Utilizing the nofly-zone opportunity, they built up experience in civil administration, hitherto denied them, and still reeling as a persecuted minority group, upped self-defense through the pesh merga to the point of creating a de facto state army. In turn, they faced two profitable options: push for a federated Iraq recognizing Kurd autonomy; and if that failed to push autonomy towards independence. Kurds had oil, but were realistic enough to realize they would never run Iraq from Baghdad, though

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as part of a coalition, they could help preserve Iraq. Here also, two profitable options prevailed: They could ally with co-religionist Sunnis, or team up with Shi’as if necessities demanded. Post-Saddam Iraq offered positive prospects for both Shi’as and Kurds, but as the dust continued to settle, or be kicked up, Kurd optimism continued while Shi’as faced increasing pitfalls. Those pitfalls can be traced to two factors not raised by Brahimi or Plett: Iraqi Sunnis reacting from being marginalized; in turn, attracting transnational jihadists to rally to their cause. If Saddam’s December 2003 capture could not arrest the climbing violence, Iraq was probably no longer under Iraqi control. The Sunni call to boycott the January 2005 elections was supported by as many as 30% of the Sunni population sympathizing with the insurgents.46 As U.S. fatalities increased, by 2004, it was also clear Iraq was not fully under U.S. control either. Civil wars can be measured in many ways: eroding governmental capacities to function and/or claims to legitimacy; increasing insurgency putting rival domestic factions against each other; surging growth in not only the resort to private security but private security challenging public security agencies; and the growing out-migration of the ordinary citizens caught in cross-fires, often resulting in sudden refugee explosions. Iraq fulfilled all of these by 2004. No single factor can adequately explain this turn-around, but in a region where the power of sentiments is measured by how deep they go historically, the Shi’a-Sunni schism must claim responsibility, since, across history, it was the most dominant schism not to find a solution. This was the idiosyncrasy Bremer and the CPA failed to understand in passing a meaningless baton to the IGC, only to be stumped by the wardens of Shi’ite traditions and Sunni defiance. Afghanistan-Iraq Comparisons & Contrasts Foregoing discussions point out several similarities and differences between Afghanistan and Iraq. Table 6.2 lists some of them for discussion, beginning with similarities.

46 Tony Karon, “Iraq’s bloody election season: as attacks continue, some officials call for poll delay,” Time, Online edition, January 5, 2005. From www.time.com

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Similarities Given democratization, at least six overlapping parallels catch the eye: a representative start to democratization; key building blocks being mobilized and positioned; democracy-triggered dialogue across dominant factions; fruitful outcomes of imposed deadlines; role of exilees; and the opportunity costs of the existing state. Table 6.2 Similarities and Differences Similarities: * Representative start to democratization: all groups represented more or less in same proportion as population distribution (exposing intra-group divisions in the process); women’s political role given fair consideration and inclusion * Key building blocks mobilized and positioned: includes a number of rights and freedoms (though not all), more so than ever before * Inter-group dialogue: initiated, and crossed the critical first threshold of peace-making; helped to lay basis of a civil society, displacing bowling alone tendencies in favor of building social capital * Deadlines and adjustments: though tight, kept everyone on their toes; though not fully met, the end-products were still delivered * Role of exilees in the democratization efforts (though the outcomes would differ in the two cases) * Opportunity costs of the existing state exposed blatantly: themselves a factor towards unity Differences: * Excluded groups met different fates: Afghani Pashtuns allowed to slowly return to power, Ba’athists kept completely out * Democratization pre-conditions imposed were not the same: Iraq’s CPA and TAL did not have an Afghani counterpart * Both countries adjusted to a divided society in dissimilar ways: A caucus plan was proposed for Iraq (which got nowhere), while Afghanistan tried a mixture of both presidentialism and parliamentarianism (which seems to be holding on after elections) * Role of multilateral force: In Afghanistan it largely stayed independent of politics, Iraq, it determined the political future of the country * Role of the U.S.: It was behind the steering wheel of Iraqi democratization, but largely an offshore Afghani actor * Symbols of unity mattered in contrasting ways: the king and anti-Taleban sentiments helped galvanize fractious groups together behind integrative symbols, but in Iraq, symbols were localized rather than centralized, and there was a conspicuous failure in converting the anti-Saddam sentiments into a unifying symbol (by excluding the Ba’athists)

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Representative Start In both cases, the blueprints formulated not only emphasized group representation in the future government, but also became the first attempt to do so in the two countries. Of course, this in itself does not dissolve differences between the groups, but those differences and consequential tensions, dominant through they may be in the headlines, should not obscure this remarkable achievement. Just as Pashtunis, Tadjiks, Uzbekis, Hazaras, Baluchis, and Turkomanis, among others, could get together and talk, on top of that, produce a game-plan by which their population distribution could determine their governmental representation at the center, reflected as much of democratization at work as Shi’as, Sunnis, Kurds, Christians, and Turkomans doing likewise in Iraq: Afghanistan’s Interim Administration reflected this just as Iraq’s Governing Council did, regardless of their different sponsors (the United Nations and United States, respectively), other baggages, and divergent outcomes. If the road to democracy was paved with good intentions, as the representative start suggests, it did have a seamier side, revealing a related similarity: Intra-group divisions, pointing out how, through the presence and proliferation of sub-groups, as well as the tendencies toward trans-grouping, the traditional ethnic basis of the groups was actually being diluted, albeit very, very marginally, in turn, creating opportunities for state identities to creep in. Some Pashtunis joined the Tadjiks, others rallied behind the Peshawar Group, yet others still retained pro-Taleban loyalties, just as some Shi’as rallied behind Moqtadar Sadr’s battle-cry, others stood behind Sistani, yet others sought secular opportunities, some of them through the IGC. Representativeness was honored on the one hand, but newly emerging identities on the other also portrayed the democratic dynamics underway. The two blueprints cannot claim full credit for opening the democratic can, since globalization, religion, and terrorism also chipped in to promote this, but just opening that can was path-finding and positive. The United States erred not in its democratic intentions, but in its differential treatment of the two countries: It largely shied away from Afghani idiosyncrasies but not Iraqi, which led chosen vanguards to either blend democracy with routine local politics, as in Afghanistan, or pit democracy against local politics in a zerosum game, as in Iraq; its delegation of political responsibilities to the United Nations paid off handsomely in Afghanistan, but unwillingness to let the United Nations lead political developments in Iraq inflicted

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irreversible damage; if democratizing Afghanistan and Iraq stemmed from the strategic considerations encapsulated in the Bush Doctrine, of displacing dictatorships with democracies, then the United States completely failed to measure the length, breadth, and depth of Iraq’s strategic considerations, rooted in the Sunni-Shi’a schism, though it did a better job recognizing one of Afghanistan’s strategic consideration in the Pashtun-Tadjik schism; and since the United States first made democracy an international concern with Woodrow Wilson’s selfdetermination in 1917, almost a century later, it remains the most obvious of the international triggers and ramifications of democracy, as evident in the relative impact of what Iraqi democratization might mean for Iran, Syria, and Turkey versus Afghanistan’s democratization on Pakistan and the Central Asian countries. Positioning Building-blocks Buttressing the commitment to legitimate representation was the first truly democratic proclamation of a number of hitherto-denied individual rights and freedoms in Afghanistan and Iraq. Considering how these were squandered by the communists, mujahedeens, and talebs in Afghanistan and Saddam Hussein in Iraq to sustain a historical antipathy towards and neglect of them, both countries got off towards developing democracy on a higher threshold than anyone might have expected. No matter how lugubrious U.N. operations or self-centered U.S. engagements, it is hard to imagine if any other country or agency could have carried the flames of democracy to either country with ample resources to embed them for good and at a time so critical to the future of both countries. This is not to exonerate the United States from launching an illegitimate war in Iraq, then leave democratization in the hands of questionable leaders; nor is it a statement encouraging regime-change of the same type elsewhere. By acknowledging the merits not just exposes the pitfalls but also enhances the value of the United Nations as the democracy standard bearer by default today when it should have been the agency to pursue this task from its very birth after World War II. If regime-change is ever to find universal legitimacy, it should be left as an exercise of an international body, like the United Nations; and even then, not by military means, rather policy inducements. Even though many rights and freedoms were not complete, and women, though still treated as a protected group when they constitute at least half the Afghani and Iraqi populations, enshrining them con-

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stitutionally was a democratic jumpstart. True the permanent constitutions had not as yet been written, but the foundation phase, in spite of constraints, carried enough positives to predict those rights would become part and parcel of the future of the two countries. Democratization was still not irreversible in either, but both had enough supporters of democracy to make the desire irreversible—and this was as critical a breakthrough as any. It brooked disaster in Iraq by positioning the wrong vanguards and imposing implied U.S. vetoes, but in Afghanistan, where there were lesser constraints, though not entirely absent, democracy stands a better chance than ever before in the country’s history—threatened not by building blocks already positioned, but by exogenous dynamics subverting them. Democracy-triggered Inter-group Dialogue Related to both of the above was the initiation of dialogue between historically rival factions, not to forge alliances in another conflict this time, but to establish democracy. In both cases, external nudging was significant, but in the limelight and under pressure, the groups took full advantage of the occasion. Women participated in the negotiations, on the one hand—a development virtually unheard of in Afghanistan and rare in Iraq—while on the other, they parleyed publicly on a symmetrical basis, a feature unknown in both countries. True there were not enough of them and the fragility of their presence was equally evident, but seen as the pitfalls of the pioneers, both countries broke vital chunks of ice. Women voices, for example, were encouraged; and when they emanate, there will be precedence to build upon. That is the crucial contribution of the current experiments, more so in Afghanistan than in Iraq. More crucial is dialogue across the fractious groups, especially between Pashtunis and Tadjiks in Afghanistan and Sunnis and Shi’as in Iraq, though not mentioning other groups in rivalry in both countries neither demeans their presence and roles nor discards their own contributions to the democratization processes. Karzai’s promising start in Afghanistan produced politics-as-usual in an unusual country, and although Iraq’s IGC turned out to be the wrong vehicle to eliminate politics-as-unusual, Iraqis at least have the option to become normal, which they did not have before. Since Afghanistan’s and Iraq’s neighbors have the power to turn on or off the taps of normal Afghani or Iraqi life, both countries show how democratic dialogue is no longer just an endogenous affair, but

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external impacts themselves generate an exogenous context and dialogue. How the neighbors operate need not remain the concern of just Afghanis and Iraqis: They can invoke other external forces, paraphrasing a well-known passage, to balance deficiencies of the old order, in other words, intra-Afghani and intra-Iraqi dialogue could be cultivated by current democracy sponsors, the United Nations and United States, respectively, discouraging neighboring countries, discouraging neighboring countries. Although this does not seem to be working too well with Pakistan in Afghanistan and Iran in Iraq, as examples, giving up on these pressures could dampen the dialogue momentum in Afghanistan and Iraq. Deadlines and Breakthroughs Democratization through deadlines seems to be a new variable, especially when exogenously and externally imposed. Prior democratization cases utilized implicit target dates, but these were endogenously determined and remained largely domestic developments. Britain’s early 20th Century suffragette movement, for example, was locally sponsored, demanded equal rights sooner than later, and was consummated within Britain. It inspired more than influenced women movements elsewhere, and was not triggered nor influenced by any external or exogenous stimuli. By the time of the third democratization wave in the 1970s–1980s, state boundaries had become as porous as political ideologies themselves: Jimmy Carter explicitly encouraged Polish democratization; while Greek, Spanish, and Portuguese democratic movements penetrated authoritarian regimes. The playing field for Afghanistan and Iraq was not just more porous than ever before, but also went to the other extreme of external influences being imposed rather than continuing the voluntary tradition. For two countries oblivious of democracy, these deadlines surprisingly produced positive results. They galvanized the key players to go the extra distance in the critical negotiations, Afghanistan in the Emergency Loya Jirga and the IGC with finalizing the interim constitution. Neither met the original deadlines, but still completed the important tasks without significant delays. Both cases exemplified democratic demands and deficits. Demands were now anchored domestically, but their aggressive emergence outside linked and legitimized the domestic counterparts, creating a potential virtuous cycle. Deficits stemmed not just from excluded groups and vanguard inexperience, but also from

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the trials and errors of outlining procedures and institutional gaps. Democratization in both countries show the same long-term trajectory because of the above dynamics, but that is a far more promising prognosis than dead-ended democratization. Role of Exilees Exilees played a fundamental part in Afghani and Iraqi democratization, but though the lack of legitimacy from the absence of a solid domestic support-base undermined their eventual leadership, at least they got the ball rolling. And though the ball rolled differently in the two countries, with state-level symbols compensating for their deficiencies in Afghanistan while the absence of such symbols, in addition to the legitimacy crisis, compounding Iraqi efforts from the very start, it reached its destination of producing a transitional document and agency in both. In that sense, fifth columns lay their claim as democracy catalysts—a feature of wider relevance in an age of large migratory flows and globalization. One of the critically different consequences was Afghani democratization beckoning back a large majority of refugees from neighboring countries and Iraqi democratization spiraling Iraqi exodus. By the same token, some exiles returned with disruptive vested interests, while others promoted welfare considerations above all else for the first time. Here too we see democratization patterns far different from the first wave, less so from the second, and even less so from the third and fourth—reaffirming how the external context seems to be assuming an increasing function in democratization. In between the external and internal lies the gatekeeper, the state—and the last source of similarity discussed. Opportunity Cost of the State Democratizing Afghanistan and Iraq might remain the last viable option to keep the two countries in tact: Regime-change was partly necessitated to prevent state-breakdown, under the Taleban in Afghanistan, a group not at all interested in sustaining any state, and through the ethnic persecutions of Saddam’s government, which created autonomous zones of influences for Kurds and Shi’as. Just because authoritarianism or neglect imperiled the state does not necessarily mean democratization will repair the damages. However, it offers the most viable options.

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Democratization viability may be better understood within the context of opportunity costs in post-authoritarian Afghanistan and Iraq.47 One such cost would be state-collapse, as Pashtuns and Tadjiks reinforce their own ethnic enclaves, and Kurds and Shi’as push their no-fly zone autonomy towards Iraqi separation. Another could be neighboring countries utilizing their own spheres of influence to establish and institutionalize either puppet administration or full-fledged occupation through quislings. A third might just depict pure anarchy, with all groups retreating into their own cocoons and resorting to armed defense, ultimately creating the hobbesian war for all (groups) against all (groups). Democratization offers a healthier option, demands more patience, and remains capable of both resurrecting and revitalizing the state: Democratic functions cannot but be controlled by central agencies; and though local pulls remain strong, a democratic state finds empowerment not just through centralized agencies but by nibbling away at decentralized loyalties one person at a time over the long-haul. Democracy’s construction phase in both Afghanistan and Iraq not only established such a state, but also made it functional. Differences Likewise, six areas of deep differences were also exposed in the discussions: (a) resort to controls and qualifications; (b) role of the United States; (c) treatment of excluded groups; (d) role of multilateral force; (e) adjusting to ethnic divisions; and (f ) impacts of state symbols. Resort to Controls and Qualifications Iraq was deliberately, and retrospectively unnecessarily, forced to embark upon more controlled and qualified democratization than Afghanistan. One might recall how, negotiating their own form of democratization among themselves, Afghanis were permitted wide latitudes, but Iraqis faced a much narrower margin of parameters. The Iraqi TAL, for instance, did not really have an Afghani counterpart, and the IGC which created it, though representative in composition,

47 Useful evaluation along these lines by Matthew Riemer, “Post-war patterns in Afghanistan and Iraq,” Eurasia Insight, February 25, 2004, from: http://www.eurasianet.org/departments/insight/articles/pp081403.shtml

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was less connected with the Iraqi public than the various groups in Bonn were. The role of Islam, for example, was more controlled by the CPA in Iraq than it was by the sponsors of the Bonn conference. Neither of the two cases could, or even wanted to, deny Islam; but that it was more controlled in Iraq than in Afghanistan bred more reactions in Iraq than in Afghanistan. One might argue the Bonn conference also imposed some vivid regulations, such as making the king’s hands-on engagement or Rabbani’s participation undesirable. However, these were not the choice of a single sponsoring agency or country: They reflected preferences of several external players and the dominant domestic player at Koenigswinter. Iraq’s destiny was shaped by one agency or country, the United States, even though it received the enabling documents from a multilateral agency, the United Nations, and led, as it did in Afghanistan, a coalition of forces. Role of the United States Central to the U.S. role was the U.N. connection. Whereas U.N. resolutions placed the United States in charge of actions against both Afghanistan and Iraq, the United States restricted itself largely to military supervision in Afghanistan, leaving the political rearrangements to the United Nations, but assumed both military and political functions in Iraq. Whereas Afghani intervention was legitimized by the 9/11 events and world opinion, Iraqi intervention was not. Consequently, whereas the United Nations eventually emerged as the central Afghani democratization player, its inability, and later unwillingness, to do likewise in Iraq, triggered a vicious sequence in which Iraqi reactions against the U.S. role only deepened U.S. engagement, in turn, spiraling the reactions. As the pre-negotiations phase indicted, Iraq was much more in the apple of U.S. eyes than Afghanistan for a much longer time. Whether this stemmed from the filial bonds of two Bush presidents,48 control over strategic petroleum deposits,49 a combination of regime-change,

48 John Lewis Gaddis, “A grand strategy of transformation,” Foreign Policy, issue 133 (November-December 2002), 54, but see 50–55. 49 Larry Everest, Oil, Power and Empire: Iraq and the U.S. Global Empire (Monroe, ME: Common Courage Press, 2004); and Stephen C. Pelletière, Iraq and the International Oil System: Why America Went to War in the Gulf (Westport, CT: Praeger, 2001).

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democracy-export, and nation-building,50 or simply military doctrines trying to shape the post-Cold War world,51 the United States went into Iraq with a plan cultivated far in advance than any for Afghanistan, a sharper sense of unilateral control than in Afghanistan, and to make its Iraqi engagement the model of future democratization than the Afghani counterpart. In short, the United States took Iraq more personally than it did Afghanistan, treating it more like the Germany and Japan after World War II, as if Iraq was as responsible for inflicting 9/11 events as Japan was for the Pearl Harbor attacks and Germany was for seeking unilateral power on the basis of a totalitarian ideology. Even then, it had to essentially turn to the United Nations when the IGC, and with it the CPA, stumbled in 2004.52 Treatment of Excluded Groups Nowhere was the U.S. Iraqi itch more evident than it was over the treatment of excluded groups. Both the Taleban and Ba’athists were treated differently. Once in a while the United States would distinguish Taleban from one of its key components, al-Qaeda, without even opening the gate for Taleban inclusion in Afghani nation-building in spite of Pakistani recommendations and Pashtuni inclinations. No such distinction was made for the Ba’athists: all were condemned to exclusion, evident in outlawing the party and disbanding the military. One consequence was clear: Excluded Ba’athists swelled the ranks of antiU.S. Iraqi groups willing to resort to military means to evict the United States from Iraq and to subvert U.S. plans within Iraq; excluded talebs could not swell their own ranks from within Afghanistan, and if indeed they did swell subsequently, it was only through Pakistani recruits. No serious de-ba’athification plans or programs were considered in Iraq as was a de-nazification in Germany after World War II (and similar purification program in Japan).

50 Albert Somit and Steven A. Peterson, The Failure of Democratic Nation-Building: Ideology Meets Evolution (Houndsmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire, U.K.: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005). 51 Certainly the Bush Doctrine belongs here: See Robert Jervis, “Understanding the Bush Doctrine,” Political Science Quarterly 118, no. 3 ( June 2003): 365–88; but also Stephen G. Brooks, “Dueling realisms,” International Organization 51, no. 3 (Summer 1997): 445–77. 52 Barnaby Mason, “US warms to UN plan for Iraq,” BBC News, April 16, 2004, from: http://news.bbc.co.uk.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3632585.stm

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Ba’athist ideology was narcissistic and repressive, but no more so and no less than in the Shah’s Iran, Marcos’s Philippines, or Ayub Khan’s Pakistan during the Cold War. If the United States could coexist with these then, and is not overtly uncomfortable with lesser breed of authoritarian governments in Egypt, Pakistan, and Sa’udi Arabia today, for example, then the ideology itself cannot be the reason behind the more personal U.S. treatment of post-Saddam Iraq. If Islam is perceived as a threat, then Iraq should be less of a U.S. concern than Afghanistan since Saddam effectively institutionalized secularism, with greater women liberation than before or after his time. Afghanistan posed a greater Islamic threat, what with the churning out of endless talebs from Pakistan’s Wahhabi-financed madrasas.53 If ideology and religion do not satisfactorily explain the Ba’athist purge, the only viable explanation remaining is the party’s perpetrator himself: Saddam Hussein. If indeed, Saddam was the bug to drive two Bush presidents up the wall, one is even more hard-pressed to explain why. Saddam, by all counts, was too narcissistic to even tolerate freewheeling terrorists like Osama bin Laden to conjure up anything like the 9/11 events. He might have been the fly George H.W. Bush could not squat, leading up to a son determined to avenge this inability. If that was the reason why, the original mistake was not Iraqi, but the United States: Operation Desert Storm should not have been stopped until Baghdad was humbled, the Ba’athists displaced, and Saddam squatted. Just as democracy cannot be built upon retrospective justice, so too must it not become an agent of exclusion. Quite likely Taleban will return to the Afghani mainstream, though not in leadership capacity, since there is no crime in becoming a taleb or attending madrasas, as many Afghani boys aspire. When that happens, if indeed it will, Afghanistan may show one of the first signs of democratic irreversibility. Not so in Iraq. At least not until Ba’athists are given an exit option from exclusion. By some peculiarity, their fate is intrinsically tied with that of Iraqi Sunnis, though narcissisism and repressive behavior are not inherently Sunni. The U.S. Ba’athist posture got invariably intertwined with Iraq’s oldest schism, between Shi’as and Sunnis, and this is the straw that might break the U.S. intervention camel’s back.

53 Jessica Stern, “Pakistan’s jihad culture,” Foreign Affairs 79, no. 6 (November– December 2000):115–27.

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Role of Multilateral Force As alluded to, the two-track Afghani approach separating military and political functions facilitates democratization better than the inter-mingled Iraqi approach whereby political and military interests ricochet off each other. Whereas the United States remains the single most important external player in both countries, its largely off-shore Afghani presence permits NATO to experiment peacekeeping outside of its original theater, Europe, and for the International Security and Assistance Force (ISAF) to develop as an alternative peacekeeping body. Britain, Canada, and other leaders of the Afghani multilateral force have been able to build bridges into Afghani society outside of Kabul, while also paying the cost through increasing fatalities and terrorist targeting at home. The longer they stay, the higher the costs they are likely to pay, if the past is any guide—which is another way of saying democratic hopes may be in trouble. Their stay, thus far, has helped the initial democratization thresholds be crossed, and this is the key difference with their Iraqi counterpart: They have facilitated the progress, while in Iraq, their counterpart lives a marooned life, prioritizing self-defense than nation-building. Abuses, as epitomized by Abu Ghraib in Iraq,54 carry deeper antidemocracy stains than bridges with local society, as in Afghanistan, can enhance democracy. In Shakespearian parlance, not all the waters in the oceans can wipe away the blood on U.S. hands through Iraqi perception, a fate the Afghani multilateral force can largely avoid, without eliminating the al-Qaeda enemy, because the abuses have been far fewer and farther in between, they are more spread out among coalition forces than concentrated on the U.S. forces, as in Iraq, and because Afghanis have other priorities to attend which Iraqis increasingly don’t. It is not by chance, then, while sending troops for multilateral forces is not a popular policy position in any country, the Iraqi multilateral force is rapidly becoming a singularized U.S. force as other partners, including Britain, either weigh the options of exiting, or have exited already—also by their own choice. Adjusting to Ethnic Divisions In both countries, the adopted democratization blueprint explicitly seeks a fair ethnic representation in any future election or govern-

54 Grippingly narrated by Seymour M. Hersh, Chain of Command: The Road From 9/11 to Abu Ghraib (New York, NY: Harper, 2005).

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ment, but whereas Afghanistan was able to play with the mechanics of this during the constitution phase, Iraq fidgeted and missed out on fitting this crucial adjustment. Whereas Afghanistan was able to invoke the loya jirga, agency reflecting substantive decentralized interests while serving in a symbolic centralized capacity, Iraq’s decentralization was exclusively centrally-determined. At stake in Iraq was the voting mechanism. The U.S. campaign to structure representation through caucuses, though well-intentioned in that it sought to protect the minorities, was shot down by the majority Shi’as—in the process revealing the most profound disconnection: between the occupying force implementing democracy and the majority group seeking representation through the only way any majority party would—by a firstpast-the-post vote count. Shi’a opposition to the caucus proposal was just the tip of the iceberg, leading to mildly resisting the minority veto clause in the interim constitution. Sistani prevailed over the former, but in withdrawing over the latter, he indicated how Shi’as had full power, relished it, and would utilize it as needed in a democratic future. More importantly, they felt this legitimate right was being denied them by an occupying force. This was precisely what the United States did not want, or even see, since it left the ethnic division problem open, but more significantly, predicted as Iraqi future under the type of Shi’a domination it did not envision when it installed the southern no-fly-zone and catered to Chalabi and his INC in the 1990s. Whereas Afghani schisms were being discussed and negotiated within a politics-as-usual framework, Iraq’s were left without bandage—prelude to further disruption. Symbols and Democratization Instruments A final dissimilarity arose from the usage of symbols to facilitate reconciliation, centralization, democratization, in short state-building. Symbols can catalyze any of these, but also play a defensive role. In neither Afghanistan nor Iraq did symbols play a catalytic role, that is, advance democratization with their own momentum; but only in Afghanistan did they help prevent further rupture. One reason why they played this role in Afghanistan but could not in Iraq is because they did not exist in post-Saddam Iraq. Since the Ba’athists were central to building an Iraqi state, all state symbols collapsed once the Ba’athists were outlawed. By contrast, the Afghani king survived his overthrow as too pretender governments by the communists, mujahedeens, and Taleban. His monarchy was not restored in a substantive capacity, but his return as a symbol of the past and the center, especially in inaugurating the

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Emergency Loya Jirga, thwarted the ongoing tasks of splitting the country into a network of local warlord domains. This was crucial for Karzai’s legitimacy and the slow return of the Pashtunis from the democratization flanks. In addition to an illegitimate democratization start, Iraq was not only devoid of state-promoting symbols but also incapable of producing any in the immediate future: The newly created military has been influenced by vested interests, as too the police; the interim constitution provides minorities a veto which obscures any centralized visions; and oil, the very resource Iraq has abundance of, also reflects the ethnic division in terms of availability and as a future source of revenue, to serve as a unifying element. Conclusions Table 6.3 encapsulates highlights from the chapter, plucking out reflections and implications from similarities and differences between Afghanistan and Iraq. To recall, the chapter analyzed six similarities and six differences. Two themes stand out from the similarities and three from the differences. Similarities The two themes emphasize endogenous and exogenous forces of the democratization forces. Specifically, five of the six similarities speak reflect endogenous dynamics, the remainder portraying exogenous. As Table 6.3 displays, the representative democratic start, mobilization of key building blocks, intra-group dialogue, deadlines and adjustments serving as a reality check, and roles of exilees reflected the following familiar tasks of the democratization process, respectively: mobilization, infrastructural development, communications, trainand-error experiences, and as a catalyst. Beyond confronting different population and policy-making contexts, Afghanistan and Iraq did not vary much from each other in fulfilling those tasks: They were directly addressed and largely fulfilled, though the timing was not exactly identical; and the implication of democracy’s endogenous forces fulfilling their roles adds a plus for both Afghanistan and Iraq. The one similarity not belonging to the endogenous cluster was the sixth: the opportunity costs of the existing state. While it takes a robust state to coordinate the demands and supply of democracy,

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Table 6.3 Reflections from and Implications of Afghani-Iraqi Similarities and Difference Reflections

Implications

Similarities: 1. Representative democratization start: 2. Mobilization of building blocks: 3. Intra-group dialogue initiated: 4. Deadlines and adjustments as reality check: 5. Roles of exilees: 6. Opportunity costs of existing state:

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

mobilization infrastructural development communication trial-and-error experience catalyzing role damoclean sword

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

endogenous: domestic endogenous: domestic endogenous: domestic endogenous: domestic endogenous: mixed exogenous: mixed

Differences: 1. Different fates of excluded groups: 2. Different democratic pre-conditions: 3. Adjustment to divided society: 4. Different roles of multilateral force: 5. Different positioning of U.S.: 6. Different symbols of unity:

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

historical experiences vested US interests vested US interests democracy promotion training vested US interests historical experiences

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

exogenous: domestic exogenous: external exogenous: external endogenous: external exogenous: external exogenous: domestic

since both Afghanistan and Iraq were either rogue or failed states, the durability of statehood was not only questioned but also threatened by other forces, primarily among them being ethnic rivalries. Thus ethnic rivalries not only threatened the existence of Afghanistan and Iraq, but also, in case of a state breakdown, those rivalries did not predict democratization would automatically follow. In fact, any breakdown would be too bloody to immediately make democratization a state priority. From such a viewpoint, this single exogenous force reflecting state breakdown due to ethnic violence becomes the damoclean sword overhanging Afghanistan and Iraq. Differences The six differences between Afghanistan and Iraq reflect three themes: (a) U.S. vested interests from the different democratic preconditions, different adjustments to a divided society imperative, and different positioning of the United States; (b) bitter histories and experiences from the different fates of excluded groups and different symbols of unity; and (c) a democracy promotion imperative from the different roles of the multilateral military forces. Together they imply, for the three scenarios, exogenous forces of democratization remain (a) clearly external, (b) clearly domestic, and (c) more external than internal, respectively. One quickly notices why they are not exogenous forces:

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democracy can develop without them, but in Afghanistan and Iraq, each of them somehow piggyback the democratization processes. Balance Adding similarities and differences, endogenous and exogenous factors, as well as reflections and implications, we get a picture of pure flux: Many factors moving in the right direction, but facing the obvious pitfalls of a transition; many features leaving the drawing board facing obvious cultural shocks while adjusting in the trenches; and many features of the old-regime not easily wiped away and having to be absorbed in diluted form. For all of these reasons, the chapter portrays an ad hoc democracy in its nascent stage, with Iraq’s troubled waters running deeper than Afghanistan’s and boasting fewer bridges for the crossing.

7. CONSTITUTIONAL DEMOCRACY: AFGHANISTAN’S PAPER TIGER & IRAQ’S PIGEON CLAY Introduction Constructing a working constitution, as opposed to a fundamental, permanent one, became the second Afghani and Iraqi democratization milestone after replacing an unwanted regime with an ad hoc authority. Yet, the roads taken after conflict towards democracy went in different directions: Whereas Afghanistan plodded along with both feet on the ground, Iraq limped on one foot from the very start. Both produced a viable constitution, fairly much along envisioned lines, and set into motion the ball of politics, but whereas Afghanistan’s mixed experiences convey some optimism, Iraq’s handicapped origin opens a vicious cycle. At least that is the conclusion drawn from an Afghanistan-Iraq comparative study along twelve overlapping but telling episodes. Focusing on the nature of the constitution being developed, as well as the impact of a number of other factors, those episodes include: (a) the nature of government designed; (b) the nature of rights, freedom, and representation; (c) the role of Islam; (d) the religion-politics balance; (e) the role of women; (f ) balancing ethnic desires; (g) the evolving nature of politics; (h) the treatment of militias; (i) the role of exilees; ( j) the security climate obtaining; (k) the role of the United States; and (l) future prospects, especially towards remaining a functional state. Profiling what might be called the consolidation phase, that is, the ingredients leading up to a working constitution, facilitates comparisons and contrasts. Profiling Constitution-making Table 7.1 profiles two constitutional trajectories through ten illustrative dimensions. Reconnecting with observations in the previous chapter, Table 7.1 examines the routes taken by Afghanistan and Iraq from the decision to adopt democracy to building the fundamental infrastructure of democracy: the permanent constitution. It touches both

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background and expected future developments, providing an overview of the starting and expected ending points, highlighting key developments, or thresholds, in between. Table 7.1 Constitutional Profile: Afghanistan and Iraq Compared Dimensions

Afghanistan

Iraq

1. Prior developments: Bonn Accord leading to Interim Government (IG) from December 22, 2001 to June 22, 2002

Creation of Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) and Iraq Governing Council (IGC) leading up to the Transitional Administrative Law (TAL) of March 8, 2004

2. Key thresholds of consolidation phase (both creating and implementing a working constitution so as to position procedures for the fundamental constitution, highlighted by elections and democratically elected government):

IG: summons Constitutional Loya Jirga (CLJ) ↓ Establish Transitional Government (TG) to formulate constitution (from June 23, 2002), then create CLJ to ratify constitution (by December 2003) ↓ Hold presidential and parliamentary elections (October 9, 2004 and September 18, 2005, respectively) ↓ Democratically-elected president from December 7, 2004, and Parliament from December 19, 2005

IG installed after January 30, 2005 elections, until May 31, 2005: task to develop interim constitution and form TG ↓ Hold TG elections (by January 31, 2005) ↓ TG from May 3, 2005 to May 20, 2006: create permanent constitution by August 15, 2005, referendum by October 15, 2005 ↓ Parliamentary elections December 15, 2005 ↓ Democratically-elected government from May 2006

3. Key similarity:

Democratically elected government through routine phases

Democratically elected government through strict phases

4. Key differences:

a. No military intervention a. Military intervention in in political process political process (CPA) b. No leaders unilaterally through IGC imposed b. IGC leaders unilaterally c. Shift from civil war to civil imposed (by U.S.) society c. shift from civil society to civil war

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Table 7.1 (cont.) Dimensions

Afghanistan

Iraq

5. Dominant sponsor: UN

US

6. Multilateral force:

COW: US-dominated

NATO, ISAF

7. Legitimizing force: * CLJ, established by July 2003 presidential decree: Poll for 500 delegates from October 12, 2003 * CLJ session from December 14, 2003 until January 4, 2004 * Breakdown of 500 delegates: 344 elected by caucus at district level, 64 women at province level 42 refugees, nomads, minorities, 50 appointed by Hamed Karzai (25 men+25 women)

IG elections: United Iraq Alliance (UIA): 146 seats (of 275) Allawi Group: 40 Kurd Alliance: 75 Sunnis: boycotted elections ↓ TG legitimized by Election Commission and Supreme Court ↓ December 15, 2005 elections: UIA: 128 (of 275 seats) Iraq Accordance Front: 44 (Sunnis) Iraq National Dialogue Front: 11 (Sunnis) Allawi Group: 25 Kurd Alliance: 53

8. Final constitution profile:

160 articles; 12 chapters

137 articles, 6 sections, and 14 chapters

9. Language:

Pashtu, Dari

Arabic

10. Religion-secularity Began on a secular note, balance: drifted slowly in Islamic directions

Began on a secular note, drifted rapidly in Islamic directions

The first dimension informs us how the Afghani road started at Bonn in December 2001, involving contentious representatives of the people, while the Iraqi road began even before the March 2003 invasion under pre-selected, dubiously representative leaders. Whereas the Afghani Interim Government (IG) was selected through multilateral approval and Afghani consent, the Iraq Governing Council (IGC) brought the various factions together but was the product of the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), the civilian front of the U.S.sponsored Coalition of the Willing (COW). Given these different birth traits, both proceeded in different directions toward the same goal of creating working constitutions at a dissimilar pace and with quite

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distinctive personalities/identities. As previously discussed, the IGC and Transitional Administrative Law (TAL) in Iraq created complications Afghanistan did not face, while Afghanistan’s working constitution, written largely in Bonn before the IA was installed and influenced by the 1964 Constitution, had now to be taken to the people, that is, to an agency representing ordinary Afghanis, not exilees nor externallyapproved leaders. Beyond these warts and wrinkles, the second dimension acknowledges the fairly similar process crossing familiar thresholds: an interim government brought into place by a working constitution, charged with producing a transitional government mandated to write a permanent constitution and establish an election time-table. The third dimension highlights the similarities, the fourth the differences. Whereas the processes and goals remained key similarities, Afghanistan’s democratization not being supervised by the military became the fundamental contrast with Iraq. It led to the insertion of an additional phase exclusively for Iraq: the one covering the shift from conflict, that is, from CPA’s domain, to the IGC. Afghanis largely chose their own leaders, but Iraqi leaders were largely chosen for them by the United States; and through the democratization process, whereas Afghanistan was largely spared sectarian warfare or any civil strife, Iraq not only shifted quickly from the joys of eliminating Saddam’s regime to conflict, but also witnessed the conflict escalate from bad to worse. Just as the United Nations remained the dominant Afghani democratization sponsor, both at the Bonn conference and within the country, the United States exclusively sponsored Iraqi democracy. In turn, the multilateral forces in both countries played different roles: in Afghanistan the International Security and Assistant Force (ISAF), then the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO),1 functioned independent of the political processes, in Iraq the U.S.-dominated COW influenced IGC through the CPA. Against those different backgrounds and unfolding developments, both Afghanistan and Iraq legitimized their democratization pursuits by bringing in the people in place of the selected original leaders. Afghanistan did this through the Emergency Loya Jirga (ELJ) and the ISAF established by Bonn Accord on December 20, 2001; placed under rotating NATO leadership from August 2003. See Richard E. Rupp, NATO After 9/11: An Alliance in Continuing Decline (Houndsmills, Basingtoke, Hampshire, U.K.: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006), chap. 5. 1

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Constitutional Loya Jirga (CLJ), the latter becoming as representative a body as any in the country’s history, Iraq through the IG and TG. Two differences stand out: First, Afghanistan got to invoking the loya jirga faster than Iraq could summon any institution representing the people; and whereas the Afghanistan parliamentary format disguised the emerging presidential government, Iraq’s evolving structures exposed presidential domination shifting in a parliamentary direction. The eighth dimension acknowledges the size and format of the two constitutions, the ninth the various languages these were written in. More relevant may be the tenth. Addressing the religion-secularity balance, it acknowledges both countries shifting from a secular start towards religious identities, routinely for Afghanistan, rapidly for Iraq, and inevitably for both. Democratization, in turn, assumed a different stripe: Historically and generally, it reflected a secular tone since the individualism symbolized by secret balloting, a fundamental ingredient of democracy, enhances this-world rather than here-after considerations. Not only incorporating religious beliefs, but also accepting them as the dominant electoral catalyst changing traditional political competition. Whether this is appropriate or not, unlike Christianity, which quickly manifested itself through the doctrine of two swords (religion belonging to God and politics to Caesar), since Islam combines both, democratizing Muslim countries necessitates the incorporation of Islam, no matter what the implications. Certainly for Afghanistan and Iraq, democracy analyses remain incomplete without discussing the religion variable. Constitutional comparisons continue below along eleven dimensions: nature of government designed; nature of rights, freedoms, representation; role of Islam; religion-politics balance; role of women; balancing ethnic desires; evolving nature of politics; treatment of warlords/militias; role of exiles; security climate obtaining; and the role of the United States. Each is further disaggregated, as profiled by a corresponding table. Nature of Government Designed Table 7.2 extracts six dimensions of the constitution for comparison. The first one formalizes the presidential-parliamentary distinction made in the previous chapter: Afghanistan’s president was made the chief of both state and government, while Iraq’s served only a nominal role, supported by two vice-presidents, leaving the real levers

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of political power with the prime minister and his cabinet. Whereas Afghanistan was quick to establish a Father of the Nation position, thus claiming a symbol of state unity, Iraq neither established one nor found a much-needed state symbol when the state was itself being dismantled or re-created—in other words, remaining in flux at a time when the presence of a state symbol was most urgent. Both countries retained a federal form of government, as the second dimension notes, with Afghanistan laying greater claim to centralized power than Iraq. Interestingly, the United States, which boldly but unsuccessfully pushed a caucus-based parliamentary system in Iraq, was more adamant and successful in keeping a presidential Afghani system—another suggestion of how the more the hands-on engagement of an external country in building democracies, the less likely expected results would be delivered. Table 7.2 Nature of Government Designed: Afghanistan-Iraq Comparisons Dimensions

Afghanistan

Iraq

1. Government: a. Head of state: a. President b. Head of government: b. President c. Father of Nation: c. King

a. President (nominal) b. Prime minister (real power)

2. Type of Government:

Presidential-parliamentary mix: federal

Parliamentary: federal

3. Nature of legislature:

Bicameral: * Head of Elders (Meshrani Jirga), with 102 members Sibghatullah Mojadeddi voted in December 20, 2005; with one-third to be elected by provincial councils, one-third by district councils, and one-third appointed by president * House of People (Wolesi Jirga), with 249 members led by Younus Qanooni (Karzai’s opponent elected 122–117 on December 21, 2005)

Unicameral: National Assembly (Council of Representatives under the TG), with 275 seats, based on provincial population distribution

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Table 7.2 (cont.) Dimensions

Afghanistan

4. Ratification:

Early 2004

5. Contending parties:

Multiple: * Afghanistan Nationalist Party (of Qanooni) Islamic Social Party of Afghanistan (Hezb-i-Jamiat-i-Islami Afghanistani) * Islamic Party of Afghanistan (Hezb-i-Islami Afghanistani) * National Congress Party of Afghanistan (Hezb-e-Congra-e-Milli Afghanistani) * National Movement of Afghanistan (Hezb-e-Nuhzhat-e-Milli Afghanistani) * National Islamic Movement of Afghanistan (Jumihish-i-Mili-Islami, of Uzbeki Dostum) * Wahdat Islamic Unity Party, representing Hazaras)

Iraq Multiple: * Supreme Council for Islamic Republic in Iraq (SCIRI): Shi’a * Badr Organization: Shi’a * Sadrist Movement: Shi’a * Islamic Virtue Party: Shi’a * Islamic Da’awa Party: Shi’a * Islamic Da’awa Party Iraq Organization: Shi’a * Iraqi National Congress: Shi’a (Chalabi) * Iraq Accordance Front: Sunni * Iraq National Dialogue Front: Sunni * Iraq National List: Shi’a & Sunni (Allawi’s) * Democratic Patriotic Alliance of Kurds: Kurds * Kurdish Democratic Party: Kurds

6. Constitution drafting * Constitution Drafting * Electoral Commission and dissemination tasks: Commission (from October 2002), 9 members, chaired by Vice President Shahrani, drafted mostly by Professor Azimi from 1964 constitution * Constitution Committee (created by Karzai), April 2003: consult people for constitution responses, redrafted, and released in November 2003

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Turning to the third dimension, Afghanistan’s bicameral legislature strengthened the federal and parliamentarian components, while Iraq’s unicameral legislature resembled the British fusion of power, though with critical differences: Whereas Afghanistan’s 102-member House of Elders (Meshrani Jirga) was indirectly elected by provincial councils (one-third) and district councils (one-third), with the president also appointing one-third of them, the 249-member House of the People (Wolesi Jirga), elected on a provincial population basis, was actually led by Hamed Karzai’s defeated presidential challenger, Younus Qanooni, after the September 18, 2005 parliamentary elections, putting in place an adversarial dynamic right from the very start. This development fortuitously helped harness checks-and-balances for a people not accustomed to utilizing them. Remarkably, the fourth dimension acknowledges the proliferation of political parties in both countries. One notices how Afghani parties gravitate towards nationalistic or Islamic directions, exposing the dominant ethnic tussle between the Tadjiks and Pashtunis, with the former favoring a nationalistic banner given its minority population claim, and the latter reflecting past religious preferences, hoping, by rallying to these, a return to controlling central levers of government would come quicker. On the other hand, one notices how Iraqi parties carry a prominent ethnic or religious coloring. “It is our religious duty to say ‘yes’ to the constitution and to go to the ballot boxes,” Abdel-Aziz al-Hakim, the head of Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution of Iraq (SCIRI) told 2,000 supporters in late September 2005 before the October vote.2 Whether Sunni or Shi’as, Kurds distinguish themselves as being Kurds first, especially during this particular democratization moment, while Sunnis and Shi’as prefer their religious identities over their provincial. As Luke Baker puts it, Kurds see Islam as a source of law, not the, but the issue was so big, essentially to Iraq’s majority group, Shi’as, the United States was willing to concede over the role of Islam, if only to hammer out a constitution before the 2005 deadline.3 Both have secular and religious wings, and the religious would increas-

2 Qasim Abdul Zahra, “Shiites seek ‘yes’ vote in Iraq charter,” Washington Post, September 25, 2005, from: http://www.washingtonpost.co,/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/24/AR2005-092400367 . . . 3 Luke Baker, “Islam looms larger in new Iraqi charter,” Reuter News Agency, August 21, 2005, from: http://www.washingtontimes.com/world/20050821-125654-2703r .htm

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ingly distinguish moderates from extremists. For example, mainstream Shi’as rally behind Ayatollah Ali Sistani’s SCIRI group,4 while Moqtadar Sadr’s radical supporters on the outskirts of Baghdad, cling to the Sadrist Movement or Mahdi Army. Behind the ethnic and religions factions lies Iraq’s unified future. The future finally lies in the hands of Iraq’s majority—the Shi’as. Accounting for 60% of the population, how they seek to centralize power through Baghdad, rather than the south where they concentrate, remains as critical to the country’s unity as to its political dynamics; and similarly, how Kurds and Sunnis perceive or respond to these could also determine the country’s future. Whereas Sunnis largely boycotted the January 2005 parliamentary elections, by returning for the December 2005 elections and performing much better than the Kurds, they also showed their apprehensions from being left out of the political process as well as capacities to play the politics-as-usual game. Yet, the shift towards extremism is most like to be spearheaded by Sunnis, not only by solidifying where and when possible with al-Qaeda, if needed, but also preventing any Shi’ite snowballing. Shi’as remain a double-edged sword: As a majority group, it will influence future Iraqi governments in one way or another; and as it rises to the fore, Iran’s stakes in Iraq can only multiply. Hazem Shalan, defense minister of the IIG, thought, at the time of the January 2005 elections, the Shi’a coalition, United Iraq Alliance (UIA), to be “an Iranian list.” Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, who proposed the coalition idea, was seen by the United States as being a moderating factor since, unlike Iran’s desires, he did not wish clerical control of political power.5 Afghanistan took more concerted efforts in both preparing and disseminating the constitution, no less because of the Bonn Accord mandates, than Iraq. This also was the product of the original birth defects alluded to earlier. As sponsor, whereas the U.N. facilitated the constitutional drafting and debates in Afghanistan, the U.S. did not undertake any comparable exercises, leaving it to selected leaders to get the message across to their own constituencies. The consequences

4 SCIRI changed its name on May 11, 2007 to Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council (SIIC) to adjust to changing situations. Especially the “revolution” portion was deleted since it conveyed a message SCIRI had removed the Ba’athists. 5 Tony Karon, “Will Iran win Iraq’s elections? Probably not, but Tehran may do better than Washington when Iraqis vote,” Time, online edition, December 15, 2004. Internet address not given.

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7. constitutional democracy Table 7.3 Rights, Freedoms, Representation: Afghanistan-Iraq Comparisons

Dimensions

Afghanistan

Iraq

1. Constitutional rights and Improvement, but subjected Huge improvement, but faces freedoms in historical to practical constraints practical obstacles perspective: 2. Fundamental rights and freedoms denied in constitution:

Huge improvement

Right to bear arms

3. Constraints to extending More theoretical than rights and freedoms: practical, especially for women

More theoretical than practical, especially for women

4. Impact on democracy, given constraints:

Limits it to men largely

Limits it to men largely

fed into the potentially most cataclysmic emerging difference between the two democratizing countries: contributing to country-wide symbolbuilding in Afghanistan but remaining absent in Iraq, thus reinforcing local tendencies. Nature of Rights, Freedoms, Representation Constitutions carved in both countries brought people out of the human rights stone-age. The number of rights and freedoms given marked a huge improvement on those available before, as the first dimension of Table 7.3 recognizes. These were not as complete as in the more advanced democracies, since certain rights and freedoms had to be withheld. Among these was the right to bear arms in Iraq, for understandable reasons. Perhaps the biggest void in both countries is in the treatment of women. Though conscious efforts were made to bring them into the political mainstream with the least of disruptions, they expose why true democracy still falls far short. Since they constitute more than half the population (conflicts have exacted a higher toll on men than on women), women were still treated like endangered species. Iraq, for example, gave women only a 25% quota in legislative representation. Both countries produced cabinets dominated by men; and adding insult to democratic injury, the two or three women included in the cabinets were treated as showcases, publicized to demonstrate the fulfillment of a criterion than allowed to flourish into a normal devel-

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opment. The issue is big enough to receive full and separate treatment below. Over the sensitive area of representation, constitution-makers toiled and treaded softly, and eventually produced the most democratically satisfactorily outcomes. Democracy, as would become clear, remains one source of future problems. Enjoying more than a majority status in Iraq, Shi’as could easily utilize the constitution to marginalize the Sunnis. Pre-empting this through the adoption of a two-thirds majority voting over many critical issues was a much needed remedy, but since the Sunnis in the immediate post-Saddam era were also associated with persecuting both Shi’as and Kurds during Saddam’s tenure, a Shi’aKurd legislative combination essentially posed a damoclean sword over Sunnis, even though many Kurds are themselves Sunnis. The obvious outcome of democracy’s majority fundamental, as was increasingly evident in constitution-building months, was to push Sunnis towards extremist behavior. It wasn’t just al-Qaeda infiltrating Iraq with suicidebombers, since the key initial target was the United States, but eventually even neighboring countries, like Sa’udi Arabia, feeling the heat of ascendant Shi’ism, leading the anti-Shi’ism dice in Iraq with weapons, personnel, and financial support at the official level. As Shi’as and Sunnis squared-off against each other, Kurds profited immensely. On the one hand, all Kurd factions united under a Kurd nationalistic sentiment to show greater unity than divisiveness, in turn strengthening the autonomy bred by the no-fly-zone protection from a decade earlier. On the other, this unity and autonomy pushed Kurds to the brink of breaking Iraq at any given moment, to the detriment of co-religionist Sunnis, compounding the Shi’a-based threat the Sunnis faced anyway. Afghanistan’s democratization, contrariwise, averted such potential showdowns for at least two unsuspected reasons—demographic patterns and skillful conversion of the inter-ethnic rivalries into a politics-as-usual dynamic. Demographically, because the Pashtuns did not have absolute population majority, they could not exert the damoclean sword upon the other groups, like the Shi’as could in Iraq; and since they were also put on the defensive by Taleban association, the historical instinct of supplying Afghani leadership was also mitigated. Against these constraints, Tadjiks were not a proportionately large enough group to be allowed to speak for all of Afghanistan; and their strenuous efforts to do so, especially in retaining control over the military, not only helped Pashtuns align with other minority groups, invoking

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the seeds of politics-as-usual coalitions, but also pushed Karzai to distance himself from his former Northern Alliance partners, thus opening the way for (a) adversarial politics in the legislature, where the Northern Alliance would rally behind Qanooni, the Tadjik leader at the Bonn Conference who worked with Karzai in the Interim Government, but opposed him unsuccessfully in the 2004 presidential elections before winning a narrow margin to become the opposition leader in parliament; and (b) Pashtuns to enter presidential politics through the back-door. Karzai skillfully managed to keep Tadjiks at bay by keeping potential Islamic groups, led by Burhanuddin Rabbani, for example, available as political instruments, again finessing inter-tribal political instincts and dispensations for modern-day democracy. Democracy in both countries developed appropriate political instruments, but as mentioned, to target the Iraqi state, if bad ever turned to worse, and to pre-empt Afghani state breakdown since that was the only safeguard against inter-tribe warfare. Additionally, democracy in both countries turned out to be male-centric, in turn revealing how the door was only marginally opened to women in Afghanistan, while Iraq witnessed an almost wholesale women retreat from public spheres as it began democratization. Role of Islam In both countries, constitution-building pushed Islam towards the other extreme compared to where it was before. Table 7.4 profiles this transition. Under Taleban, Afghanistan became a virtual theocracy under Islam’s most frugal format; while in Iraq, Islam shifted from subordination under Ba’athist secularity towards a king-maker role after Saddam’s downfall. Whereas stiff Northern Alliance resistance prevented any automatic Islamic restoration in Afghanistan after the Bonn Accord, many warlords were galvanized by traditional practices, rather than theocratic, and certainly fundamentalist desires, to insist on some constitutional recognition of religion. The net result was to declare Afghanistan an Islamic Republic, but not in the Taleban mould. Although Islam became at least one source of law in both countries, as the third dimension observes, since it gushed out of the Saddamera containment, driven no less by a rare Shi’ite surge to take control, Islam was more prone to fundamentalist interpretations in Iraq than in Afghanistan, where Taleban theocracy and al-Qaeda extremism placed it in a descending mode after the Bonn Accord. Islam became more of a political bargaining chip than a policy determinant in Afghanistan,

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Table 7.4 Role of Islam: Afghanistan-Iraq Comparisons Dimensions

Afghanistan

Iraq

1. Prior role:

Dominant under Taleban

Subordinated to Ba’athist ideology (socialism) and security

2. Place in constitution:

Underlying identity: Islam Underlying identity: More one source of law explicit reliance on Islam

3. Role during interim and transnational governments:

Respected but largely kept out of headlines by many secular exile leaders and moderate Islamists

4. Net impact of Eternal vigilance against democratization movement: jihadi threats

Ascending role: Shi’a majority sees opportunity for revival; accelerated by Iranian influence; and global rise in fundamentalism Eternal vigilance against jihadi threats

but in Iraq it took a reverse turn, determining policy preferences and haunting hitherto secularly oriented individuals. The net impact on democratization in both countries can only emerge once the political dust settles, but the question-mark appears bolder and more ominous in Iraq than in Afghanistan. Afghanistan’s sole threat seems to be resurging Taleban, a development spreading not like wild-fire but by sporadic and sudden impositions in selected parts of the country, and dependent on a resource-base, such as madrasas, largely in another country, Pakistan. Iraq’s sources of threat include not just resurging Shi’ism after decades, nay centuries, of suppression, but also reactionary Sunnis fighting to both reclaim lost ground and prevent reverse Shi’a persecution. As the leading Shi’ite country, Iraq’s next door neighbor, Iran, is well positioned to fan the flames in Iraq, much as Pakistani madrasas have the capability to in Afghanistan, while retreating or marooned al-Qaeda recruits worldwide still see both Afghanistan and Iraq as attractive ideological theaters. Recent suicide bombings in Baghdad have been claimed by the “Islamic cabinet” of a newly emerged group, the Islamic State of Iraq, “as a ‘legitimate’ alternative to the U.S.-backed Shiite-led government.”6

6 Lauren Frayer, “ ‘Islamic cabinet’ formed by insurgents,” The Daily Pennsylvanian, April 20, 2007, 9.

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Retreating or marooned jihadists of the 1980s have little or no impact on constitution-making, but their modern counterparts impose huge constraints on the implementation of constitutional rights and safeguards in both Afghanistan and Iraq. For example, by threatening the people at large for fulfilling constitutional obligations, such as participate in elections, or for girls to pursue the right to be educated, serve as a constant damoclean sword on democracy. If eternal vigilance is the price of freedom, as was eloquently argued when the west was democratizing, it is even more so an obligation in transitional Afghanistan and Iraq, and perhaps other transitional Islamic countries. Religion-Politics Balance How real or visible that threat is may be a function of the balance religion strikes with politics. Table 7.5 addresses this dynamic along five dimensions. By examining the relationship between religion and extant political parties, the first dimension recognizes how religion is one of the dominant party identities in both countries, but how strong nationalistic identities also guarantee a mutually inhibiting tension. Whether fundamentalism played a role in the past seems to be determining its future trajectory: Its totally controlling characteristic under Taleban Afghanistan may be pushing the new Afghanistan to steer clear of that direction; but without a similar past experience, Iraqis may still find in fundamentalism answers to concurrent anarchy, or at least an improvement on Saddam’s totalitarian Ba’athists.7 Political parties needing popular support to remain viable seem to be taking the cue in both countries, decisively stopping short of the fundamentalist brink in Afghanistan but remaining more ambivalent, as opposed to becoming fundamentalist, in Iraq. Religion became a political variable in curiously contrasting ways in the two countries. In both, Islam brought relief from totalitarian control, in Afghanistan of the Taleban type, in Iraq of Saddam’s. Since in Islam both religion and politics go together by definition, we expect to find new types of electoral politics to appear, especially if quid pro quo politics over-rides its sine quo non counterpart, reflected in coalitional patterns. I return to this discussion below. 7 Beverly Milton-Edwards captures what is at stake, especially on the electoral front, in “Faith in democracy: islamization of the Iraqi polity after Saddam Hussein,” Democratization 13, no. 3 ( June 2006): 472–89.

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Table 7.5 Religion-Politics Balance: Afghanistan-Iraq Comparisons Dimensions

Afghanistan

Iraq

1. Political party as reflector:

Large majority of parties have Islamic identity, even warlord parties; but no fundamentalist drive

Greater proportion of secular parties than in Afghanistan; but Islamic parties (moderates and extremists) behind political steering wheel

2. Impact on freedoms and rights:

Women both mobilized to participate, but also intimidated from participation: detrimental vis-à-vis democratization

Mobilized women retreating from participation; freedoms and rights underutilized and limited in scope

3. Impact of warlords/militias: Mixed: some warlords too Reduces islamization in the religious, others too secular country: Kurds soft on this, Shi’ites more hard, Sunnis turning fundamentalist 4. Religion as a political instrument:

Not a robust feature: Karzai Increasing role, in part due has not utilized it; warlord to Shi’ite ascendance and politics has been largely Sunni-Shi’a rivalry: secular

5. Politics as a religious instrument:

Not frontline news, but Rabbani and others may exploit this option (to limited effect)

Increasing tool, especially by Shi’ites, whether mainstream (Sistani) or radical (Moqtada)

Impacts on freedoms and rights, as listed in the second dimension, rally around the treatment of women more than other groups; and in both countries, their vulnerability can be largely explained by how political parties treat religion. It is a vulnerability women largely seek to get out of in Afghanistan given the new hopes of democracy and constitutional rights; but in Iraq, this vulnerability is being fed in part by women on the retreat from civic lives they once led. Party politics only mirrors societal features, in this case, a male ball-game. Very much like women, warlords or militias shed interesting light on religion in both countries. Here too the evidence seems mixed, with some of the warlords like Dostum defying religion, others like Ismail Khan advocating it, and in Iraq some militias like the Kurd Pesh Merga subordinating religion to other interests while Moqtada Sadr’s

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Mahdi Brigade elevating it over many other interests. Cultivating warlords and militias may become one bell-weather of Afghani and Iraqi democratization, an indication of how the dominant thrust involving Islam is to serve as a quid pro quo political instrument, but an opportunity worth hijacking by extremists to serve sine qua non desires. Finally, the last two dimensions examine the roles of religion as a political instrument and politics as a religious instrument. Interestingly, in a religion without any separation between the state and the mosque, both tendencies prevail and evident in the performances of both secular leaders, like Afghanistan’s Karzai or Iraq’s Allawi and religious leaders like Afghanistan’s Rabbani and Iraq’s Sistani. Karzai was not only instrumental in fighting the Taleban before the Bonn Conference, but also in making such a peace with Mullah Omar as to give the Taleban leader the critical freedom he needed from advancing U.S. troops; and as president he adroitly utilized and fed into Islam, as well as Islamic groups, to win majority support in the CLJ. Sistani also rallied his supporters to prevent the U.S. caucus-based election proposal, and demonstrated how he is not keen on providing minorities safeguards. These tendencies arguably, reflect coalition dynamics. William H. Riker’s three coalition principles operate in both Afghanistan and Iraq, but reflect the different twists and turns of regime-change discussed in this chapter (and becomes more relevant in the next two chapters): size, minimal strategy, and disequilibrium. The size principle would push winning coalitions toward the minimal size; when this is satisfied, the parties involved seek a minimal coalition strategy; and if both principles have been satisfied, the system becomes unstable because each of those parties seek outcomes “regardless of stakes and hence towards the elimination of participants.”8 Assumptions central to these possibilities include the presence of exactly two sides, zero-sum preferences, knowledge of options available, and rationality.9 Since extremist Islamic groups dispense of the rationality assumption, they make poor coalition partners; but modified versions of extremist groups could play havoc with the democratic machineries. They could enter a coalition seeking the minimal size and strategy, then disrupt it by eliminating partners one at a time. Of course, the reverse could

8 William H. Riker, The Theory of Political Coalitions (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1962), 211, but see chap. 10. 9 Ibid., 15, but see chap. 1.

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also happen, a secular or mainstream party doing likewise to religious parties. To prevent sine qua non outcomes, we might find increasing quid pro quo politics. Afghanistan’s have by and large shown this pattern, given Karzai’s machinations to remove, not a religious party, but utilizing religious parties to down-size the Tadjiks; Iraq’s, on the other hand, given the Shi’a majority status, is more prone to beginning with sine qua non positions, but faced with constitutional constraints to a majority status, may settle for quid pro quo alternatives. The U.S. presence prevents any one group in either country from fully attaining the disequilibrium principle. Various parties “must come together for common action without much regard for consideration of ideology or previous friendship,” Riker argues, “for the sake of winning.”10 Precarious though the stakes may be, Afghanistan is better positioned to cross the hump owing to this thrust, than Iraq, at this stage of democracy. Clearly, democratization brings out the best of Islam’s conjoined political-religion twin, creating opportunities rarely utilized in recent times but also imposing threats unheard of before. Unless these move in extreme directions, they could reflect the healthy nature of politicsas-usual in both countries. Being hijacked by fundamentalism would reveal at least the inability of political parties to play this juggling game well or the lack of visionary political leaders. Role of Women Central to the role of Islam became the role of women. As previously noted, the special care rendered women by constitution-makers raises the more perplexing question why they were simply not given full democratic rights instead of being treated as an endangered specie. Both interim constitutions introduced quotas for women and 50% of the Afghan president’s appointees for them, but there were only a pathetic 64 women out of 450 electoral representatives in Afghanistan’s, and 25% out of 275 members in Iraq’s Council of Representatives. Whereas in Afghanistan women leaders have made news, in Iraq, as the second dimensions indicates, there is a clear paucity of such leaders. Beyond these quotas, however, we see the real contributions and limits of women participation. As Table 7.6 indicates in the second dimension, Afghanistan produced more women vanguards conveying similar equal rights concerns in the west than Iraq. This was the

10

Ibid., 21–11.

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other perplexing consequence of democratizing both countries under an Islamic watch. The relatively more traditional Afghanistan opened up to a greater extent than the relatively more moderate Iraq, which in fact, closed more after the elections than before. Both still have a long way to go to match 21st Century expectations. Table 7.6 Role of Women: Afghanistan-Iraq Comparisons Dimensions

Afghanistan

Iraq

1. Representation on key 64 out of 450 in the CLJ; 25% of Council of transitional agencies: 25 out of 50 among president’s Representatives appointees to CLJ 2. Vanguards:

* Soraya Parlicka of Kabul: status of women * Nadera Hayat Burhani: women trafficking by warlords * Noorya Wisai of Ghazni: not “Afghan citizens”, but “men and women” in constitution * Malalai Joya from Farah: anti-warlord speech; needed UN protection * Dr. Massouda Jalal: first woman to place name on presidential ballot in democratic election; second only to Karzai in TG presidential elections (171 votes)

No particular person has thus far emerged at leadership level, though some serve in lesser capacities

3. Concessions made to (or strides by) women:

* ELJ: 70 walked out (denied right to vote); 160 delegates (out of 2000) guaranteed for women * 114 women protested at CLJ for not being represented; 2 were made deputy conference chair * CLJ: 64 women elected at province level, out of 450

Not quite as dramatically evident in Iraq

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Soraya Parlicka from the Kabul delegation consistently raised the status of women in the CLJ, but it was her counterpart from Ghazni, Noorya Wisai, who demantled the constitution not lump women with men as “Afghan citizens” and instead treat them for what they were, as “men and women” of Afghanistan. Both Nadera Hayat Burbani and Malalai Joya wagged their fingers at warlords, the former to ask for stopping the trafficking of women, the latter specifically castigating their anti-women postures. Joya raised so much heat in her denunciations as to push warlords to evict her from the convention. Ultimately, she even needed U.N. protection for her outbursts. Especially robust and perhaps more successful in raising the gender plight was Dr. Masooda Jalal, the only woman contender for the presidential position. She did not attract large crowds, but did better than many male candidates.11 Iraq did not produce any comparable galaxy of speakers advocating women’s rights, indicating the less permissive Iraqi atmosphere under democratization. It was not that Shi’a women prefer more background roles than their Sunni counterparts, or that surging suicide bombers threatened them more than Sunni women. The plight of women worsened inexplicably after Saddam in part due to democracy offering more equalities than men could or would swallow in their own homes and in a male-dominated society, in part due to the evaporation of safeguards women were long accustomed to, such as a stable man when so many of them were being killed or frightened into living in the shadows; and in part due to a conflict-scarred atmosphere and growing refugees—two circumstances which both expose women vulnerabilities and increase their responsibilities more than men. Nevertheless, since the constitutions held out hope, the third dimension captures some of the concessions made to women. Again, we see the asymmetry: more in Afghanistan than in Iraq. When 114 women protested at the CLJ for not finding adequate representation, two were appointed as deputy conference chairpersons, out of four, which was a huge booster, not only from being the first such gesture, but also for inspiring so many other women to break the ice and participate vocally, as Joya din Wisai had done. In fact, out of the 450 electoral representatives sent to the CLJ, 64 were women; and of the 50 appointed by

11 “Afghan election campaign begins,” BBC News, September 7, 2004. No internet address available.

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the president, 25 were women. Iraq missed out on similar opportunities, in part due to the assassination of a woman IGC member just when the IGC was established in late 2003, but they were placed in charge of various portfolios, limited though they were. Balancing Ethnic Desires Balancing ethnic desires had to rank among the most important issues since differences between groups had historically been a cause of division; and one might argue, against the importance of such issues, other democracy-driven issues like women’s rights were probably more short-shrifted than they should have been: Without debates and settlements of the core issues, women issues and other less frictional issues may have found more receptive ears and made greater inroads than they did. As every dimension of Table 7.7 illustrates, balancing ethnic desires touched several facets of governance, from restoring marginalized groups to the creation or allocation of positions and portfolio. The first dimension clearly shows the restoration task to be more delicate in Afghanistan than in Iraq, where sheer numbers paved the way. Restoring the marginalized Afghan majority group, Pashtuns, was a priority from the very beginning at Bonn; and even though the Pashtunis did not influence the outcome on the table, lateral influences ensured Pashtunis were not neglected. One outcome was the selection of Karzai as IG leader, and although he had NA loyalties, over time, the dilution of these loyalties opened up more space for Pashtuni engagement at the center.12 In Iraq, on the other hand, Shi’ites successfully retained the majority vote approach rather than adopt Bremer’s caucus voting proposal; and Kurds successfully defended the two-thirds voting provision over critical issues in order to exert some veto power as a minority. Political positions also played a balancing role, as the second dimension elaborates, while portfolio distribution sought a similar goal, as evident in the third dimension. The king’s role as Father of the Nation kept Pashtuns at the center of the country, while Iraq’s more complicated equation of having the president and his two vice-presidents represent each of the three contending groups also fed into this bal-

12 Farhan Bokhari, “Afghanistan is teetering on the brink of ethnic imbalance,” Gulf News, no date, from: http://www.gulf-news.com/Articles?Opinion2.asp? ArticleID=117998

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Table 7.7 Balancing Ethnic Desires: Afghanistan-Iraq Comparisons Dimensions

Afghanistan

Iraq

1. Restoring previously marginalized group:

Pashtun restoration by Karzai in cabinet

* Shi’as successfully demand majority vote election principle over caucus * Kurds successfully retain minority veto provisions (two-thirds)

2. Balancing political positions:

King as Father of Nation (as against as King of Afghanistan playing a substantive role)

President and vice-presidents: 3 positions to be filled in by each of the three dominant groups; elections of all three based on two-thirds vote in assembly (same for other critical issues)

3. Ratio of governmental positions/portfolios

Transitional Government: Shi’as: 12 (of 26) Kurds: 5 Sunnis: 4 INL: 3 Communists: 1 Independent: 2 * Interior, Defense, & National Security ministries: Defense given to Sunnis, Interior to Shi’as, and National Security to Kurds in TG

ancing game. Karzai sided with the Tadjiks to create a non-political role for the king as a bargaining chip to bring in more Pashtuns into his cabinet; while all three Iraqi positions necessitated two-third vote approval in the legislature, and proved a better option than the Shi’ite proposal to have a president rotating to represent all three groups. A rotating presidency would not only cut into the continuity of a stable office, but would also remain at the exclusive mercy of the Shi’ites, since their majority status in the legislature, where the 3 positions would be nominated, would also give them a virtual monopoly of both branches of government. Finally, we find the various governments installed heeding the population ethnic distribution to the best of their abilities. This was easier in Iraq than in Afghanistan where Pashtun association with Taleban again surfaced as a concern. Nevertheless, the Iraqi TG consisted of 12 rep-

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resentatives of Shi’as, out of 26, five for Kurds, and four for Sunnis. One might argue 12 out of 26 is less than a majority, but Iyad Allawi’s Iraqi National List (INL), with three members, also have a Shi’ite identity, thus making the Shi’a tally 15 out of 26. Even communists were given one spot, interestingly, indicating how for perhaps the first time the United States supervised the creation of a government with a communist member. Even more meticulous was the breakdown of the Iraqi Interior, Defense, and National Security portfolios. These were brought under Sunni, Shi’a, and Kurd supervision, respectively. More significantly, one notices how clustering so many critical functions into one agency permitted the United States to reduce the weight of each. Nevertheless, deconstructing the key groups is imperative. Shi’as, for example, do not represent one solid bloc, divided as they are between the religiously inclined and the secular.13 Evolving Nature of Politics Much has been said of politics-as-usual making more impressive appearances in Afghanistan than in Iraq, and indeed, with militias unwilling to compromise on their core issues, Iraq distinguished itself with a politics-as-unusual after almost three decades of Saddam’s streamlining politics. The first dimension captures the similar and different natures of Afghani and Iraqi politics. Given a fairly, and certainly relatively, more stable environment, Afghanistan could experiment with politics-as-usual, with Karzai relishing the role bargaining one issue against another, shifting alliances as and when necessary, and utilizing the full range of agenda and issues to promote his causes of a centralized Afghanistan under strong presidential rule. He certainly utilized the limelight and instruments of his position to countervail provincial challenges. Alliances were also shifted, evident in how he eased his first vice-president and defense minister, General Mohammad Fahem, on the eve of the 2004 presidential elections; and so as not to antagonize Tadjiks, he made Ahmad Zia Massoud, brother of Ahmad Shah Massoud and Afghanistan’s ambassador to Russia, his running mate and one of the two vice-presidents, alongwith Karim Khalili, a Hazari.14

“Iraq’s electoral balance,” Washington Post, February 15, 2005, editorial, A16. Ahmed Rashid, “Karzai’s reshuffle offers chance for Afghanistan to make break with violent past,” Eurasia Insight, July 28, 2004, from: http://www.eurasianet.org/ departments/insight/articles/eav072804.shtml 13 14

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Iraq, on the other hand, had neither a stable environment to permit politics-as-usual, nor the limelight and instruments of a centralizing office, like the presidents, to turn on and off the pressure valve as and when needed. Both countries, however, shared the sudden growth of a dense network of influence-peddling agencies. This reflected the higher mobilization and participation of the people under democracy than under authoritarianism; but it also implied the greater difficulty in reaching consensus, making agreements, and thereby predicting stability Afghanistan has succeeded more than Iraq in reaching consensus, agreements, and stability owing to Karzai’s hand-on and virtually dominant position, themselves guaranteed by an international security force detached from politics—claims Iraq cannot make. Both entered unchartered coalition waters—always the epitome of democracy.15 Table 7.8’s second dimension examines the place of democracy in both countries, depicting more the different orientations of the two countries. Democracy may have entered the typical agenda in Afghanistan after two fairly respectable elections, thus laying the infrastructures which can be utilized in future with less disruption and dislocations; but in Iraq, what with heavily fortified polling booths, democracy and voting may struggle a lot longer to enter the average individual’s agenda. Rising Afghani and diminishing Iraqi hopes for a democratic future can still be hijacked by patron-client idiosyncratic behavioral patterns and relations in both countries, but whether democracy is on the agenda or not ultimately means it offers itself as one option as opposed to not being an option—again reaffirming Afghanistan’s prospects over Iraq’s. Corruption remains the other threat. Ideology has been a fundamental component of particularly party politics. Unlike in the west, interestingly, the left-right political spectrum is virtually absent in contemporary Afghanistan and negligible in Iraq. As the third dimension establishes, religion is the key ideology in both countries, and nationalism either struggles with localism in Afghanistan or is being subordinated to ethnicity in Iraq. The role of the military in the fourth dimension, may provide the critical political barometer in both countries. It must supply the security for Afghani democracy to flourish and plant roots, although just because it is there does not guarantee democracy will survive; in Iraq, on the other hand, the military must now perform a different task than 15 Jim Muir, “Iraq’s long road to government,” BBC News, March 15, 2005, from: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4352623.stm

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7. constitutional democracy Table 7.8 Evolving Nature of Politics: Afghanistan-Iraq Comparisons

Dimensions

Afghanistan

Iraq

1. Nature of Politics:

* Politics-as-usual (weaker ganging up against stronger) * Dense partisan network emerging: more mobilization and participation, less stability and coherence

Politics-as-unusual (not only too many militias, but also more powerful than legitimate forces like police; police infiltration by extremists) * Dense partisan network emerging: more mobilization and participation, less stability and coherence

2. Palace of democracy: Enters agenda, raises hopes, but can still be overtaken by idiosyncratic styles of patron-client relationships

Struggling to enter agenda, hopes more for security than democracy, very subordinated to threats, authoritarian styles, and tribal loyalties

3. Role of ideology:

Religion remains dominant ideology, no left-right spectrum distinguishable as yet, and nationalism still struggling with localism: virgin territory to make constitution an ideology

Mixed picture in which religion is dominant ideology, but left-right spectrum not absent, nationalism subordinated to ethnicity: ideological anarchy parallels real-world anarchy

4. Role of military:

Still needed to provide security for politics, and unlikely to be eliminated for at least a generation

Critical, not to promote democracy any more as to prevent a state breakdown and anarchy

5. Future prospects:

Long-term military presence

Either anarchy or a return to some form of authoritarian rule

guaranteeing democracy, since jihadi infiltration and the possible state free-fall demand greater Iraqi attention. These patterns predict future Afghan democracy if, and only if, foreign military presence remains for a generation at least,16 but as the fifth dimension acknowledges, Iraq is 16 UNICEF says 20 years at least. See Sue Bailey, “Afghanistan will need outside troops and aid for 20 years: UNICEF,” Canada Press, April 17, 2007, from: http://www .canada.com/topics/news/world/story.html?id=aae06685-1129-4b5b-a1b6-0358 . . .

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not far removed from anarchy since institutional viability remains an ongoing concern given how ethnic group identities actually precedes state identification. Even a return to full-fledged Saddam-type dictatorship may no longer produce the same degree of stability, since so much mucky water has flown under the Iraqi bridges! Treatment of Warlords/Militias Turning to Table 7.9, five dimensions convey the possibilities and contrasts of accommodating Afghani warlords and Iraqi militias into the evolving political structures. In accounting for the inheritances, the first dimension shows Afghani warlords to be firmly placed in any one category, but since these features do not tally with politics-as-usual, prospects of accommodating Afghani warlords into mainstream politics remain higher than of Iraqi militias. Whereas warlords originated largely from local demands for protection, militias were created to pursue some ideology or to thwart a rival ideology. In that sense, militias are not only more predictable, but also new, few, and all too uncompromising, as those in Iraq show, whether they represent Kurd interests, Shi’ite, or Sunni. Alarmingly, in spite of the constitutions in both countries disbanding them, or recommending they be absorbed in the local population or subordinated to state agencies of coercion, as the second dimension points out, they still remain, in Afghanistan as part of a historical leftover both unable and unwilling to fully adjust to modernity, in Iraq as the gatekeeper of vital ethnic identities. Afghanistan’s cultural context begins at the most local level, with the qaum, a network of family ties. “Qaums,” as Michael E. Weinstein elaborates, “are societies within a society,” whose local autonomy provided a stable Afghanistan historically. Yet, this formula “is always vulnerable to civil war,” since “the bargains and compromises necessary for restoring the country’s political paradigm will not be made or will not be strong to prevent relapse into civil war or at best decentralized state.”17 The third dimension specifies how warlords coexist with state-run policy or security forces, while in Iraq militias seem set on a collision course with state-sponsored forces. If, over time, Afghani security

17 Michael E. Weinstein, “Afghanistan’s transition: decentralization or civil war?” Eurasia Insight, August 6, 2004, from: http://www.eurasianet.org/departments/insight/ articles/pp080604.shtml

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7. constitutional democracy Table 7.9 Treatment of Warlords/Militias: Afghanistan-Iraq Comparisons

Dimensions

Afghanistan (mostly warlords)

Iraq (mostly militias)

1. Inheritances and nature:

Too many, too unpredictable, Few, predictable, new, and and too divided uncompromising

2. Constitutional treatment: Disband or absorb

Disband or absorb

3. Relation with centralized Centralized forces being forces: built

Centralized forces compromised

4. Illegitimate external actions, connections:

With al-Qaeda, opium trade

With al-Qaeda

5. Relationship to democracy:

Could be made critical agent

Mixed: Kurds: have localized democratic claims; Sunnis: political status quo breaking incentive; and Shi’as: still seeking to upset status quo, but which one is unclear

apparatuses plant firm roots, prospects of accommodating warlords may brighten further. Not so for Iraq, where centralized forces have either been infiltrated by militias or remain too weak to effectively function. Both countries face illegitimate threats, either from transnational militias like al-Qaeda, or illegal transactions, such as opium in Afghanistan, or pirating oil distributions. What then may be the future relationship between warlords and militias, on the one hand, and democracy, on the other? The fifth dimension suggests Afghani warlords could be induced to become stalwart agents of democracy, even if they challenge democracy currently, such as Abdul Rashid Dostum did in the presidential elections of 2004 when he resigned as military advisor to Karzai to challenge him in the elections.18 Karzai’s heavy-handed policies against warlords also antagonized Herat Governor, Ismail Khan. In March 2004, Karzai’s Aviation Minister, Mirwais Sadiq, was killed in Herat, ostensibly as part of a skirmish between Khan and a local warlord, Zahir Nayebzada— exposing the brittle central control in the province.19 Iraq, however, 18 “Afghan warlord’s ballot box challenge,” BBC News, July 23, 2004, from: http:// news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/3920235.stm 19 “Fighting ends in Afghan city,” BBC News, March 22, 2004, from: http://news .bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/3556399.stm

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different groups have different stakes on democracy to be able to iron them out into one viable democratic model. Kurds have greater localized claims to democracy while remaining suspicious of the model running from Baghdad; Shi’ites believe it to be their natural inheritance without even bothering to spell out a coherent or singular version or vision; and Sunnis have the most to lose, and could become the status quo threatening force. Ultimately, if any one group upturns democracy, other groups will quite likely follow suit, creating pure anarchy. Roles of Exilees In examining the five Table 7.10 dimensions on the contributions of exilees to Afghani and Iraqi democratic transformation, the same Afghani-Iraqi difference echoes here: they could continue playing critical roles in Afghani democratization but seem already to be marginalized in Iraq. As the first dimension conveys, the nature of exilees differed: In both, a sizable chunk was westernized, but whereas Afghanistan’s westernized exilees could fit into post-Taleban Afghanistan, Iraqi’s were unable to, in part because they had no mass bases in Iraq, and in part because of an all-too-complete entanglement in U.S. war plans to be able to extricate themselves when the legitimacy behind the invasion evaporated. The second dimension further informs us, whereas the westernized Afghani exilees could adapt after returning, even getting dual nationality constitutionally accepted as a rule, within limits, Iraqi counterparts could not indigenize themselves as well, whether it was Chalabi or Allawi, although rivalry between them, especially between Chalabi and Allawi, fed into local rivalries. It is not surprising how many of them have not remained in Iraq, Chalabi frequently taking flight to Iran, Allawi to the United States. Like them, many Iraqis also fled their home country, but unlike them, ended up in refugee camps. As the third dimension acknowledges, post-conflict Iraqi refugees may easily exceed 2m, whether in Syria, Jordan, or Sa’udi Arabia, inverting the Afghanistan pattern by which the end of the conflict brought back even more refugees from Pakistan, Iran, and elsewhere. What was their place in the political transformation of their country? In Afghanistan, they still perform critical tasks and remain part and parcel of that transformation, but in Iraq they have largely been sidelined as Iraqi localism erupts robustly, and global forces, such as jihadists, prospectively explore more Iraqi opportunities. In turn, the last dimension alerts us as to how critical these exilee groups and individuals have been to U.S. strategies, not just for conflict but also in

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7. constitutional democracy Table 7.10 Role of Exilees: Afghanistan-Iraq Comparisons

Dimensions

Afghanistan

Iraq

1. Nature:

Westernized and as refugees

Westernized and in the west: no refugee component

2. Post-conflict return:

Yes (indigenized westerners); dual nationality sought

Yes, but not connecting (no indigenization)

3. Post-conflict exodus:

No

Yes, heavy migration (2m or more)

4. Place in the political transformation:

Still critical, and many Mostly sidelined, and themselves became critical in increasingly overtaken by local the U.S. link to the country or global forces

5. Place in U.S. strategy: Critical

Critical originally, but leaves U.S. marooned, necessitating philosophical reorientation

establishing democracy. Afghani exilees continue to remain critical to U.S. goals and regional stability, but Iraqi exilees have either been displaced by more local counterparts or joined various forms of antiAmerican movements outside Iraq. Security Climate Obtaining What then has the democratization process done to the security climate? Conversely, has the security climate permitted democratization? Table 7.11 examines four dimensions for clues, the first three of them touch various trends, the fourth the consequences of all these trends. The first of these trends is the democratic transition underway, a brief phase which clearly saw Afghanistan shift from instability towards arguably greater security, while Iraq moved in the opposite direction with much less hesitation. This domestic trend was complicated at the regional level, as the second dimension shows. Increasing Taleban resurgence has threatened Afghanistan’s south; and though Afghanistan blames Pakistan for facilitating Taleban growth,20 it even demolished a wall or a

20 On September 5, 2006, President Pervez Musharraf signed a ceasefire with proTaleban militants in Pakistan’s North Waziristan, adjacent Afghanistan, signaling to some his “government’s military strategy [against terrorists] had failed.” See Barbara Plett, “Analysis: Pakistan’s deal with ‘Taleban’,” BBC News, September 6, 2006, from: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/5320692.stm

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fence Pakistan was constructing along the Durand Line frontier as late as in April 2007, while during 2008, mutual recrimination between the two countries have only escalated—coinciding with Pakistan’s return to civilian rule. All the while, NATO’s British commander in Afghanistan, General David Richards, thought President Pervez Musharraf ’s agreement with Taleban in North Waziristan “could set an example for the 31,000-strong Nato-led International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan.”21 Iraq’s porous borders also find similar permeation, with the United States increasingly blaming Iran for helping Iraqi militias, even Afghanistan’s Taleban. U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia, Richard Boucher, recently complained about “Iran’s behavior in Afghanistan . . . of involvement in political areas or reports of contacts and arms supply to the Taliban [sic].” General Peter Pace, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, substantiated this by referring to recent interception of “Iranian-made weapons intended for Taliban fighters in Afghanistan [sic].”22 In short, Afghanistan’s democratic advances have suddenly become, after a promising start, hostages, not as much of domestic in-fighting as of neighborly designs. Table 7.11 Role of Security Climate Obtaining: Afghanistan-Iraq Comparisons Dimensions

Afghanistan

Iraq

1. Transitional trend: domestic

Shift from instability towards Shift from stability towards stability instability

2. Transitional trend: regional

Talebs from Pakistan

Refugees in Iran and Iranian infiltration

3. Transitional trend: international

International force and U.N. on stop-gap mission

U.S. alone to pick up slab; U.N. alienated, COW evaporating

4. Consequences of trends: Threats persistent, but suicide Threats growing, suicide bombing fears limited; bombing fears spiraling out controlled of control

21 Danny Kemp, “Nato turns to Musharraf . . .,” Gulf Daily News, October 13, 2006, from: http://www.gulf-daily-news.com/story.asp?Article=1586848&Sn=WORL&Issu eID=29207 22 Constant Brand, “U.S. keeps eye on Iran’s involvement in Afghanistan amid reports Taliban using Iranian weapons,” Houston Chronicle, April 18, 2007, from: http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/world/4725488.html

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The third trend, in the third dimension, examines transition at the national level, and finds, whereas the United States remains the dominant military force in both Afghanistan and Iraq, in Afghanistan it can count on NATO and ISAF, among other forces, but in Iraq it is virtually and increasingly alone,23 as Australia has gracefully conveyed its desire to leave and British forces have had to trimmed. As a result of all these three trends, though threats persist in both Afghanistan and Iraq, the critical difference seems to be how the mindset has been altered by ongoing developments, in particular, the nature of apprehension. Iraq typifies the blatant case of suicide-bombing fears influencing just about every aspect of life as well as nook and corner, although the U.S.led surge from April 2007 brought a remarkable peace which seems to be slowly evaporating by mid-2008;24 Afghanistan, on the other hand, while experiencing the occasional suicide-bombing, is largely spared of the over-riding fear of suicide-bombing in every aspect of life, though al-Qaeda infiltrators show greater resolve by mid-2008 to challenge the status quo. Role of the United States Inevitably, the United States must also be placed under the microscope. This is done in Table 7.12 through five dimensions: diplomatic, military, political, economic, and in terms of placing Afghanistan and Iraq within overall U.S. strategic interests. Diplomatically, U.S. efforts, whether overtly or covertly, began much before the conflict in each country, but once the conflict was over, revolved around one key individual: Zalmay Khalilzad, an Afghani exilee who went on to join hands with U.S. neoconservatives. Although he exerted some influences from the background of the Bonn Conference, it was as ambassador, first to Afghanistan, then to Iraq, that he impacted the democratization process. After Paul Bremer, he might have been the most influential

23 Shortly after the January 2005 elections, contingents from many countries left Iraq. See Nick Childs, “Iraq’s strained coalition,” BBC News, March 16, 2005, from: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/2world/europe/4350573.stm 24 Three years earlier, in April 2004, almost 100 U.S. troops died in combat roles in Iraq, a statistic astounding then but increasingly commonplace ever after. See Jonathan Marcus, “Analysis: Iraq security dilemma,” BBC News, April 19, 2004, from: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/middle_east/3639225.stm. In his analysis, only the following troops remained in April 2004: U.S. (135,000), U.K. (8,700), Italy (3,000), Poland (2,400), Ukraine (1.650), Spain (1,300), Austria (850), and Japan (550).

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Table 7.12 Role of the United States: Afghanistan-Iraq Comparisons Dimensions

Afghanistan

Iraq

1. Diplomatic:

Khalilzad; more emphasized

Khalilzad; heavily emphasized: largest U.S. embassy but subordinate to military

2. Military:

Key player, but depends on NATO

Hands-on, direct, and alone: no others to depend on

3. Economic:

Services mostly (education, for example)

Oil and heavy corporation engagements: but shrinking

4. Political:

Democracy becoming the ends of policy; becoming a priority

Promote democracy as means towards other ends (including Middle East democracy)

5. Place of country in broader U.S. strategic interests:

Keen to still get Osama, not an outpost to Central Asian oil, country dispensable

Too heavily committed to retreat; Iran a growing concern; oil interests heavy; and is not a dispensable country

U.S. citizen in Iraq, and often compared to a powerful warlord in Afghanistan. Through him, the United States was able to ensure the democratic transition remained on track, was not hijacked by other interests, and met, more or less, the various deadlines established. It was only appropriate, when he had gotten the Afghani experiences well on its way towards democratic elections, he was reassigned in Iraq, where the same democratization process was unleashed from late June 2004. While diplomatically Khalilzad kept the democratization machine operating in both countries, militarily, as alluded to previously, the United States remained the key player in both terms, but rather an offshore participant in Afghanistan, where NATO, ISAF, and Eurocorps would be relied on, while remaining directly behind the Iraqi steering wheel, where, as observed, reliable allies were diminishing. Both these U.S. roles facilitated the third: promote democracy. Although overlapping the diplomatic role, the political context of democratization was to build, or reinvent, the century-long mission of “making the world safe for democracy.” Woodrow Wilson, who coined the phrase, interpreted the task in terms of promoting self-determination; during the

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Cold War it meant eliminating communism first; after the Cold War, the elimination of weapons of mass destruction (WMDs); and after 9/11, the elimination of terrorism. Afghanistan was inspiring enough for the formula to be applied to Iraq, and therefore Khalilzad’s handson engagement; and in the heady days just after Saddam was evicted, then captured, the notion of Iraqi democracy fostered a “greater Middle East democracy” hope, especially to embrace Palestine, such was the political U.S. design in Iraq. As it transpired, the democracy implanted in Afghanistan differed qualitatively from that experimented in Iraq. In Afghanistan, democracy eventually became the ends sought by policy, since after Taleban had been evicted, the United States was caught flat-footed in not having any other Afghani goals; and if that explained the shift to Iraq, or if Afghanistan served a diversion before the cream job of eliminating Saddam and democratizing Iraq, then the democracy pursued in Iraq served as a means to other ends. With different orientations, the procedures couldn’t help but also differ, complicated no less by exogenous and external developments, very much like the 9/11 events which the United States had no control over. Behind all four dimensions lay strategic U.S. interests. As the evidence suggests, with Afghanistan becoming an accidental priority, U.S. strategic interests had to be fitted to Afghanistan, resulting in little or no significant alteration of those interests. The key change was to adopt the slogan war against terrorism, instead of only WMDs and shift the procedures and details accordingly—not a shift worth losing sleep over in the Pentagon or White House. Iraq was different. It was the catalyst for a profound strategic rethinking from as early as the first Gulf War when Saddam was not caught, nor removed, and Operation Desert Storm left too many loose ends. What was popularized as the Bush Doctrine after 9/11, emphasizing pre-emption and regimechange, stemmed from a document prepared for George H.W. Bush in August 1992, when there was hope he would still be re-elected, and by the same authors of the post-9/11 Bush Doctrine: Dick Cheney, Don Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, and others. Afghanistan was inconsequential to this plan, Iraq was central, not just because of eliminating Saddam because he was “a guy that tried to kill [George W. Bush’s] dad,”25 but of premising the dad’s New World Order of greater liber25

Gaddis, “A grand strategy of transformation,” 54.

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alism and democracy in a region where, according to a simultaneous report, a “clash of civilization” was anchored.26 To others, the United States could use election results to vindicate its intervention.27 They were the first of a kind in both countries; a majority of the people was mobilized into voting; parties sprouted and leadership opportunities arose; and none of the key groups emerged as a singular bloc, with differences breaking the Shi’as and Sunnis particularly, lifting hopes of better future performances.28 Future Prospects: Towards Functional Statehood What do all of the eleven dimensions add up to? If democratization needs a functional state, and the idea after the Afghani and Iraqi conflicts was to establish such a state, then Afghanistan’s fragile state offers some sort of a democratization anchor which Iraq’s evaporating state does not. In medical terms, if the life-support equipment is turned off, Afghanistan will probably not make it; but with it on for a long stretch of time, the Afghani patient might one day be able to stand up independently. With Iraq no life-support equipment can help any longer, and no medical analogy other than the morgue can adequately explain or prevent the breakdown. Four dimensions in Table 7.13 summarize findings and implications from all previous tables. The first asks if institutional infrastructures are in place and can do the job. Since institutions take a long time to be firmly rooted, according to political development theorists,29 of up to a generation of sustained growth, Afghanistan is barely in its growth phase. However, it does boast of fairly uninterrupted growth of five-years, and this contrasts Iraq’s case, where the infrastructures have been built upon sand, implying not just the absence of state viability from a lack of institutions, but also the wholesale destruction of previous institutions leaves

26 Samuel P. Huntington, A Clash of Civilization and the Remaking of World Order (New York, NY: Simon & Schuster, 1996). 27 This line brought out by Peter Baker and Robin Wright, “In Iraqi vote, White House sees validation of its course: aides, others acknowledge that many uncertain ties lie ahead,” Washington Post, February 1, 2005, A11. 28 See Jim Hoagland, “Beyond tomorrow in Iraq: elections are the start of what was once deemed unachievable,” Washington Post, January 30, 2005, B07. 29 Karl von Vorys, ed., New Nations: The Problem of Political Development (Philadelphia, PA: American Academy of Political and Social Science, 1965).

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7. constitutional democracy Table 7.13 Future Prospects Toward Functional Statehood: Afghanistan-Iraq Comparisons

Dimensions

Afghanistan

1. Is institutional infrastructure Still planting roots in place: 2. Future mileage of U.S. involvement:

Iraq Built on sand: no viable state

Fairly long, since costs Mounting costs may trim low, and stay is legitimate future shadow, but other strategic interests may still prolong stay

3. External, exogenous threats: Ever present, hitherto containable, but now increasing

Ever present, reaching boiling point

4. Fate of the countries involved:

Spiraling towards disintegration, neighborhood getting more restless and dangerous

Unlikely to become viable democracy but for as long as forces remain, will try to give that a big shot

the country gasping for breath. The question for Iraq is no longer if it will survive as a state, on top of that a democratic state, but how long will its comatose last. Based on that grim observation, the second dimension inquires of the future mileage of U.S. involvement. One answer seems certain, vague though it may be: George Bush’s unwillingness to leave Afghanistan and Iraq. This is a function not so much of the democratization mission bearing fruits, but of the stakes getting higher in an ill-defined war on terrorism. Public pressure to leave Iraq may mount before any corresponding sentiment against Afghani engagement; but with Iraq intrinsically situated in a truly sensitive part of the world, what with all the oil deposits and flows and three religions tracing their birthplace to the region, and Afghanistan unable to strike that meaningful peace with its neighbors, the United States may find itself increasingly locked and lost in both countries, with all exit doors closed or too costly to resort to. The third dimension explores external and exogenous factors likely to impact Afghanistan or Iraq. These are ever-present in both cases, but though possible to contain in Afghanistan for as long as U.S.-led forces remain, in Iraq they may be reaching a boiling point. U.S. forces may be buying more time before the boiling water spills over, but the population faces a total destruction of not only institutions but also

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social capital as trust recedes to the lowest level when even co-religionists may no longer be able to confide in each other. This is the more damaging consequence: states can be rebuilt over time with resources, but associations and societies need more time and resources. Finally, about the two countries themselves, Afghanistan’s only option increasingly remains for foreign forces to stay for the long-haul; Iraq still remains at a point of no-return as a state, meaning democracy will be rudderless and probably a pointless engagement today. Conclusions In summarizing the chapter, Table 7.14 depicts Afghanistan as the paper tiger and Iraq as the pigeon clay of democracy: Both embody the essence of the envisioned democracy on paper, but only Afghanistan courageously, perhaps fruitlessly, attempts to give legs to expectations against all odds, while Iraq, by shielding behind the U.S. military and producing the most fortified form of democracy this world has ever known, only invites pot shots by dissidents and insurgents alike. This is recognized in the box where the summary column and summary row intersect. The summary row also recognizes how Afghanistan was not among the original targets of U.S. democratization under the Bush Doctrine, but owing to persistent U.N. efforts, could become a surprise winner; while Iraq, as one of the prime original Bush Doctrine targets, could become one of the most abysmal democratization failures, in large part due to faulty U.S. assumptions, information, reasoning, and implementation. In the last column, each of the twelve factors analyzed in the chapter culminates with a comparative Afghani-Iraqi summary. Since the investigation is about democratization, the comments reflect on democratization. Among the salient observations: (a) two factors could become the Waterloo of democracy; (b) two raise Islam to a pivotal democratization role; (c) exilees as a critical factor in the two countries, possibly a relevant future democracy variable; (d) political and military order serving as a necessary condition for democracy; (e) a fragile relationship between a questionable state and questionable democracy; (f ) endogenous democratization variables sufficing under enormous pressures; and (g) the mixed U.S. role. Both balancing ethnic desires and the treatment of militias, the 6th and 8th variables, could become the Waterloo of Afghani and Iraqi democratization. Neither represents an endogenous democratization

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7. constitutional democracy Table 7.14 Summarizing Findings: Afghani Paper Tiger & Iraqi Pigeon Clay

Dimensions

Afghanistan

1. Nature of government Lived up to the model designed: established at Bonn; conscientious efforts

Iraq

Summary

Model recreated, but Democratic building more conditioned and blocks in place fragile; hard to establish

2. Nature of rights, freedoms, and representation:

Outlined on paper; Outlined on paper; gap Done deal efforts made to reduce between expectations theoretically; reality gap between and reality growing not quite so hospitable expectations and reality

3. Role of Islam:

Creeps in; expected to Charges in; expected to Certainly a new remain significant force play encompassing role democracy variable

4. Religion-politics balance:

Tenuous, but politics in Increasingly imbalanced Religion as being at present control in religion’s favor least as important as politics; is also new democracy variable

5. Role of Women:

Enhanced on paper; reality more resistant

Probably in retreat, though enhanced on paper

6. Balancing ethnic desires:

Conscious efforts made, but an ongoing, unfinished exercise

Disruptive forces Could be the Waterloo more powerful than of democracy accommodative efforts/ chances

7. Evolving nature of politics:

Largely healthy: democratic politics adjusting reciprocally to warlord politics (pastunwali)

Mixed; In party healthy, Democratic politics in part disruptive, producing differential in part coerced by U.S. outcomes

8. Treatment of militias: Reined in, at least for the moment; either aloof, underground, or abroad

9. Role of exilees:

10. Security climate obtaining:

Influx with democratization; independent and robust, instilling fear, feeding into politics as instrument

Enhanced on paper; subordinate in reality, circumscribing democracy

Could be Waterloo of democracy if disincentives slacken

Critical, perhaps the Critical for all the Critical variable: could most significant catalyst wrong reasons: no local be salient 21st Century of democracy anchors, no trust democracy factor; broaden democracy More light at end of tunnel, but easy to evaporate for reasons beyond Afghanistan’s control

Increasing darkness at end of tunnel; Iraq alone not responsible

Clearly the necessary condition for democracy

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Table 7.14 (cont.) Dimensions

Afghanistan

Iraq

Summary

11. Role of U.S.:

Significant, second only to U.N. as democracy catalyzer; its absence might not end Afghanistan’s hopes

Significant for both right and wrong reasons: Its absence would hasten apocalypse

Significant contributor if democracy is divorced from its strategic interests

12. Future prospects:

Cautious optimism for both democracy and statehood

Pessimism for both democracy and statehood

Democracy fragile; statehood fragile

SUMMARY:

Was not the prime target of U.S. democracy, but could be a surprising winner; credit: U.N.

As prime target of U.S. democracy, abysmal failure; credit: U.S.

Afghanistan: Paper tiger Iraq: pigeon clay

force, but can hold, and has been holding, democracy as an unwitting hostage. The first is historical, the second the product of history—elements no invading force or external powers can ever hope to completely control. As adversaries, they will become fiercely resistant if challenged. Accomodating them is the best any invading force or external power can do, since confronting them is a local task and best left alone. In both countries, Islam directly confronts democratization, and in spite of a large theoretical literature on the subject, in the Afghani and Iraqi trenches, the observations seem to be less alarming, though they raise the thresholds of challenges. Two issues beg attention: (a) as an increasingly robust force in Afghanistan and Iraq, religion must be fitted into democratization; and (b) the religion-political balance emerges as a new democracy variable. Experiences in both countries show resurgent Islam need not disrupt democracy if all other factors, especially military developments and U.S. intervention are held constant. Since Islam has its own views on democracy and various elements of democracy, for democracy to succeed in Muslim countries, western models need to be adjusted rather than imposed. Exilees emerged as the most significant catalyst, in the process raising two significant considerations: (a) whether exilee views mirror the typical citizen’s views; and (b) in an age of unlimited mobility due to globalization, liberalization, and democratization processes, how exiles could become critical agents of future democracy. Both Afghanistan

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and Iraq faced problems with the first consideration: rather than be agents, Iraqi exilees turned out to be spoilers of democratization and least connected locally, while in Afghanistan, they had to be reined in, albeit slowly, by local politics-as-usual. The fourth observation was fundamental in Iraq: Without a political and military order, democratization, unfortunately, will not make it. The next question of how long must this order remain, the answer might lie in how democracy itself is viewed. If it is an overnight task, hell will break loose, sooner rather than later, in both Afghanistan and Iraq; if, on the other hand, it is a long-term process, U.S. or U.N. or multilateral troops will be needed for a long innings. Whether the troops belong to the United Nations or United States might matter: Afghanistan is doing better than Iraq, in part because US troops play a background role, whereas in Iraq, they must lead the charge. Both Afghanistan and Iraq show a very fragile relationship between state and democracy. Two obvious reasons why include the state itself being questionable and democracy being too new and sudden. As state-nations rather than nation-states, both Afghanistan and Iraq have not resolved the nationality or ethnicity problems, making statehood artificial. Democracy cannot survive unless a robust state exists first; and that imperative precedes the very experimentation process of democracy. Skillful management and strong leadership become critical, as Karzai seems to be showing in Afghanistan, but conspicuous by their absences in Iraq. Surprisingly, endogenous democratization factors, such as the nature of government designed, the nature of rights, freedoms, and representation, role of women, and the evolving nature of politics, served encouragingly well in both Afghanistan and Iraq—indicating the larger desire to democratize in both countries and the capacities to manage democratic politics based on quid pro quo bargaining rather than the irrational and authoritarian sine qua non alternative. Of course, not all such factors produce picture-perfect outcomes, since a lot more is desired of women, especially in Iraq, but none of these pose a damoclean threat, more so in Iraq than in Afghanistan. A final observation about the role of the United States is related. The report may be mixed, with more positive Afghani showings than Iraqi; but even the Afghani outcomes show more U.N. and multilateral input than the United States. Without the United States championing democracy in these two countries, democracy might have been, at best, retarded, delayed, or piecemeal; with the United States, the

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scorecard does not necessarily improve. Separating democracy from strategic considerations might be one profitable route to take in the future; but also leaving the democratization nitty-gritty details to the local populations, as in Afghanistan, may yield better results than anchoring them improperly, as in Iraq.

8. ELECTORAL DEMOCRACY: STILL THE ROAD LESS TRAVELED BY Introduction Armed with a democracy-driven permanent constitution, both Afghanistan and Iraq entered the final lap of holding elections and producing a functional government with understandable trepidation. Afghanistan’s erstwhile Interim Government (IG) by now had splintered along the lines of its underlying Pashtun-Tadjik cleavage; Taleban had signaled its revival; and the multilateral force was still not in complete and continuous control of the country itself. None of these predicted doom, and in fact helped to make politics more resilient. Iraq’s Sunnis ended their boycott of parliamentary proceedings, but as the Sunni insurgency crested, so too Shi’ite expectations of finally governing the country, throwing the country off the frying pan and almost into the fire. The Sunni-Shi’a schism predicted doom, and even worse, invited all the other disruptive forces, such as jihadists, ethnic chauvinists, and authoritarian dispositions. Under these circumstances, what were the election results, and how have the elected governments performed until mid-2007? Keeping with these themes, the chapter’s two substantive sections discusses: (a) elections and governmental performances; as well as (b) contexts and verdicts. This second section serves to also summarize, draw conclusions, and project implications. Elections and Governmental Performances Afghanistan held two delayed elections, one for the president on October 9, 2004, with 17 candidates, another for the 249-body Wolesi Jirga (House of the People) on September 18, 2005. Along with the legislative election, voting for councils in the 34 provinces also took place, from which one-third of the Meshrani Jirga (House of the Elders) was selected. Iraq, on the other hand, had just one election, on December 15, 2005, for the 275-member Council of Representatives (CR). Table 8.1 profiles results from these. Five sub-sections assess the electoral results: (a) electoral logistics; (b) parties and party distributions;

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8. electoral democracy Table 8.1 Election Results

Afghanistan

Iraq

* Presidential (October 9, 2004): Karzai: 4.4m (55.4%) Qanooni: 1.3m (16.3%) Mahaqiq: .9% (11.7%) Dostum: .8m (10%) – Of 18 candidates, 8 were Pashtuns, 8 Tadjiks, 1 Hazara, 1 Uzbek * Parliamentary (September 18, 2005): – Wolesi Jirga (249 seats): candidates could not run for a party, but could be nominated by parties, with the result of too many factions and groups being represented to be listed – Meshrani Jirga (102 seats): one-third to be appointed by the president, one-third by provincial councils, and one-third by district councils; only provincial council elections took place on September 18, 2005 * Post-election positions reflected more ethnic identities than party

* Council of Representatives (December 15, 2005): United Iraqi Alliance (UIA: Shi’ite coalition): 128 – Kurdish Alliance (KA: Kurd coalition): 53 – Iraq Accordance Front (IAF: Sunni coalition): 44 – Iraqi National Dialogue Front (INDF: Sunni coalition): 11 – Iraqi National List (INL: Allawi group): 25 Total: 275 * Assumed power and positions May 20, 2006: delay caused by coalition politics and jockeying for positions * Coalition government forged; it elect president, two vice presidents, prime minister by two-thirds; and cabinet of ministers by simple majority * Positions: Mahmoud al-Mahhadani as speaker (was a Sunni, received 159 valid v. 97 spoilt votes); Khaled al-Attiyah as one deputy speaker (from UIA); and Aref Tayfour as another deputy speaker (from KA)

(c) coalition formation; (d) portfolio politics; and (e) contentious postelection issues. Electoral Logistics With Table 8.2 as the springboard of discussions, at least four themes deserve attention: (a) high mobilization; (b) ethnic identity variations; (c) logistical problems contributing to and compounded by irregularities and rigging; and (d) the tight security blanket. Mobilization Representative elections in both countries were new for several reasons. Since Afghanistan was coming out of 25 years of coups, conflicts, invasions, and wars, and Iraq from as many years of an increasingly brutal

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.

Table 8.2 Electoral Logistics Elections

Contenders

Voters

Afghanistan’s presidential (October 9, 2004):

18 contenders: 8 Pashtuns, * 8.1m cast, but 7.7m 8 Tadjiks, 1 Hazara, 1 valid (93%) Uzbeki * 12m eligible * 41% of women voted

Key Features * 26,000 polling stations, 5,000 locations

* 12m (out of 25–28m * Wolesi Jirga: based on Afghanistan’s legislative * Wolesi Jirga: 2,707 people) eligible provincial population (September 18, 2005) candidates for 249 distribution; seats, 68 for nomads * 44% women participated – Campaign from – Women guaranteed August 17 to 68 seats, but could September 15 also win other seats * U.S.$15,000 was the competitively individual limit for * Meshrani Jirga: election campaign 3052 candidates – 2,000 NATO and 8,000 ISAF troops were deployed – Each candidate could have up to 10 minutes for radio advertising, 4 for television * Meshrani Jirga: – women guaranteed 2 seats in each provincial council – 4 minutes of radio advertising and 2 on television Iraq’s legislative (December 15, 2005):

* Largely ethnic-based coalitions: – UIA: United Iraq Alliance (Shi’as) – KA: Kurdish Alliance (Kurds) – IAF: Iraq Accord Front (Sunnis)

15m eligible voters

* Each of 18 provinces treated as a constituency – Based on provincial population

dictatorship, neither carried any meaningful experiences in elections or electoral dynamics. In a sense, then, the electoral infrastructures had not only to be established but the people also tutored in the essence of voting. With a higher proportion of illiteracy, Afghanistan’s needs were urgent; but both countries needed to also safeguard the electoral processes, in some cases, the candidates.

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It is baffling how out of 12m Afghanis and 15m Iraqi eligible voters, registration, though delayed in many Afghani locales, were still high and widespread. One reason why was the spiraling initial interest of contenders. Though one of the driving reasons behind the booming interest was to protect ethnic rights, which often meant capturing key central positions or representation, just the very novelty of having elections broke many barriers. Women, particularly in Afghanistan, responded positively to this opportunity, as was evident in their ELJ and CLJ engagements. One obvious consequence: too many contenders, necessitating carefully constructed coalitions to prevent legislative anarchy. While mobilization fulfilled a long-absent or neglected political exercise, it produced its own political nightmares. Remarkably, both countries adapted to these. As many as 18 individuals registered for the Afghani presidential elections, a number making even raucous U.S. presidential primaries look tame and small by comparison. Yet, a clear winner and several other logistical factors, such as tight security, prevented the fragile, newly-built electoral infrastructures from collapsing. This was the salient factor in keeping an even more motley legislative campaign under control, although without a presidential system, Iraq, which needed a centralizing force as crucially as Afghanistan, witnessed ethnic or religious bloc-mindedness paradoxically produce the same outcome. Ethnic Identity Variations With ethnic rivalries topping a number of state-threatening forces, the two countries went in rather different identity directions: Afghanistan was able to elevate political differences over ethnic, in turn facilitating the centralizing process; Iraq actually fortified ethnic identities, in turn seriously provoking the future of the Iraqi state. Although many Afghani political parties to be born overnight had at least one foot planted in ethnic identity, for many of them, the other foot probed or represented such unifying forces as nationalism or Islam. Olivier Roy, who highlights the distinction between state-embracing Islamists and state-threatening neo-fundamentalists, helps placate these Afghani religious parties:1 though deeply devoted to religion, they possess the

1 Olivier Roy, Globalized Islam: The Search for a New Ummah (New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 2004), chap. 6.

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characteristics of Islamicists not neo-fundamentalists, an interpretation as reassuring for Afghani political development and unity as for external fears and apprehensions. A large number of Iraqi political parties were also religious, but the proportion adopting a secular platform was much higher than in Afghanistan. This is particularly true of the Kurds. Whether the autonomy bred by 10+ years of no-fly protection produced the kind of hands-on political experience to modify excessive religious identity or not, the prospects of Iraqi democratic elections dampened intra-Kurd rivalries: both the Patriotic Union of Kurds (PUK) and the Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP) joined their hands through the Kurdish Alliance (KA), reaffirming an ethnic identify just when the Sunnis and Shi’as were reasserting their own. In fact, neither of the two groups may retreat from these positions, in fact, may even make ethnic identity either the sine qua non or the Waterloo of Iraq identity. That Iraq may be close to that point was suggested by Moqtada al-Sadr’s reemergence, at the end of May 2007, in Kufa, to propose (a) Iraq unity amidst the sectarian carnage; and (b) the United States as the common enemy.2 The message was at least a year old, but carried an urgent tone.3 “No, no, no to America,” he chanted in blistering heat, since “the invader has separated us . . . the blood of Sunnis is forbidden to everyone, they are our brothers in religion, and in nationality. . . . And let our Christian brothers know that Islam is a friend to our minorities and to other faiths, and seeks dialogue with them.” Just as Kurds were brought together by possible implications of Iraqi democracy, Shi’as moved in the same direction for an entirely different reason. At stake was control of the center. Whereas Kurds never for once hoped to exert that control from Baghdad, without unity, they faced the grim prospects of being mowed over, as they were under Saddam, by any group controlling Baghdad. Shi’as, as the absolute 2 John F. Burns, “Sadr call: U.S. leave, Iraq unite,” The Philadelphia Inquirer, May 26, 2007, A1. 3 Moqtada not only led Shi’a migrants from Iraq’s marshes to Baghdad, settling in Sadr City, but also came from a lofty but persecuted clerical pedigree. His grandfather, Ayatollah Muhammad Maqival Sadr, who was closely connected to Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini during Khomeini’s Iraqi exile, was considered the “brightest star” among Iraqi Shi’as; and for that reason, was executed, alongwith his poet sister, Bint al-Huda, by the Ba’athists. He became “the first martyr,” his son, Ayatollah Muhammad Sadiq al-Sadr, the seond, after his 1999 assassination. Two of his older brothers were also similarly killed. See Fouad Ajami, “Blind liberation,” The New Republic, April 23, 2007, 46.

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majority Iraqi group, has every intention of controlling all of Iraq from Baghdad, instead of only from Najaf or Basra. Although this has not produced the degree of unity the Kurds did with the KA, the Shi’ite United Iraq Alliance (UIA) is still a formidable Iraqi force. Its constituent groups included, in descending order of importance and election-driven representation, the Najaf-influenced Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI); the Sadrist Movement (SM) under Moqtada al-Sadr from Baghdad’s marginalized suburb, Sadr City, and leader of the Mahdi Army; the Islamic Virtue Party, which later joined the opposition because, it argued, of excessive U.S. interference; the Islamic Da’wa Party; and the Islamic Da’wa Party of Iraq. The Allawi Group is a secular Shi’ite party, accused by Sadr as being ex-Ba’athists. Shi’as have all the claims to control the central government from Baghdad, but intra-Shi’ite differences suggests the reaffirmation of one historical oddity: internal division eroding the controlling power of any centralizing Iraqi group in Baghdad, especially as the Mahdi army, through the three elected SM members, have stymied Nouri al-Maliki’s government by removing senior military commanders, “some of whom have apparently worked too aggressively to combat Shiite militias.”4 Obscuring that outcome is the current warfare pitting Shi’as against Sunnis. Whether designed by marooned Sunnis within Iraq or jihadis from abroad, Sunni politicians have done remarkably well to accept elections as a strategy of self-protection after rejecting that option in January 2005 transitional elections. Although still not as united as the Kurds, the Iraq Accord Front (IAF), Iraqi National Dialogue Council (INDC), and the Iraq Islamic Party have provided leaders Shi’as and Kurds have been able to negotiate with, and whose secular-religious mix captures both legacies of the Saddam regime and the increasingly popular new religious wave. Although the SM specifically blames the INDC for the Karbala bombing massacre of February 2006, the Sunni groups, by returning to the legislature, prevented the Shi’as from getting over-riding control. The overwhelming prospects of coalition government, in spite of the Shi’ite majority, were facilitated by a collaborative constitution in

4 Joshua Parthow, “Iraqi office plays top role in removing key officers: U.S. officials say some had worked too hard to combat Shiite militias,” The Philadelphia Inquirer, April 20, 2007, A6.

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which two-thirds voting over critical issues also demands inter-ethnic collaboration. Two different kinds of collaboration ensued: the former was under direct U.S. supervision, the latter cannot but dispense of U.S. influence since constitution construction is a more restricted activity than policy alignments. Zalmay Khalilzad managed the former authoritatively, but his appointment as U.N. ambassador from mid-2007 also opens space for Iraqi politicians to drift from U.S. preferences and show more independence. Although his successor, Ryan Crocker, is an old Iraqi hand, having been personally responsible for constructing the Iraq Governing Council (IGC) members in 2003 as CPA’s director of governance, and even earlier serving as the U.S. Department of State’s Iraq-Kuwait Task Force during the first Gulf War,5 it is unlikely he will be able to revive old connections, since many of them are now sidelined, or glide into the new networks of influences which he is largely oblivious of. Even with multiple parties mobilized, Iraq’s anomie may come not from these parties not connecting but from ethnic identities if they continue to hold. Just as violence may strengthen them, parliamentary cooperation may dilute them. The Kurd-Shi’a alliance, influential during and immediately after the elections, looks unsustainable: the common enemy of a Ba’athist Sunni under Saddam is absent, and will continue to be a non-factor; splintering Shi’a groups may build bridges with Sunnis, as Sadr believes; and Kurds are, by and large, Sunnis themselves. With fascinating coalition possibilities, policy issues may play less than intra-ethnic groups differences in shaping Iraqi politics; and the more of these, the higher the chances inter-ethnic rivalries may seek shelter behind a unified Iraq to preserve core beliefs. Only jihadi violence can disrupt this; and unfortunately, the dynamics of thriving Iraqi politics, and of Iraq itself, remain but a hostage of illegitimate violence. Logistical Problems & Irregularities Elections in both countries faced the obvious problems of voting irregularities and rigging expected of elections in transitional countries. 5 Among other credentials: He broke the 30-year hiatus during which Iran and the U.S. did not engage officially and directly diplomatically when he met an Iranian envoy in Baghdad on May 27, 2007, ostensibly to find a solution to Iraq’s insurgency. During those 30 years, he was one of only a few U.S. officials to meet with Iranian officials. See Ravi Nessman, “Envoy to open talks with Iran: the U.S. ambassador will sit down with an Iranian counterpart to discuss security in Iraq,” The Philadelphia Inquirer, May 28, 2007, A1.

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Afghanistan, for instance, was scheduled to hold both presidential and parliamentary elections by June 2004, two years after the ELJ concluded,6 but the presidential was postponed to October 15, 2004 and parliamentary to September 2005,7 largely due to logistics not being in place.8 In part, they were due to delayed registration in Afghanistan,9 which reduced as much enthusiasm as it produced indifference and sarcasm; in part they stemmed from malfunctioning electoral procedures, again in Afghanistan, capitalizing, for example, upon how the ink could be easily washed within a few minutes, inviting false balloting; and in part from not fully distinguishing territorial boundaries in district-level elections.10 It wasn’t by chance that the country’s presidential election was dubbed irregular and charges of rigging were substantiated. However, external observers went on to add, after spotting the blemishes, the outcome would not have been affected one way of another. Nevertheless, Karzai’s 17 opponents completely washed their hands off the elections after the results were made public.11 In fact, results of the elections were not released until mid-November because of inquiries into widespread fraud.12 Iraq had its own scandal. Several Sunni politicians complained bitterly of elections in Baghdad being rigged by the Shi’as.13 Since Baghdad accounted for 59 out of 275 seats—more than any of the other 17 provinces—the charges were taken seriously, and especially since the Shi’ite plurality of 58% of the city’s votes did not quite tally with expectations. 6 Andrew North, “Doubts grow over Afghan elections,” BBC News, March 25, 2004, from: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/3568661.stm 7 “Afghanistan elections delayed,” BBC News, March 17, 2005, from: http://news .bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/4356759.stm 8 “Afghanistan’s elections must be postponed:leading expert,” Eurasia Insight, February 25, 2004, from: http://www.eurasianet.org/departments/recaps/articles/ eav100404.shtml. The expert was Ahmed Rashid, a noted Pakistani journalist and Central Asian expert. 9 Steven R. Weisman, “U.S. hints of a delay on Afghan elections,” International Herald Tribune, February 16, 2004, from: http://www.iht.com/articles/129665.html 10 Ansar Rahel, “Afghans are not ready to vote,” International Herald Tribune, July 21, 2004, from: http://www.iht.com/articles/530265.html 11 “Politics of Afghan,” Wikipedia, accessed April 6, 2007, from: http://en.wikipedia .org/wiki/Politics_of_Afghanistan 12 U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, Humanitarian News & Analysis, “Afghanistan: election results finalized,” November 15, 2005, from: http:// www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportid=29460 13 “Sunni bloc rejects Baghdad vote,” BBC News, December 20, 2005, from: http:// news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4545148.stm

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Ultimately, though, these did not derail the elections. There is much truth in the argument that the overall election in each country was generally rig-free and fair. An army of observers, 2,800 in Afghanistan alone, support this argument: stray cases here, there, and everywhere, but probably not enough to alter the outcomes significantly. Tight Security Blanket Rarely, if ever, have democratic elections been conducted under as much military security as in Afghanistan and Iraq. In Afghanistan, 8,000 ISAF and 2,000 NATO troops were deployed, while in Iraq, where the United States had 130,000+ soldiers on active and full-time duty, a large proportion was deployed against more real, escalating, and deadly threats. It is a wonder so many eligible voters could be mobilized in so short a time given the menacing security atmosphere in Iraq, and the rough terrain and lack of basic infrastructures in Afghanistan. When one considers the military deployment costs not being part of the staggering election costs, these two countries must have staged perhaps the most expensive elections in the history of democracy. In Afghanistan alone, the staggering $159m election costs were subsidized by the United States and NATO members through their defense budgets.14 Parties and Party Identification Table 8.3 disaggregates the electoral coalitions to show the various parties and how they identified themselves. For many, it is too early to develop a steadfast identity, or even matter in the larger scheme, but it is from this list that any future democratic development in the two countries may find its springboard. Perhaps the striking difference between Afghanistan and Iraq in terms of their parties is the absence of electoral parties in Afghanistan and the need for coalition in Iraq. Afghanistan may be the first and only country holding democratic elections in which candidates could not run as a member of a party. Though they may be nominated by a party or a faction, they were required to run as independent candidates. Here was a honest recognition of two political realities: (a) the absence of any viable, legitimate political party, and the need to keep

14

“Afghanistan: elections results finalized,” op. cit.

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8. electoral democracy Table 8.3 Parties and Identities

Afghanistan

Iraq

* Islamic Social Party of Afghanistan (Hezb-i-Jamiat-i-Islami Afghanistan) * Islamic Party of Afghanistan (Hezb-i-Islami Afghanistan) * National Congress Party of Afghanistan (Hezb-e-Congra-e-Milli Afghanistan: Abdel Rahim Pedram): Tadjik * National Islamic Movement of Afghanistan ( Jumbishi-i-Milli-Islami Afghanistan: Dostum): Uzbeki * National Islamic Movement of Afghanistan (Hizb-e-Nuhzhat-e-MilliAfghanistan) * Afghanistan Nationalist Party (Qanooni): Tadjik * Wahdt Islamic Unity Party (Mohaqiq) * National Solidarity Movement (Sayed Ashaq Gailani): Pashtun * National Unity Party (Hamyon Shah Aasafi (Pashtun) * Afghanistan Independent Party (Ghulam Farooq Nejrabi): Tadjiks * Islamic Revolutionary Movement (Ahmned Shah Ahmad Zai): Pashtun

* UIA: – Supreme Council for Islamic Republic in Iraq (SCIRI): Influenced by Shi’a leaders in Najaf and the heart of the UIA; includes the Badr Organication in its electoral make-up (21 regular+15 compensation members, for a total of 36 members) – Sadrist Movement: Radical Shi’ites under Sadr, whose lineage provided key opponents to Saddam: 27+2=29 – Islamic Da’wa Party: 13+0=13 – Islamic Da’wa Party , Iraq Organization: 12+0=12 – Islamic Virtue Party: Dropped out of UIA government coalition in opposition to US * Kurdish Alliance (KA): – Patriotic Union of Kurds – Kurdish Democratic Party * Iraq Accord Front: – Iraq Islamic Party * Iraq National List (INL): National Democratic Party (NDP), Iraqi Communist Party * Iraqi National Dialogue

party development separate from tribal perversion; and (b) the enormous influences of and reliance on tribal groups, factions, or warring conglomerations. Among the consequences: there were as many different loyalties as there were elected officials; without mature parties, centralizing efforts can be irrevocably weakened; and without a leap from traditional factions into modern parties, or from warlord conflict settlements to political negotiations, democracy is itself undermined. Nevertheless, the democratic elections paved the way for the growth of political parties, and although too many exist, while a large proportion still retain warlord connections, as if like safeguards when bad turns to worse, under normal circumstances political exercises seem to be sprouting everywhere. In turn, they help connect local issues with

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distant ones, in the process feeding into the centralizing process. Yet, it remains an open question as to how long this process can continue without regressing into violence. Without quick signs of centralizing tendencies and institutions deepening, Afghanistan is likely to continue remaining a stone’s throw away from feudalism. Even a meticulously driven one-track minded implementation of the Bonn Accord may not be sufficient to convert tribal politics and local culture into state politics and national culture, certainly not overnight. How the short-term orientation hinders long-term considerations in both Afghani and Iraqi lifestyles may ultimately become a formidable democratization barrier: Running the government with a future in mind, or building institutions as future safetly valves, continue to be de-emphasized. Iraq faced the same centralizing constraint but for a different reason: partisanship originating from ethnic rivalries. If the elections encouraged the growth of parties, past rivalries shaped their ethnic orientations. As in Afghanistan, the dominant groups with credentials to be a party were quickly banned or ostracized: the Communist Party and Taleban movement in Afghanistan, and the Ba’athists in Iraq. All of them had country-wide claims, as opposed to the local developments, divisions of labor, and chains of command, as well as familiar ideologies to cling to. Yet, they were all anchored at the extreme of various ideological spectrums, and this contributed to their unpopularity and demise. New parties have yet to refine ideological identities beyond religion, as well as a hierarchy, resource-base, and game-plan. Iraq’s parties may be farther ahead of Afghanistan’s because of the ethnic identity opening up a bagful of political positions to adopt, but whether they can subordinate ethnic passions to bargaining everyday issues remains the critical political question. Whereas Afghanistan’s parties show more nationalistic and religious identities, Iraq’s shows both nationalism and religion, but also communism, universalism (such as the two Da’wa parties), and reform. Whereas nationalism seems to be part of the platform of all major ethnic groups in Afghanistan, in Iraq it presently remains a Shi’a monopoly. Likewise, religion serves as a receding force in Afghani politics but as a catalyzer in Iraq. Coalition Imperatives Related to the nature of parties or partisan identities is coalition politics. Table 8.4 is arranged to show the parties in terms of the

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8. electoral democracy Table 8.4 Iraqi Coalition Government and Opposition

Coalition Government

Opposition

UIA: 113 KA: 53 IAF: 44 INL: 25 Turkoman: 1 National Rafidan List: 1 Upholders of Message:1

Islamic Virtue Party: 15 INDF:11 KIU: 5 Reconciliation and Liberal Bloc: 3 Mutual al-Alusi List: 1 Yazidi Movement for Reform and Progress: 1

Total: 239

Total: 56

clusters they belong to. As obvious, Iraq invites both intra-group and inter-group coalitions given, in part, the constitutional requirements adopted. Afghanistan, on the other hand, is theoretically far-removed from coalition politics, given the absence of structured and purposive parties competing in elections, but practically it is borrowing plenty from warlord coalitions. As a discussion of the contentious issues below show, policy trade-offs drive these coalitions more than group loyalties or factionalism, though both may also be utilized to advance policy-making convenience; but in Iraq, coalitions have been driven by defensive considerations, ethnic fears, and a last gasp to escape impending anarchy. Thus, with longer democratic experiences than Iraq, Afghanistan has yet to boast of any viable, sustainable coalitions, and especially as the elections exposed the budding Pashtun-Tadjik feud in the Interim Administration and Transitional Government. Among the first tasks of elected Iraqi officials was to form a government of national unity. Since a two-thirds majority is needed on several key issues, the constitution was designed to thwart ethnic chauvinism. The initiative illustrated a touch of politics-as-usual: parties from the minority groups, the Sunni Iraq Accord Front (IAF) met with Kurd counterparts as early January 2, 2006, in Irbil, initially to discuss their common claims of election rigging favoring the Shi’ites, then agreeing to abandon this charge if international observers did not find evidence, and finally to build upon this parley to explore parliamentary collaboration. Interestingly, the outgoing president, Talabani and IAF’s Adnan al-Dulaimi, conveyed their desire for a coalition government to the rest of the Kurdish Alliance (KA), Iraqi National List (INL) under Iyad Allawi, an earlier post-Saddam prime minister, and even the Shi’ite United Iraq Alliance (UIA) on January 8, 2006.

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From this proposal emerged the 239-member Coalition Government (CG), the first in which Sunnis participated after Saddam’s ouster. Table 8.4 lists the party representation of the CG and the 36-member opposition. Interestingly, the only Islamic party in the opposition is the Kurd Islamic Union (KIU), and the largest opposition party is a UIA defector, the Islamic Virtue Party. Otherwise, the CG is a microcosm of Iraq’s ethnic distribution, and an ingenious and pathfinding solution to the very ethnic deadlock giving it birth. Operationalizing the CG, as another section below reveals, requires an Iraqi-first-ethnicitynext approach. Another feature: both political sides combine all three ethnic groups. The CG has Shi’as (UIA), Sunnis (IAF), and Kurds (KA), while the opposition also brings Shi’as (Virtue), Sunnis (INDF), and Kurds (KIU) together. If properly cultivated, this fascinating opportunity would help dilute intermestic cleavages, promote state-wide identities and loyalties, and possibly preserve Iraq more effectively than any dictatorship in the past could. Yet, it remains exposed to at least one critical external threat: jihadist encroachment. A final comment on why such a coalitional possibility is further constrained in Afghanistan beyond the party vacuum. One reason why Iraq could shift so quickly to a coalition government was because it opted to develop a parliamentary system, not presidential. As Afghanistan’s unfolding experiment illustrated, a presidential form of government was concentrating too much power in one office or one person, and although the centralized government was a necessary step to combat feudalistic tendencies, it further reduced opportunities to build parties. Parliamentary government may hypothetically be a friendlier multiple party system than a presidential government is; at least in the case of Iraq, this would be an unraveling development. Portfolio Allocations Table 8.5 profiles the allocation of portfolios in both countries. Given the absence of parties in Afghanistan, the next best portfolio allocation measurement of government is ethnic identity. Since Iraq’s party identities assume a distinct ethnic flavor, the comparison is not irregular. At least three features stand out: (a) president-level symmetry and representativeness; (b) inherent inclusiveness effort; (c) conscious avoidance of veto-wielding circumstances; and (d) the excessively high threshold for collective action.

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8. electoral democracy Table 8.5 Portfolio Allocations

Afghanistan

Iraq

President: Pashtun Vice president: Tadjik Ahmad Zia Massoud Vice-president: Karim Khalili

* President: Kurd (Talabani) Vice president: Sunni; Second Vice Shi’a * Prime minister (PM): Shi’a Cabinet of Ministers: – SCIRI: 3 – Sadrist Movement: – AIF: 3 – Islamic Da’wa: 1 – National Democratic Party: 1 – Iraq Communist Party: 1 – Shi’ite Turks: 1 – UIA: 1 – Independent: 1 Total: 29 * Coalitions: – UIA: 10 – Kurds: 7 * IAF: 4 – INL: 4 – Independent: 4 (2 Shi’as)

President-level Symmetry & Representativeness Even though the presidents serve entirely different functions in the two countries, we see at least two evidences of burying past hatchets and embarking upon new, collective pursuits: (a) representation of the dominant groups at the very top; and (b) centralizing Afghani-Iraqi tendencies. Behind both, however, lurks the unintended consequence of barring potentially capable from less dominant groups. Representation of the Dominant Groups at the Helm With a Pashtuni president as well as Tadjik and Hazara vice-presidents in Afghanistan, groups with veto-wielding power have been brought together to work for the future of the country. This is no mean accomplishment given the fractious history of both and the desire of the constitution-makers to not only force a completely new administrative formula in the two countries, but to also make it work. If quid pro quo is institutionalized at the top, chances of sinking in improve given how much more transparent upper echelon positions have been, but

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also the prospects of devolving to lower levels marks a fundamentally significant pattern reversal. While quid pro quo politics is not new in either country, historically it not only found its anchors at the lower levels, between Afghani warlords and the various clans in Iraq, but also became less important as it ascended the administrative hierarchies. For those reasons, Afghanistan remained a decentralized country and Saddam’s extreme centralization necessitated repression of recalcitrant clans at lower levels. In these senses, then, both countries take a giant leap from tribal politics into 21st Century representative governance. Centralizing Tendencies Behind the representativeness is also an unabashed attempt at centralizing governance, though the degree of impact differs since Iraq enjoyed greater centralization under Saddam than Afghanistan ever did. No matter how ceremonial or substantive the position, the presidency shifts attention and resources from the local levels. It is not by chance how Afghani centralization through the presidency was made a sine qua non of the country’s restructuring, even elevated over the nurturing of parties, while Iraq’s was left symbolic: Just as substantial centralization through the presidency was critical to Afghanistan’s survival as a state,15 without delegating authority to the constituent units through a parliamentary system, Iraq would probably not continue as a viable state, and hence the shift to a symbolic presidency. Realistically, the Iraqi presidency is not all that symbolic, since this office manages the considerably disarmed national security portfolio. Of the 19 members belonging to the Iraqi equivalent of the U.S. National Security Council, nine represent the UIA, four the KA, four the IAF and INDF, and two the NL. For Afghanistan, security became less tadjikized and more national under the president’s control. Finally, these changes are not foolproof. Perhaps the most disturbing feature of the representativeness arrangements is the exclusion of lesser groups: Baluchis, Hazaras, Uzbekis, and others in Afghanistan; while Christians and Turkomans in Iraq may never get the chance to rise to the president or vice-president levels if keeping the dominant group at bay is the underlying goal. Those arrangements also mask This is not to say Tadjiks have accepted this shift. How localized their influence still remains brought out by Burt Herman, “Concerns surround Tajiks takeover of Afghan border,” Houston Chronicle, July 2, 2004, from: http://www.chron.com/cs/ CDA/ssistory.mpl/world/2660224 15

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a fairly profound country-level difference: The capacity for Iraq’s presidential position to rotate between the three dominant groups is more conscious and better facilitated than is Afghanistan’s; and with Iraq’s ethnic groups far advanced than their Afghani counterparts into transforming into political parties, theoretically we should witness institutional development at a faster pace in Iraq than in Afghanistan, though the military underpinning of Iraq’s institutional growth constrains political life more severely in Iraq than in Afghanistan. Inherent Inclusiveness One of the remarkable features of Afghani and Iraqi portfolio allocations is how almost all notable groups have been included, be they dominant or less dominant. While dictated by the nature of the fractious beast in both countries, no mature democracy has been as inclusive at the start as these two fledgling counterparts. The relative importance of two underlying forces should not be ignored: (a) tribal identity and loyalty; and (b) the inevitably power balancing imperative. Tribal Identity and Loyalty Unlike many mature democracies, Afghanistan and Iraq remain rooted in tribal dynamics. Here the term tribe is not being used pejoratively to refer to a backward or undeveloped association, but simply to a clan consisting of extended families or brought together historically by similar religious or cultural experiences. England, for example, had its own Houses of Lancashire and York, made all the more famous by the War of the Roses; but it took centuries for the English, and later British, state to over-ride loyalties and identities at these local levels. Neither Afghanistan nor Iraq have reached that stage, and do not probably wish to given how important the decision to include as many different groups as possible. Power-balancing Imperatives Behind the sentiments of attachments also lie future political possibilities. With group conflicts shifting towards gladstonian power balances, that is, from military alliances of lesser against greater powers to political coalitions of weaker against stronger parties. Karzai took the notable step on July 14, 2004 to outlaw private militias owned by warlords, and simultaneously promote the internationally-driven Dis-

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armament, Demobilization,16 and Reintegration (DDR) program; but he did so by holding out an olive branch, promising carrots for inducing warlord support for the DDR. In this sense, introducing typical horse-trading becomes not only a novelty after Saddam’s and Taleban injunctions against any opposition, but also a safety valve: Under normal circumstances, every party may find itself scurrying for more votes at any given point, creating and recreating coalitions at will; and since the core interests of dominant groups may prove more rigid than flexible, the lesser groups could often play pivotal roles. In these senses, the emergence of multiple groups in the Afghani and Iraqi elections helps soften the transition from ethnic to party divisions. For example, the first Iraqi Council of Representatives decreed to choose alMaliki as prime minister, representing the less well known Da’wa Party, than either al-Jaafari or Adel Mehdi, even though they had stronger support-bases, in order to balance other portfolios, such as retaining Mehdi as vice-president, and disarming the Kurds who were incensed al-Jaafari visited Turkey in February 2006. Yet again we notice the promise of a new political development; but as with other instances of promise, the military ghosts stalking both countries could still convert them into pitfalls. Avoiding Veto-wielding Showdowns Inclusiveness directly deprives dominant groups from vetoing any collectively cherished outcome. In the constitution of both divided states, steps were put in place to raise the threshold of defection: the twothirds voting requirement over critical issues is an example necessitating cooperation to prevent defection. Rules such as this can set the parameters and perimeters of behavior, but cannot actually determine that behavior. This is where the choices available to any party fit in, with at least three implications: (a) the unheard of freedom to choose; (b) the softer approach to containing Gulliver; and (c) the cultivation of democracy.

16 Ron Synovitz, “Afghanistan: Karzai signs decree against uncooperative warlords,” Eurasia Insight, July 18, 2004, from: http://www.eurasianet.org/departments/ insight/articles/pp071804.shtml

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Freedom to Choose In neither Afghanistan nor Iraq was the freedom to choose political partners ever as clear and inviting as after the democratic elections. Amid the weight of all the problems constantly hitting the headlines in both countries, sometimes the real breakthroughs often get lost or obscured. Since the tendency to dominate has been so common and costly in both countries, the constitutions permit, through elections, the opportunity to bandwagon and balance hegemony-seeking parties. Certainly the UIA desire to create another oil-fed province in the south so as to boost Shi’ite representation in the legislature was slowed down, at the least, by the Sunnis in collaboration with other parties. Similarly, the Tadjik desire to manipulate Afghanistan’s armed forces or the Kurds to enhance their own Pesh Merga in Iraq led to countervailing forces, not on the ground with tanks, but in the hall with votes. Such choices and opportunities did not exist before. Containing Gulliver Related to free choice is the need to prevent dominant-party hegemony. All three examples of the freedom to choose also show how those choices were directed against institutionalizing a dominant group—Shi’ites over oil, Tadjiks over the military, and the Kurds likewise over the military. Until very recently, the same goals would have operationalized other instruments, culminating in conflict. By shifting this tussle to the parliament, both countries now have to develop softer instruments, such as coalitions, or exploiting constitutional provisions and mobilizing the courts—again, opportunities only just made available and certainly capable of planting roots given the enormous scope for hegemony-seeking pursuits. Cultivating Democracy The net effect of all these newly available measures and opportunities is quite likely to nurture the elements of democracy: debates and compromises, watchdogs and safeguards, minority empowerment and majority curbing, and so forth. Even if democratization runs aground in the two countries, more seeds will have been sown to guarantee the revival of democratic desires. This may be the critical change in both: Any return to dictatorship or authoritarian rule will have to fight a new enemy—democratic desires—in addition to the old, based on ethnic rivalries, competing nationalism, and the secular-religion divide.

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Table 8.6 Post-Election Contentious Issues: Afghani-Iraq Comparisons Issues

Afghanistan

Iraq

1. Presidential government:

Karzai’s successful push: centralizing format

Talabani’s unsuccessful push: decentralizing format

2. Jockeying for appointments: Diluting warriors (pacification process)

Lingering mistrust; religious intervention (Sistani’s)

3. Ethnic balancing:

De-tadjikification and Pashtuni restoration

4. Rational versus emotional influences:

Exilee-input versus warlord Highlighted by cultivating preferences or excluding Moqtada

5. U.S. intervention:

Minimal and indirect: promotes independent political development

Open and direct: breeds street-side resentment and deprives claim to independent political development

Post-Election Issues and Contentions A survey of some of the contentious post-election issues shows these hopes to be well-founded; and though an infinite innings only just began, assuming the military context, the necessary nuts and bolt seem to be available, in use, and generating positive results. Although the idiosyncrasies differ in both countries, the key issues remain generically similar, stemming from the requisites of democratization and a divided society. As such, both countries will be compared and contrasted using these issues as yardsticks. Afghanistan-Iraq Comparisons As becomes obvious, these issues touch both countries: (a) residual preference for presidential power; (b) politics over the appointments made; (c) extra efforts at ethnic balancing given the natural tendency to push ethnic preferences; (d) rational choices battling emotional outbursts; and (e) U.S. intervention. Table 8.6 profiles the discussions.

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Residual Presidential Preferences Old habits die hard! Jalal Talabani, the Kurd president of Iraq during the Transitional Government, felt ambivalent about his post, and particular about continuing his occupation of the post once he fulfilled his TG tasks of conducting general elections. On the one hand, he didn’t want to continue as president, on the other, he did. The message in between the lines was of him wanting to resurrect a presidential Iraq, in which the president had more authority, not one in which he remained a “puppet.”17 His desire to have a president to “partner . . . the prime minister in ruling Iraq on all levels, foreign affair, internal everything,” was not uncommon in the country or in the region. It was clearly what Hamed Karzai wanted in Afghanistan, even by threatening to resign if a parliamentary government was adopted. Karzai won the day, Talabani did not, and two reasons why were the intensity of group divisions and the stature of the transitional leader himself. Karzai had domestic authority and won widespread respect abroad, Talabani did not. Before Talabani, questionable leaders monopolized positions at or near the top, illegitimizing them. The critical difference was that Talabani was dispensable, Karzai was not: There were many alternatives to Talabani, not many to Karzai. Because he was a leader of one of the more consolidated Iraq groups, Talabani received a lot of deference; and to put him aside dented Kurdish hopes more than Talabani’s. His preference for a strong presidency played into a Kurdish desire to control the most important political position in Baghdad, since, through parliamentary elections, they would be reduced in relative power. Sunnis, for example, opposed Talabani’s quest to become president of a democratic Iraq. Speaking for the IAF, Iayd al-Samarrai argued the Kurds could not supply both the president and foreign minister (who was then Hoshyar Febari). That was on April 12, 2006. When the Kurds refused to budge, the IAF softened it resistance. Two days later, the Council of Representatives was elected unopposed, satisfying the two-thirds vote.

17 From “Government of Iraq from 2006,” Wikipedia, accessed April 6, 2007, from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_of_Iraq_from_2006

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Jockeying for Appointments Talabani’s passage from a TG president to a democratic Iraqi president was still smoother than many of the others. Controversies riddled the appointment of both vice-presidents, the prime minister, and the speaker, exposing how wide and deep inter-ethnic rivalries continued to remain. Since the VPs had to be Shi’as and Sunnis because of Talabani being a Kurd, Adel Abdul Mehdi, the Shi’a TG VP, wanted to continue as VP but also expressed interest in the prime minister’s position. He lost the UIA nominee vote on February 12 to Ibrahim al-Jaafari, the TG PM, by the slimmest of margins, 64–63 (out of 130: 128 from the UIA and Islamic Virtue Party, two from the Message Party). Al-Jaafari’s visit to Turkey later that month incensed the Kurds, who vehemently opposed his VP nomination, and over this issue at least, put up a united front, including the Kurdistan Islamic Union (KIU). Kurds were joined by the Sunni IAF and the secular INL, but al-Jaafari’s cause was promoted by Iran and the Sadr Movement (SM), which threatened violence if Adel Mehdi was nominated. What became a 2-month fracas was resolved by Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani’s intervention. Under his cajoling, the Sadr Movement retreated on Jaafari, while attention shifted to four other candidates by April 8: Mehdi from SCIRI, Hussain al-Shahristani, an independent legislator, as well as Nouri al-Maliki and Ali al-Adeeb, both from the Da’wa Party. One week later, Sistani’s son, Mohammed Redha al-Sistani, was able to get Mehdi to concentrate only on the VP position. Similarly for the Sunnis. Adnan al-Dulaimi, who was responsible for proposing a coalition government with Talabani, became the IAF’s first nominee. Since he could have to compete with Iyad Allawi of the INL, Sunnis faced the prospects of losing the seat and a secular Shi’a looked set to winning it. By way of compromise, the IAF’s alternate nominee, Tariq al-Hashimi of the Iraq Islamic Party, helped the party kill two birds with one stone by turning to the Da’wa: retain a more acceptable VP nominee, and promote its own Islamic claim. Perhaps the most contentious position was that of the PM. With alJaafari’s exit and Mehdi’s VP positioning, the picture became clearer. UIA’s short-list of al-Maliki, Shahristani, and Human Hamoudi from SCIRI was negotiated with the IAF and KA. On April 21, 2006, alMaliki won out. Many factors supported his nomination. He did not belong to the UIA hardcore, SCIRI, like Hamoudi; he was not a lone wolf like Shahristani; he brought in another party, the Da’wa, to the

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increasingly congested playing field, and as a result of all of the above, he represented less of a threat to the other groups while complementing SCIRI interests if not enhancing them. Al-Maliki’s Sunni deputy became Salam al-Zaubai from the IAF, while Barham Salih of the PUK represented the Kurds. All were approved by two-thirds, except the cabinet ministers proposed by al-Maliki, which needed only a simple majority. Mahmoud al-Mahhadani from the IAF was elected by the Council of Representatives as the Speaker on April 22 by 159 aye votes against 97 spoilt ballots. Earlier, the first IAF nominee, al-Hashimi, was rejected as Speaker by the Shi’a groups, ostensibly in retaliation for the IAF rejecting al-Jaafari for the VP post earlier. Ironically, al-Hashimi went on to become the Sunni VP. Ethnic Preferences As evident in the appointments, ethnic identities and loyalties remain paramount in democratic Iraq, a fate not quite as sharp in Afghanistan for at least one underlying reason: Iraq had not been able to cross the centralization hump in its governmental gestation years as Afghanistan had done during its own, with the result of raw ethnic rivalries remaining both up-front and unsettled. If politicking for positions occupied the first half of 2006, the second turned to substantive issues where, as one might expect, ethnic issues again rose to the forefront. Each dominant group advanced its pet interests, with the Shi’ites, as the majority group, largely on the defensive, Kurds and Sunnis on the offensive. Kurds emphasized at least three issues: (a) expelled Kurds be allowed to return to Kirkuk; (b) expand the Kurdish Autonomous Region; and (c) increase the regional allocation of oil revenues from 17% to 24%. The first two would be at the expense of Sunnis, the third at the expense of the center. While a referendum on Kirkuk was fixed for November 15, 2007, the coalition government appointed a committee to examine the Kirkuk question in August 2006. Sunnis sought a constitutional amendment, of Article 114, to prevent the creation of any new region, the obvious one being in the south and under Shi’a control, therefore expanding Shi’a representation in the legislature and allocations from the center. An agreement between UIA and IAF postponed the issue for 18 months from October 11, 2006. Shi’as, on the other hand, opposed the creation of the National Security Council (NSC) from as far back as January 2006, when the Salahuddin Principles proposed the NSC to the actual construction

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of the 19-member body on March 19.18 Ayatollah Hadi al-Modarresi called for a national referendum on this issue in April. Rational Choice versus Emotional Outbursts Many of the above-mentioned disputes had emotional origins, being ethnically connected in more ways than one, but by being placed on the legislative agenda, witnessed the slow emergence of rational discussions and negotiations over them. Clearly this was a plus for a country emerging from decades of not just dictatorship but also ethnically persecution. The shift from one to the other was quick, in part from the enthusiasm of being finally able to even discuss the issues, in part from the international glare on almost every Iraqi development, thereby preventing domestic issues from effective deliberations, and in part due to an external security force symbolizing both supervision and intervention. Where this transition was slow, or not taking place at all, we notice greater anti-U.S. sentiments. For example, the SM withdrew its 29 member from the legislature in November 2006 when Prime Minister al-Maliki and U.S. President George Bush met, as a sign of protest. It was able to even extract a concession from this when it rejoined the CR in January 2007: agreement to draft a proposal seeking a U.S. withdrawal timetable. Later, in April, in the absence of such a withdrawal timetable, it withdrew again. While actions of this sort bring street-side strategies to a deliberative body like the legislature, undermining its own integrity and procedures, SM did not want the government to be jeopardized or disrupted. Even before, the Islamic Virtue Party left the UIA because of alleged U.S. intervention. Democracy clearly does not close the door on emotions in a region where emotions have shaped history. At stake may be more where the line is drawn between emotions and rationality, a choice not just new, but also a source of increasing political complexities. If by the former the purpose is to mobilize public opinion and by the latter to push preferred policy proposals, then bringing them together becomes the most ideal of Iraqi legislative skills; and in that sense, Moqtada Sadr becomes more the ideal than the purely rational Iyad Allawi or Jalal Talabani. 18 So-called because they were spelled out through a meeting in the town of Salahuddin.

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U.S. Intervention In the final analysis, no legislative discussions can be completed without addressing the U.S. anomaly: to what extent is it facilitating Iraqis to build their own legislature and government along democratic lines to run their own lives in their own idiosyncratic way, or supervising Iraqis to shift along prescribed U.S. lines? To be sure, the answers may take a long time coming. However, if the initial year or so of the democratic Iraqi government is any guide, the second route seems to be more prominently utilized than the first. As early as February 1, 2006, the United States made it abundantly clear the Interior and Defense ministries should not go under sectarian influences if Iraq was interested in receiving U.S. aid. If that was not enough of a source of Iraqi apprehension, Jack Straw, the British Foreign Secretary, repeated the threat. Many Iraq politicians, such as al-Jaafari, denounced this intervention. Although these had the effect of creating three new ministries, with National Security being the third, by June 2006, and placing these in charge of the three dominant groups,19 the U.S. interventionist argument did not subside. Sadr, as might be expected, attributed to the U.S. the imposition of a “redline” in forming the country’s democratic government: some parties could not participate, hence the redline metaphor, with the Ba’athists singled out as a possible subject. He cleverly deflected the redline criteria to Iyad Allawi’s Iraqi National List, dubbing it an exBa’athist group by virtue of some of its members, including Allawi, having at one point or another, worked for Saddam. Creating red herrings is not uncommon in post-conflict societies, but in cases like this, even minimal connections can be bloated publicly, even erroneously, into maximal effects. The United States is too far in to avoid not getting placated; and public perceptions will most likely give it a different interpretation, even if the United States is well-intentioned (for example, minimizing sectarianism is a sensible argument in a society replete with them; and redline-like arguments fit in with the very rationale behind occupying Iraq in the first place, whether correct or not).

19 Defense: Quadir Obeidi, whose appointment was approved by a simple majority rule of 182 votes (out of 275; needed 138); Interior: Jawad al-Bulani (142 votes); and Shirman al-Waili (160).

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Table 8.7 Contexts in Perspectives Box 1: Endogenous: Domestic 4-stages in Afghanistan 4+1 stages in Iraq

Box 2: Endogenous: External Security provisions; surveillance and monitoring; reports (by journalist); as well as U.N. and NGOs

Box 3: Exogenous: Domestic Sectarian violence (in Iraq); narcotrafficking (in Afghanistan); refugees (both, but in reverse directions)

Box 4: Exogenous: External Foreign spillovers of sectarian violence (both); narco-trafficking networks abroad (Afghanistan); refugees (both, but in reverse directions)

Contexts and Verdicts Elections rarely become mutually exclusive events, that is, both procedures and outcomes remaining detached from other developments; and similarly, since both countries could stage elections only because of how U.S. military intervention was perceived by others, within Afghanistan and Iraq as well as the U.S. public, also mattered. This section treats contexts and verdicts separately and in that same order. Contexts As Table 8.7 illustrates, contexts can be both endogenous and exogenous, and external and internal. By endogenous is meant within the electoral system created in each of the two countries, by exogenous the wide domain outside the electoral system. Both these contexts can be disaggregated into internal, or domestic, and external dimensions. Thus far, this chapter addressed the endogenous context, paying attention, as it must, to the internal environment since that is where the elections took place. This section pays more attention to the exogenous from domestic and external perspectives, to complete the analysis. Box 1 has been directly addressed in detail in the past few chapters, and Box 2 has been indirectly addressed throughout as well. Emphasis therefore shifts to boxes 3 and 4 after a few summary comments on boxes 1 and 2. Both these boxes largely overlap, as too boxes 3 and 4. Box 1 Democracy models were created in both countries, and as several of the preceding pages indicate, they were also largely, if not fully,

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implemented. Yet, a democratic context struggles in Afghanistan, and is barely functional in Iraq. Reams of paper will be spent explaining causes, consequences, and performances, but at least two inescapable truths haunt them: (a) democracy cannot be explained through a single snapshot taken so quickly after it was initiated; and (b) unless the procedures and structures of democracy also create a culture of democracy, the glass may remain half-filled for a long time. As this project nears its end in mid-2007, several of the democracyrelated dynamics need to sink in. This is as true for the more promising Afghanistan as it is for the stubbornly resistant Iraq. Unless an opposition party is voted in to govern, according to several standards, democratic irreversibility can not even warrant attention. If Afghanistan has a long way to go, Iraq’s pathway is a lot longer. Introducing democratic procedures and structures in both probably remains the most significant development by mid-2007. How they develop instincts, shape attitudes, and influence habits could be the first signal, not only of a democratic culture evolving, but also the irreversibility just discussed. The next signal would be how these democratic instincts, attitudes, and habits displace their previous nondemocratic counterparts. Finally, once those new instincts, attitudes, and habits can be safely predicted, new thresholds can be discussed with greater confidence. Box 2 Endogenous but external democracy-related forces include not only reports from surveillance and monitoring exercises journalists routinely file, but also the facilitative role of international organizations, particularly the United Nations, and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) engaged in these countries, whether from within it or outside. These we could expect in any democratizing country today. Peculiar to Afghanistan and Iraq is the security umbrella provided by the United States. Again as this study shows, Afghanistan seems to be far ahead of Iraq, but also far from the tipping points. Media reports have probably not left any stone unturned; and in the process, we have been exposed to many kinds of innovative reporting. Embedded journalism, for example, emerged as a new concept and practice in Iraq. Afghanis and Iraqis directly interacting with journalists was also quite a novelty. Ever since the 1990–91 Gulf war, ongoing conflicts enter our living rooms even before reporters can put pen and paper together for a report.

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Although those have not changed the nature and essence of democracy, we increasingly find international organizations and NGOs acting as handmaidens of democracy. The United Nations, in particular, became an embedded actor in Afghani democratization from the late 1980s, one reason perhaps behind the strides registered in that country. One can only surmise what might have happened in Iraq if Saddam’s regime had been upturned in 1990–91, leaving the country’s democratization in U.N. hands, if not possible then, perhaps even from 2003. As matters transpired, the United Nations actually decided to leave. Whether this contributed to the deteriorating Iraqi climate is perhaps more realistic a scenario to evaluate. In the final analysis, democratization through the United Nations may represent a more untainted variety than when left in the hands of any state. At least Iraq supplies this lesson. Finally, NGOs serve like a democracy weather vane: the more of them functioning independently, the better the democratic chances. Both Afghanistan and Iraq received a plethora of NGOs; yet in both, security considerations also led many to pack up and go. Here too, Iraq was affected more seriously than Afghanistan, an ominous sign for the future of democracy in both. Chris Johnson and Jolyon Leslie captured their changing roles. During the Taleban years, for example, they were paid “by donors to be ‘independent’ agencies working with communities in the face of a repressive government,” but ever since their funding comes “not as development agencies but as subcontractors for specific programmes.”20 Box 3 Perhaps the dominant exogenous factor domestically has been sectarian violence in Iraq, narco-trafficking in Afghanistan, and refugee flows in both, though in reverse directions. Not surprisingly, both have external spillovers. Sectarian violence, whether actual, as in Iraq or potential, as in Afghanistan, has also received considerable attention in this manuscript. Suffice to say, it could make or break democracy in both countries, though containing it in Afghanistan is currently helping the government consolidate democracy and, having run out of control in Iraq, it is breaking Iraq piece by piece.

20 Chris Johnson and Jolyon Leslie, Afghanistan: The Mirage of Peace (London: Zed Books, 2004), 106, but see ch. 4.

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Narco-trafficking in Afghanistan belongs to the country’s largest industry, worth U.S.$2.3b and accounting for 50% of the annual gross domestic product.21 With production outlawed under the Taleban, only 185 tons were produced in 2001; by 2003, this multiplied to 3,600 tons, even though poppy cultivation was made illegal in 2002. As a narco-state, Afghanistan seeks $300m just to fight narco-trafficking each year. “The fight against drugs,” said Karzai, “is actually the fight for Afghanistan,”22 but as Jonathan Goodhand argues: “The growth of the opium economy is linked to processes of globalization and the collapse of the nation state.”23 Under pressure from its Congress, the U.S. vociferously calls for crop eradication, but Barnett Rubin sees this as counter-productive since it (a) shifts production to remote areas; (b) spikes inventories of traffickers; and (c) leads farmers to sell their daughters to pay debts.24 More pragmatic to him has been the Afghani Interim Government’s National Development Strategy and Drugs Control Policy’s “pro-poor” approach emphasizing “interdiction, law enforcement, institution building, and building licit livelihoods, while investing in infrastructure, protection of rights, and an enabling framework for private sector growth. . . .” With 28 of the country’s 32 provinces under poppy cultivation, costs of the “pro-poor” strategy could be more than the state can provide, although narco-trafficking is precisely the kind of activity necessitating a strong central Afghani state. Closing the vicious cycle, having banned the production in its hey days, the Taleban banned it again in 2002 to appease the international community, but as Johnson and Leslie note, by 2007, it relies exclusively

21 Andrew North, “The drugs threat to Afghanistan,” BBC News, February 10, 2004, from: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/3476377.stm; —————, “Why Afghanistan wants $27.6bn,” BBC News, March 30, 2004, from: http://news .bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/3582023.stm; and Ahmed Rashid, “Karzai’s reshuffle offers chance,” op. cit. 22 Paul Reynolds, “Afghanistan nation-building at critical point,” BBC News, March 31, 2004, from: Http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/3582677.stm; and “Key aid talks on Afghanistan,” ibid., March 31, 2004, from: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/ south_asia/3581875.stm 23 Jonathan Goodhand, “From holy war to opium war? A case study of the opium economy in north-eastern Afghanistan,” Afghanistan: A Country Without a State? Eds., Christine Noelle-Marimi, Conrad Schelter, and Reinhard Schlagintweit (Frankfurt, Germany: IKO, Verlag für Interkulturelle Kommunikation, 2004), 156, but see 139–60. 24 Barnett R. Rubin, Afghanistan’s Uncertain Transition From Turmoil to Normalcy, Council on Foreign Relations, Special Report, #12 (New York, NY: Council on Foreign Relations, March 2006), 33.

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on opium production to finance its operations, while other warlords, Abdul Rashid Dostum, for instance, are heavily engaged in it too.25 A final factor, refugees, affect both countries, but through different flows. For Afghanistan, it has meant the return of over 2m Afghanis from Pakistan and Iran, for Iraq the exodus of at least as many since 2003, with at least 50,000 fleeing every month, mostly to Jordan and Syria.26 Not only have refugee camps been hotbeds of violence and terrorism, but how they rip families apart, break value systems down, and create a homeless population also cut deeply into democratizing efforts. In both Afghanistan and Iraq, with the male population vulnerably exposed due to war engagements, leading ultimately to deaths, women have borne the burden excessively: Not only must they find sources of income to manage the family, but with creeping or surging Islam, and with it threats of unlimited kinds, their ability to secure jobs also diminishes. For Afghanistan, the task boils down to relocating and relaunching returning families before they either return or shift to illicit activities. For Iraq, the task remains to quell the deadly violence the refugees run from, a task not just impossible but also the start of a vicious cycle: Families may be forced to flee out of actual violence or threats; and once go, their property passes on to the perpetrators, who only find each incident encouraging more if only for immediate material benefits. Given the sectarian violence, threatening or killing targets further fortifies the perpetrator’s grip. Box 4 Finally, Box 4, where the spillovers of narco-trafficking, refugee flows, and sectarian violence accumulate. Oftentimes, the external sector supplies jihadists or agents provocateurs. Since many of the Afghani and Iraqi ethnic groups spill across state boundaries, the exogenous sector externally is both dynamic and directly related to the welfare of Afghanistan and Iraq—and that includes the democratization processes. Verdicts Democracy is a generally popular pursuit. Even amidst sectarian violence, refugee flows, and narco-trafficking, affected people can muster Johnson and Leslie, Afghanistan: The Mirage of Peace, chap. 5. Barbara Slavin, “Few Iraqi refugees allowed into U.S.: thousands flee because of war,” USA Today, April 30, 2007, 1A. 25 26

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hopes of a return to normal life, peace, and democracy. Difficult to conduct in war-zones or countries riddled with poverty, illiteracy, and high mortality rates, polls support these claims in Afghanistan, while mainstream inferences on Iraq do likewise. According to a mid-2004 Washington Post survey in Afghanistan, 62% of the population approved of Hamed Karzai on the eve of the presidential elections.27 Three out of every four persons polled believed the elections would make a positive difference, while two out of every three understood democracy to mean freedom and guaranteed rights, and that religion and politics belonged to two different realms, not together. Less than 10% thought Islam and democracy were incompatible. Those opinions preceded the Taleban surge, and actually came after an early 2004 Asia Foundation survey depicting striking regional differences. The north-west provinces of Badghis, Farah, and Herat, as well as the southern provinces of Helmand, Kandahar, Khost, Paktia, Paktika, and Zabul were the most pessimistic: Only 17% and 39% of the people in the two regions expressed optimism, respectively, while 35% and 19%, respectively, thought Afghanistan was headed in the wrong direction. Although this poll also found Karzai to be popular at the state level, with 62% believing he was doing well, in the northwest only 20% felt likewise and in the south only 35%. Since he is from the south, 45% of the people polled there saw him doing poorly, while 71% in the south thought likewise. Whether making Herat Governor Ismail Khan energy minister in January 2005 helped recovery from this is not clear as yet, but Karzai’s subsequent break with the Panjshiri Troika should also help his appreciation improve in the south. Slightly more than half of all respondents felt security was good in 2004 (53%), but security was listed by 37% as the biggest problem Afghanistan faced, followed by 29% for the economy, 12% for infrastructural deficiencies, and 9% insufficient education. Narco-trafficking was not seen as a big problem.28 Iraq presents a gloomier picture. Whether a civil war is unfolding or not is no longer an imaginative question, nonetheless, through James D. Fearon’s conservative perspectives, Iraq fulfills the essence of a civil war. Arguing how political scientists use 1,000 deaths as a threshold Craig Cherney, “Afghan success story,” Washington Post, July 30, 2004, A19. Jim Lobe, “Big regional differences found in major Afghanistan poll,” Eurasia Insight, July 14, 2004, from: http://www.eurasianet.org/departments/insight/articles/ eav071404a.shtml 27 28

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to qualify a civil war, of the 125 civil wars since 12945, Iraq easily ranks as the 9th deadliest with its 60,000 figure.29 Power-sharing, he continues, could be one way to end civil wars based on two conditions: (a) fighting clarifies the relative military capabilities, leading to the conclusion the goals of any one side will not be attained; and (b) the warring factions remain relatively cohesive.30 Iraq, he concluded, satisfied neither, and in fact, “more civil war may be the only way to reach a point where power sharing could become a feasible solution to the problem of governing Iraq.”31 To “stay the course” for the United States, he recommends, would be folly. Instead, it “must break off its unconditional military support for the Shiite-dominated government that it helped bring to power in Baghdad,” since this commitment “undermines U.S.-diplomatic and military leverage with almost every relevant part in the country and the region.”32 It is not surprising to find, in a secret British Ministry of Defense poll, 45% of Iraqis support coalition troops but 85% were strongly against those forces continuing in Iraq.33 According to an international Republican Institute report, 80% of Iraqis felt “the general situation” would improve in April 2006, when an elected government was set to begin. By June of the same year, the figure fell dramatically to 50%, as daily casualties among civilians climbed from 30 in 2004 to 80 in early 2006, then 120 by mid-2006.34 Within the United States, as defense spending climbed by about $50b annually from the $350b when George W. Bush took over in January 2001, Bush’s popularity also sank precipitously, from the 60% range when he became president, to the 30% range, with 9/11 spiking it to 86% in late 2001, but the Iraqi invasion beginning the freefall.35

James D. Fearon, “Iraq’s civil war,” Foreign Affaris 86, no. 2 (March–April 2007): 4. Ibid., 9. 31 Ibid., 10. 32 Ibid., 13. 33 From Amitai Etzioni, “Reconstruction: an agenda,” Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding 1, no. 1 (March 2007):41, but see 27–46. Etzioni’s reference is S. Rayment, “Secret MoD poll: Iraqis support attacks on British troops,” Daily Telegraph, October 23, 2005, no page mentioned. 34 From Michael R. Gordon, “Iraqi casualties are up sharply, study finds,” The New York Times, September 2, 2006, from: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/02/world/ middleeast/02military.html?_r=1&hp&ex=1157 . . . 35 From “How 9/11 changed America: in statistics,” BBC News, from: http://news .bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/629/629/5305868stm. Accessed September 4, 2006. 29 30

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Table 8.8 summarizes the comparative findings of the chapter. The key observation is in the box where the summary column and summary row intersect: Endogenous forces give reason to be optimistic about democratizing Afghanistan and Iraq, but democracy still remains a high-stakes roulette game, with ethnic group treatments creating entry points to acrimony, confrontation, and militancy; yet exogenous forces impose a damoclean sword, whether they involve sectarian rivalries, narco-trafficking, refugee flows, and so forth. Table 8.8 Summarizing Conclusions Dimensions A. Elections and Government Performances: 1. Electoral Logistics: a. High mobilization: b. Ethnic/Identity variations c. Logistical problems: d. Security: 2. Parties and Party Identification: 3. Coalition Imperatives:

Afghanistan

Iraq

Summary

a. b. c. d.

a. high b. questionable, unpredictable c. polling d. tight

* Mobilization not a problem * Ethnic identity variations could spark more Iraqi violence than Afghani * Routine patterns: trials-and-errors as source of stabilizing them * Clearly premature

high objective, secular registration tight

Too many individual candidates; threatens centralization; longterm view dim Still premature: clusters

Too many parties; threatens centralization; long-term view dim Still premature: clusters

4. Portfolio Allocations: a. Sine qua non trajectory a. Decentralization a. Presidential-level a problem b. Recognized symmetry: b. Inherent inclusiveness: c. Measures inculcated b. Recognized c. Measures c. Avoiding veto-wielding inculcated showdowns: 5. Post-election issues and contentions a. Afghanistan-Iraq comparisons:

Presidency stronger, leadership more coherent, rational behavior emerging, and U.S. playing background role

* Several entry-points for ethnic rivalries * Power-balancing at stake in both * Sensitive but firm leader needed, but in short Iraqi supply

* Reveals how old Parliamentary habits die hard: government evolving, authoritarian leadership weak, more streak continues in exposed to religious both, but authority leaders; emotions vested at the center trump rational in Afghanistan, behavior, U.S. playing decentralized in intrusive role Iraq

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Table 8.8 (cont.) Dimensions B. Contexts and Verdicts: 1. Contexts: a. Box 1: b. Box 2: c. Box 3: d. Box 4:

Afghanistan

Iraq

Summary

* Endogenous a. Democracy on-track a. Democracy democratization unfolding in fits variables not at all and starts a problem b. Security problematic b. Security minefield c. Multiple problems: c. Multiple problems: * Exogenous democratization sectarian violence, narco-trafficking, variables clear refugees, jihadists ethnic rivalries, sources of threat d. Spillovers from d. Spillovers from Box 3 Box 3

2. Verdicts:

More optimism than pessimism

Pessimism being institutionalized

Summary:

* Greater individuallevel engagement than institutional development * Making presidency sine qua non retains authoritarian tendency * Rational choices matching emotional outburst * Exogenous forces threatening

* More party-driven * Endogenous variables doing than individualsurprisingly well based candidates for both, though * Too many parties entry-points for * Weaker presidency ethnic rivalries reduces robust were not (and could leadership not be) eliminated * Emotions keeping rational choices at * Exogenous variables remain the wildcard bay * Exogenous overhang for both

The summarizing row spells out Afghanistan’s predicament to be (a) the primacy of individual-based electoral contestation over party-based or institution-affiliated competition, in a way replicating warlord rivalry patterns; (b) pushing presidentialism into a sine qua non consideration, thus continuing the authoritarian bent of past leaders; (c) Karzai’s enormous contributions to push rational choices over emotional; and (d) exposure to exogenous threats. Iraq’s predicament, similarly, boiled down to (a) more parties contesting elections than can be effectively managed; (b) better institutional development than in Afghanistan; (c) like in Afghanistan, tendency to invite stronger presidential powers, replicating past authoritarian rules, even though the presidency was more disarmed than in Afghanistan; (d) emotional tendencies seriously undermining rational choices; and (e) the exogenous overhang.

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From the seven variables under the two categories of elections and government performances, as well as contexts and verdicts, at least five other observations demand attention: (a) endogenous variables reflecting politics-as-usual except where ethnic issues enter the picture; (b) Afghanistan’s presidency showing more centralizing tendencies than Iraq’s; (c) the rational-emotional balance producing different trajectories in the two countries; (d) the politics-religion balance also indicating different trajectories; and (e) the more intrusive U.S. role configuring Iraqi democratization more than the background U.S. role in Afghanistan. Democratic procedures and preparations for a democratic government seem to be proceeding routinely and reassuringly in both countries, reaffirming again the larger popular desires to make the experiment succeed, but exposed in selected spots to possible hijackers or disruptive forces. One of these vulnerable spots relates to ethnic representation. If not adroitly handled, ethnic issues, which pervade the democratization spectrum, could easily become the entry-points of violence. Afghanistan has managed this better than Iraq for another reason, described below: Karzai’s greater hands-on role as president, contrasted to the disarmed Iraqi president who must heed the parliament system. Building upon the first observation, the second recognizes Afghanistan’s greater centralizing tendencies than Iraq’s. In particular is Karzai’s sine qua non approach towards the presidency. Both countries need strong states, but replete as they are with powerful ethnic groups, drawing that balance will be precarious, even treacherous. Karzai is adroitly handling this delicate balance in pushing for greater presidential controls. In not being to do so, Iraq may be unwittingly sliding towards ethnic-determination of policy issues, and thereby conflict. Karzai has also been instrumental in keeping rational choices one step ahead of the customary emotional determination of policy issues, a feat Iraq is not in a position to replicate given the divided system of a defanged president competing with prime ministers whose success depends on voicing the emotions circulated in the parliament. As a precedent, Karzai’s rationally-driven preferences may lead to the kind of authoritarian control Afghanistan’s past stands witness to; and likewise, Iraq’s emotionally-driven governance may culminate in a compliant state, far different than the robust counterpart Saddam Hussein commanded.

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Similarly, the political-religious balance seems to be projecting two different trajectories, with Afghanistan keeping religious preferences at bay, even utilizing religion as a political instrument under Karzai, and Iraq being driven by religious preferences, in spite of Kurd resistance, owing to the Shi’a majority status. From these viewpoints, one sees in Sistani, for example, the kind of an overseer of political developments. He can make or break any Iraqi leader should he so desire; but his competition with Moqtada brings two new elements to democratic governance: emotions and religion. These will not be changed no matter who prevails in this theological tussle; and whoever wins will still be able to call the political shots. Afghanistan, at least thus far, does not have any religious counterparts of the type, though it is constantly at the emotional level in keeping warlord peace. Finally, the role of the United States could not be more different. It remains a background Afghani player, but intrusively drives Iraq’s government. One reason why these roles cannot be different is the higher military opposition it faces in Iraq, necessitating greater governmental control, if only to extract safety, while in Afghanistan, threats can be delegated, not just to NATO or the United Nations, but also to an Afghani military less prone to serving ethnic vested interests and defecting from its obligations and loyalties to the center. Another reason takes us back to the beginning: Afghanistan’s democracy was the punishment for 9/11 for harboring and breeding terrorists, but Iraqi democratization, meant to set a Middle East precedent, was built upon illegitimate foundations of an Iraqi-terrorism link or weapons of mass destruction which were never found. Democratization may be serious business, but it is also sincere: It distinguishes the artificial from the real; and in this study, Afghani democracy was found to be the real experiment, Iraqi’s to be fake.

9. CONCLUSIONS: DAMOCLEAN DEMOCRACY? A Triple-headed Monstrosity & Mine-filled Exits Democratizing Afghanistan and Iraq reflects hard-headed negotiations. Just as negotiators go through a number of stages before getting to the table and after concluding an agreement, Afghani and Iraqi democratization also crossed a number of tight stages. Although this manuscript found many parallels in implementing the democracy blueprints, at least three critical variations produced vastly different outcomes: (a) with conflict as the common starting point of both those negotiations and democratization, the outcomes during the years covered in this study differed, in part due to the greater legitimacy behind the Afghani invasion and the lesser legitimacy behind Iraqi’s; (b) whereas Afghani democratization picked up threads from at least ten years before and was left, as before, largely under U.N. supervision, Iraqi democratization had no threads to pick up on and was prosecuted without multilateral input, exclusively under U.S. supervision; and (c) while endogenous democratization forces struggled successfully against many odds in both countries, exogenous influences, such as ethnic rivalries, jihadist threats, and disruptive neighbors, though largely contained until 2008 in Afghanistan, almost perpetually rocked the Iraqi boat. In the final analysis, democratizing Afghanistan and Iraq through U.S.-driven conflict proved to be quite different from the 15 other cases of 20th Century U.S. conflict-driven democratization: Unlike Germany and Japan, both Afghanistan and Iraq happen to be historically divided societies surrounded by opportunistic neighbors, thus preventing the kind of an external consensus crucial to democratizing Germany and Japan, and practice a religion whose symbolic relationship with politics is far different than not just in Germany and Japan, but also in the other 13 cases. Democratization alone cannot battle back this tripleheaded monster, though it remains a necessary element. This final chapter elaborates the three above themes: (a) the negotiations-democratization analytical parallels; (b) the substantive similarities and differences; and (c) the theoretical framework of conflict-driven democratization against the wave argument.

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Table 9.1 summarizes how the stages approach to negotiations blended with democratization. To recall, the stages began after the conflict ended, and were four-fold: pre-pre-negotiations; pre-negotiations; negotiations; and post-negotiations. Discussions follow in the same sequence. Pre-pre-Negotiations Bridging conflict and compromise, the first stage proved critical to outcomes: It determined easier sailing in Afghanistan than in Iraq. This was evident in both how the problem at stake was identified and what option was chosen to dissolve it. The Afghani problem of Taleban and al-Qaeda masterminding 9/11 events was specific and legitimized miliTable 9.1 Stages of Negotiations and Democratization Counterparts Stages of Negotiations Pre-pre-negotiations: a. Identify problem b. Consider options

Afghanistan

a. Taleban/al-Qaeda connection; a. Saddam Hussein 9/11 traced to both b. Democratize after invasion b. Evict Taleban and al-Qaeda; democratize

Pre-negotiations: a. Make commitment a. Pick up negotiation threads b. Communicate it b. Multi-party convention in Bonn

Negotiations: Hard-core bargaining

Post-negotiations: a. Performances b. Public opinion c. Exogenous threats

Iraq

Quid pro quo on the table and in the trenches as basis

a. Commitment through unrepresentative exilee groups b. Clean start under CPA and IGC Quid pro quo on the table but sine qua non exogenous and external expectations

a. Genuine and consistent a. Struggle between centrist democratization effort and localist sentiments b. Declining optimism still b. Rapidly declining optimism overshadows pessimism overshadowed by climbing c. Mostly narco-trafficking and pessimism increasing Taleban activities c. Sectarian violence; jihadi penetration; neighborly meddling

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tary intervention as the option to pursue; but the Iraqi problem boiled down to a personality clash, between George W. Bush and Saddam Hussein, culminating in military intervention on nebulous charges of al-Qaeda connections and unauthorized construction of weapons of mass destruction. The goal of democracy was common to both cases, but only in Iraq was it to also serve as an explicit regional model, perhaps a platform of democratizing the Middle East. The questions were two-fold: whether democracy should be home-grown, externally imposed, or a combination of both; and how to fine-line between democratic expectations (mostly among the public) and implementing democracy (mostly by seasoned politicians with their own vested interests)? Pre-Negotiations It is not by chance, then, that committing to democratize and communicating that decision proceeded differently. Whereas Afghanistan could pick up the pieces of peace-making and constitution-establishing efforts from the late 1980s, Iraq’s 2003 invasion could not (a) pick up on any democratic thread from the past, and (b) even reconnect in any way with the more legitimate 1990–91 Operation Desert Storm invasion. The net results of a multi-ethnic and representative convention at Bonn and U.N. supervision for Afghanistan contrasted with the Iraqi counterparts of a U.S.-dominated CPA implanting a Washington neo-conservative agenda through the selected, but representative, IGC. The clean start initiated in both connected better with local loyalties and sentiments in Afghanistan than in Iraq: Though vanguards in both were largely exilees, those exilees in Afghanistan were more authentic reflectors of local dynamics than their Iraqi counterparts. The difference was robustly demonstrated by Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, who refused to meet or deal with Paul Bremer. That there was no counterpart to al-Sistani in Afghanistan defused any significant religious trip-wires; and the only person of comparable stature across Afghanistan’s many provinces, the monarch, proved as staunch a supporter of a return to constitutional law as anyone else. In a way, both symbolized their country’s new orientation, the monarch a centralized Afghanistan reflecting a patchwork of ethnic representation, Sistani a united Iraq under Shi’ite control, reminding ethnic groups of their logical positions and nature of future inter-relations.1 On the Shi’ite stand, see Peter W. Galbraith, The End of Iraq: How American Incompetence Created a War Without End (New York, NY: Simon & Schuster, 2006), ch. 10. 1

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Peter W. Galbraith’s argument, that “Iraq’s three-state solution could lead to the country’s dissolution,”2 coldly but correctly captures unfolding reality better than the U.S.-driven military surge, Sistani’s Shi’ite desires, and Nouri al-Maliki’s finger-pointing administration at keeping Iraq unified. Associational dynamics remain arguably at stake. They unfolded more naturally in Afghanistan, with all their warts and beauty spots, but were more calculated and coordinated in Iraq, with the respective trajectories predicting consociational and controlled outcomes, respectively. One consequence was the same in both countries: Once the domestic political machine was put into motion towards democratic ends, it could only spill over into neighboring countries, in the process steepening the democratic climb. Here was the first indication of how democratization necessitates a home-grown component, but at least in some countries, must accommodate external forces—be they multilateral (United Nations), unilateral (in Iraq, the United States), or simply the neighbors (Pakistan, Iran). In short, democratization must be a simultaneous experience in certain neighborhoods of the world, such as those Afghanistan and Iraq belong to. Negotiations Beginning with the Bonn Accord for Afghanistan and the CPA arrangements for Iraq, negotiations, which streamlined each other, proved more successful—obviously for the wrong reasons in Iraq. Both went through four similar stages: (a) adopting ad hoc arrangements, such as an interim constitution, to mobilize public support, and thereby public representation; (b) constructing a permanent constitution and paving the way for elections; (c) holding the first elections in both countries, based on universal suffrage, equal citizens rights and representations, and secret, independent voting; and (d) establishing the first freely elected government in both countries. Future historians will probably look at this remarkable sequence of events with awe at first sight. It does have much to commend itself, the source of as many thrills, spine-chilling moments, and elevated expectations as when two other notorious authoritarian/totalitarian regimes were driven in democratic directions after World War II. Closer scrutiny will, at

2

Ibid., 206.

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some point, reveal the huge discrepancy between both: Afghanistan’s field democracy, that is democracy in an open and level playing field engaging interested participants; and Iraq’s fortress democracy, where not only voter protection by the U.S. military but also Green Zone government protection constitutes democracy.3 Actual negotiations predicted the stark differences of both forms of democracy. Whereas the Bonn convention brought all the major players into the open, placed them on the spot, and kept them there until a resolution was reached, the CPA counterpart chose the players, kept them in the background, and pushed them in particular directions. The former worked, the latter was boat-wrecked from the very start, salvaged in part in early 2004, first by Lakhdar Brahimi’s support for a majority-based, as opposed to caucus-based, elections, then by Sistani relaxing his constitutional objections to minority protection, both in early 2004. Whereas interim arrangements not only worked but also produced excitement in Afghanistan, they bred fear and led to initial abstention (of Sunnis) in Iraq. While offering every right and freedom a democracy document is expected to, the constitution also incorporated Islam, exposing another Afghani-Iraqi difference: Islam reaffirmed Afghani traditions, but upturned Iraq’s Sunni-dominated, increasingly secular traditions—outcomes feeding Afghanistan’s past consociational patterns, but shifting controls in Iraq, from Sunni to Shi’ite dictatorship. Whereas both countries elected governments, Afghanistan’s moved in the desired centralized direction, while Iraq’s was not only left flagging between the center and provinces, but also between a prime minister and religious or tribal leaders. If there is a bottom-line statement, it is simply this: Negotiations behind particular epochal transformations, such as shifting to democracy from dictatorship, need a lot more homework on local dynamics than on foreign expectations or imperatives since that feeds more into the home-grown component than the external—a daunting task bravely initiated in Afghanistan but not in Iraq, at least not at the critical negotiations stage.

As John Ward Anderson notes, however, the zone increasingly faces a “mortar and rocket problem,” launched from both “near the Shiite stronghold of Sadr City,” and “Sunni areas in southern Baghdad.” See “Mortars rattle nerves in U.S. haven in Iraq,” The Philadelphia, Inquirer, June 17, 2007, A12. 3

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Post-Negotiations If the above interpretations hold, one post-negotiations picture should emerge: Transiting the conflict which gave birth to democracy may be easier, but not inevitable, in Afghanistan than in Iraq, but critically, time, the crucial element distinguishing neophyte from the mature, is not on the side of either. The elected government faces enormous challenges in Afghanistan, though legislative deliberations seem to be replacing saber rattles, while center-shy war-lords also get handson governing experience at the center (Dostum, Fahem, and Ismail Khan at various points). Iraq’s elected government, on the other hand, operates out of the secured Green Zone largely through last-minute secretly-concluded compromises. Iraq’s twin problems may be Maliki’s perceptions and associations. “There are two mentalities in this region,” he once said, “conspiracy and mistrust”—in his case, targeting Sunnis and increasingly alienating Shi’as. Sunnis believe he is too attached to Iran, while a secular Shi’a leader, Ayad Allawi, even talks openly of a “bloodless parliamentary putsch . . . with support from Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and others,” to arrest a deteriorating situation. 4 More than these non-fatalistic discrepancies with endogenous democratization forces seems to be a string of hostile exogenous forces undermining democratization: narco-trafficking, Taleban resurgence, and neighborly intervention for Afghanistan; refugees, jihadis, and neighborly intervention for Iraq. Although the Afghani experiment enjoys a 2-year advantage over the Iraqi, dismal Iraqi performances have little to do with the trials-and-error process of democracy: They touch deep historical rifts, ripple across state boundaries as if by definition, and attenuate a state that should never have been in the first place.5 Held hostage by escalating bombings, Iraq’s fate currently depends on a U.S. military surge, dubbed Operation Fard al-Qanoon (imposing law), and a $5b Pentagon plan to pre-empt the suddenly lethal improvised explosive devices (IED), through the 500-member Joint IED Defeat Organization ( JIEDDO),6 rather than any governmental plan in Baghdad by Iraqis. Therein lies the nemesis of time:

4 Larry Kaplow and Christopher Dickey, “Bogged down in Baghdad,” Newsweek, June 25, 2007, 30–31. 5 On this point, see the collection of articles in Reeva Spector Simon and Eleanor H. Tejirian, eds., The Creation of Iraq, 1914–1921 (New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 2004). 6 Bobby Ghosh, “The enemy’s new tools,” Time, June 25, 2007, 24–8.

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the spillover effects. If not from within, democratization can easily be subverted from outside in any hostile neighborhood. Afghanistan is also a questionable state, but what the democratization experiment has shown more robustly than for Iraq, or even against past experiences, is the slow, still not irreversible, but distinguishable shift of local loyalties toward the center. Mounting resistance hasn’t as yet sabotaged this shift. Iraqi dynamics, on the other hand, steadily slides in the reverse direction; but whether a federated three-state Iraq stands the test of a rather difficult baptism or not, an array of exogenous forces remains lined up to ensure it doesn’t. As Aristotle once observed, democracy was never meant to be easy—in constructing and preserving. Were he in Afghanistan now, he might have wondered about the many new democratic constraints. Were he in Iraq presently, he might have wondered if democracy was even appropriate given the very different, sometimes incompatible instincts and calculations. As Zbigniew Brzezinski summarizes, “when democracy is rapidly imposed in traditional societies not exposed to the progressive expansion of civil rights and the gradual emergence of the rule of law, it is likely to precipitate intensified conflict, with mutually intolerant extremes colliding in violence.”7 Ethnically divided societies face further perils in the same quest. So far, only the U.S. military recognizes these logics; and thus far, the U.S. military is the most hand-cuffed player in the game—as indeed it should be in any democratization exercise. Substantive Similarities and Differences Three themes encapsulate substantive developments: (a) similarities and differences; (b) analyzing differences in the endogenous/exogenousinternal/external matrix for possible solutions; and (c) re-examining consociation and arbitration as vehicles of resolving ethnic problems. Similarities and Differences Table 9.2 summarizes similarities and differences in Afghani and Iraqi democratization (elaborated in Chapter 6), spelling out where progress has been made, and where much work remains. Many similarities need further encouragement, since they unleash many civilianizing processes (respectively, mobilization, infrastructural development, 7 Zbigniew Brzezinski, Second Chance: Three Presidents and the Crisis of America’s Superpower (New York, NY: Basic Books, 2007).

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9. conclusions: damoclean democracy ? Table 9.2 Similarities & Differences In Afghani-iraqi Democratization

Similarities

Differences

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

Representative democratization start Mobilization of building blocks Intra-group dialogue initiated Deadlines and adjustments as reality check Roles of exilees Opportunity costs of existing state

Different fates of excluded groups Different democratic pre-conditions Adjustment to divided society Different roles of multilateral force Different positioning of U.S. Different symbols of unity

communications, trials-and-errors, catalyzing roles for the first five common features), but the sixth similarity predicting a damoclean sword breaking Afghanistan and Iraq could become reality if the several differences are not given urgent attention. As noted in Chapter 6, the first and sixth differences reflect historical experiences, and the fourth democracy promotion training—both needing more time, patience, and external encouragement. All 3 other reflect U.S. vested interests: It is too late to re-think the 2nd and 5th differences, but the 3rd can still be targeted for resolution, more so in Iraq than in Afghanistan. An opening gesture, perhaps already underway, could be to nullify the Sunni perception of a distinct pro-Shi’a U.S. bias. Needless to say, it exposes a dilemma: It requires less U.S. engagement and influence, including withdrawing the Green Zone protection; but with so much blood already spilled, any U.S. retreat now would open Iraqi bedlam. What is often not recognized in 2007, against mounting Sadrist resistance, the United States has quietly been turning to Sunni tribal leaders, especially in Anbar, to arrest the jihadi problem. Over the past year, and particularly in the wake of Zarqawi, a movement led by Sunni sheikhs, called the Anbar Awakening, “rejected al-Qaeda’s vision for Iraq and aligned themselves with U.S. forces.” Colonel Sean MacFarland, for instance, described the region in 2006 as “the heart of darkness,” littered with al-Qaeda insurgents, but in 2007 he saw the Anbar Awakening as “a chemical reaction,” between “two compatible ingredients and a catalyst.” Three common goals were envisaged by the Sunni sheikhs and the U.S.: (a) fight al-Qaeda; (b) work with coalition troops; and (c) promote the constitution.8 8 See Kevin Ferris, “A positive story from the Iraq war,” The Philadelphia Inquirer, June 8, 2007, A2.

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Perhaps a gesture too little or too late, this new identity presumes a Shi’a-Sunni leadership embrace, but faces a more independent twist to sectarian violence. Though they make natural allies, Sunnis and the United States remain divided by a Ba’athist wedge (or grudge), which fueled violence in the first instance from 2003, but though considerably dipped currently, set into motion a rough revenge mindedness to keep the sectarian plot brewing for some time. Not to discount a Shi’a-Sunni embrace, Moqtada al-Sadr’s 2007 reemergence promoted the Sunni-embrace message. This, in turn, throws the ball into Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani’s court. Sistani’s vision of a unified Iraq is not dissimilar to Moqtada’s, but the Sadr Movement’s on-again, off-again alliance with SCIRI raises questions if the unity sought is similar in the procedures and methods, and precisely how the minorities will be treated. Sadrist radicalism and Sistani conservation predict different methods and goals, and triggers different U.S. responses. Already the United States points fingers at the Mahdi Army for masterminding the June 13, 2007 Shi’a Askariya mosque bombing in Samarra.9 A U.S. military command statement, in fact, indicated the bombings to be an inside operation, since the police “did not see any attacker in the vicinity.”10 While pointing fingers at the Sadrists is not new, the larger picture should not be ignored: Moqtada’s radicalism conflicts with Sistani’s conservativism, but he might himself be finding his own radicalism is not radical enough given the opportunities and circumstances created by the conflict and in pushing any fullblown Shi’ite platform to the limit. If so, Sunnis have more to lose, and Iraq has no other choice but to keep U.S. troops for their own security. His current self-initiated exile in Iran only thickens the plot behind this particular scenario: It deepens Shi’ite division without promoting Sunni embrace, and ultimately drives the United States into its original proSunni posturing against a perceptually hostile Shi’ite enemy—a scenario without space for authentic democratization.

9 Burial ground of the 10th and 11th Shi’a imams (Ali al-Hadid, d. 868; and Hassan al-Askari, d. 874). See Trudy Rubin, “A bombing calculated to spark revenge,” The Philadelphia Inquirer, June 14, 2007, A1. 10 John F. Burns and Jon Elsen, “Some Shiite retaliation, but mostly calm,” The Philadelphia Inquirer, June 15, 2007, A2.

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9. conclusions: damoclean democracy ? Table 9.3 Endogenous/Exogenous-Internal/External Cross-flows Internal

External

Endogenous:

Democratization processes U.S. or U.N. supervisory roles (an illustration, not a difference) (difference # 4)

Exogenous:

Sectarian violence (Iraq), narco-trafficking (Afghanistan) (differences #1,#6)

Jihadi and sectarian spillovers (Iraq), narco-trafficking spillovers and Taleban (Afghanistan), or U.S. or multilateral forces (differences #2, #3, #5)

Endogenous/Exogenous-Internal/External Combustion The case study clearly distinguishes between both endogenous and exogenous democratization forces, as well as the internal-external causation categories. Table 9.3 summarizes this matrix, based on discussions in chapters 7 and 8. Returning to the differences, we find only one is endogenous-external (democracy promotion), two belong to the exogenous-internal box (historical experiences), and three to exogenous-external (U.S. vested interests). Remarkable by its absence is any endogenous-internal problem. Given the exogenous nature of other domestic differences (adjusting to historical changes), external forces can be helpful (democracy promotion in the endogenous-external box), or be disruptive (exogenous-external box). Most of all, U.S. Iraqi engagements need to show more of the U.N. Afghani approach if democratization is to work in Iraq, a feat the United States cannot alone produce: It is one source of disturbances, but not the only one; and in fact, it may be the most effective regulator of other exogenous forces originating outside of Afghanistan and Iraq (Taleban in Afghanistan, Iranian intrusion in Iraq). The United States needs to rethink its domestic alliances in Iraq, which leads directly to the next theme. Ethnic Conflict Management Paradigms From Chapter 1 discussions of control, consociation, and arbitration as three possible models alleviating ethnic conflict, it was found in the remaining chapters how both consociation and arbitration not only remain critical contributors to democratization but also how coordination between them produces more win-win outcomes than any other

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Table 9.4 Consociataionalist Features & Afghani/Iraqi Arbitration Arbitration in → Consociation Features ↓

Afghanistan

Iraq

1. Grand coalition:

Working remarkably well: Pashtun-Tadjik differences translating into politics-as-usual in parliament

Handicapped: Green Zone protection; Sunni members resigning from government

2. Proportionality:

Standing up to enormous pressures for 5+ years

Theoretically acknowledged, but being overtaken by debilitating exogenous forces

3. Community autonomy:

Not a priority, especially as centralization is inching ahead

Very much the priority, but faces the huge wall of not enough mutual trust

4. Constitutional vetoes for minorities:

Very much in place, but inherent advantage is the absence of an absolute majority ethnic group

Cannot but be in peace if the Iraqi experiment is to survive

possibilities. Of the two types of coordination, the U.N.-based arbitration model connected more feasibly with Afghani groups than the U.S.-based arbitration model did with Iraqi groups, in part because U.S. arbitration translated into U.S. regulation on the ground. Table 9.4 profiles the discussions. Taking four consociationalist characteristic, on the one hand, Table 9.4 examines the Afghani and Iraqi experiences through arbitration eyes, on the other. The obviously dissimilar direction of the two countries taints any interpretation: Karzai’s Afghanistan is pushing centralization to overcome localized skirmishes between warlords and ethnic groups, and with the United Nations and NATO serving largely contextual rather than regulatory purposes, his efforts seem to be paying off even as they still remain reversible; Iraq, on the other hand, has no choice but to decentralize to survive, that too against both U.S. reluctance and intrusive, interventionist roles. While the Afghani coalition is holding on, Iraq’s continues to be on a perpetual brink, with exogenous developments conflagrating legislative deliberations and Sunni members resigning, Shi’ite partners unable to present a cohesive force, and Kurds relishing their most integrated

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9. conclusions: damoclean democracy ?

and purposeful presence—all at the expense of a common Iraq. Of course, Tadjik power has been shrewdly clipped by Karzai, but rather than take to the streets to fight out the differences, as in the early 1990s, both Tadjiks and Pashtuns have turned swords into parliamentary ploughshares. Both Afghani and Iraqi constitutions mandate proportionality. Yet, because of a stronger center, Karzai’s government is better able to deliver the various propositions than his Iraqi counterpart, Maliki. In addition to his personal demons, Maliki is hamstrung by the force of exogenous developments: ethnic cleansing in one neighborhood,11 or a mosque attacked in another,12 can have enormous national repercussions, and these are precisely the kinds of developments in the trenches preventing the proportionality rule from reaffirming itself at the center. Strained relations between Maliki and Sunni Vice President Tariq Hashimi capture this tension in a nutshell. With every bombing eroding Maliki’s position, his anti-al-Qaeda accusations directed at the Sunni parliamentarians have grown in volume, for example, blaming Hashimi’s 44 Tawafuq bloc members as terrorists. An exilee returning from Iran, Maliki is instead blamed by others in the government for alienating possible supporters (6 cabinet ministers resigned, but Maliki’s replacements were not accepted by the parliament), and isolating himself by sticking exclusively to his Da’wa party preferences—a predicament aptly captured by Larry Kaplow’s and Christopher Dickey’s comparison with George W. Bush in the June 25 Newsweek issue. “Increasingly isolated from the people they are supposed to lead,” Kaplow and Dickey observe, both “have had to learn on the job while in the top job. Both are surrounded by small circles of confidants who have given them demonstrably bad advice where the future of Iraq is concerned. Both are at odds with fractious legislatures. Both are deeply religious and have important fundamentalist constituencies.”13 Related to proportionality is community autonomy. Karzai’s government managed to shift attention not only from groups, but also from regions to the center, in the process releasing centralizing interests and

11 Trudy Rubin, “Preview of U.S. exit from Iraq,” The Philadelphia Inquirer, June 15, 2007, A23. 12 Steven R. Hurst, “3 Sunni mosques bombed in Iraq,” The Philadelphia Inquirer, June 21, 2007, A2. 13 Kaplow and Dickey, “Bogged down in Baghdad,” op. cit.

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group reconfigurations—a task difficult in Iraq given its decentralized bent. For a federalist Iraq to work, the units need to demonstrate enough trust to permit a minimally imposing center; but this has been the straw breaking the Iraqi camel’s back. Finally, both constitutions have provisions promoting vetoes for minorities, a task increasingly uphill for Iraq to confront but a bridge Afghanis have experienced crossing. Complicating the issue, however, is the relative strength of the minorities: In Afghanistan they can constitute a majority at any given time through coalitions; but in Iraq, even if they streamlined their interests, they cannot overcome the Shi’ite population majority. As alluded to, this Shi’ite majority has not always been unified, but when bad turns to worse, in a region filled with Sunni-majority countries, Shi’as have the capacity to forge deep unity. Just as the Shi’ites demand to control revenues is divisible,14 its desire to strengthen the center often elicits Sunni support, but Kurd ambivalence. In summary, without U.S. Green Zone protection, among other conducive provisions, it is difficult to measure how effectively Maliki’s government can operate; but in Afghanistan, we don’t need to worry as much about a U.N.-protected Green Zone or NATO dictating political developments. That critical jig-saw information may be the bottom-line difference: Afghani coalitions emerging robustly of their own volition, Iraqi counterparts emerging tentatively through processes subordinated to U.S. regulations and/or dramatic exogenous developments. The former is sustainable, the latter is not. Using Ian Lustick’s labels, the former seems locked at the first threshold of regime-building to even begin the state-expansion tasks; the latter appears to be too embattled at the second threshold of ideology-building to sustain stateexpansion. Afghani progresses can still be reversed, but the country can also see glimpses of light at the end of a very long tunnel; Iraq’s, on the other hand, arguably remains in mid-2007 where Colonel MacFarland saw then in 2006—“in the heart of darkness.”

14 John McGarry and Brendan O’Leary, “Iraq’s constitution of 2005: liberal consociation as political participation,” International Journal of Constitutional Law 5, no. 4 (September 2007):670–98. I am grateful to Eswaran Sridharan for bringing the Gadjil factor, explaining the equi-distribution of revenues in ethnically divided societies, to my attention.

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9. conclusions: damoclean democracy ? Theoretical Reprise

The manuscript commenced with a discussion of two possibly relevant theoretical frameworks: the wave argument, precisely how the fourth democratization wave postulated by others could capture Afghani and Iraqi experiences given their Soviet influences, and in a wilder scenario, how both could trigger a fifth, Islamic wave; and the conflict-driven democratization counterpart stemming from a catalytic U.S. role. Table 9.5 captures some of the strengths and weaknesses of both. Table 9.5 Strengths and Weaknesses of Wave And Conflict Theses Democratization Theoretical Patterns Wave Argument: a. Fourth:

b. Fifth:

Strengths

Weaknesses

a. remove totalitarian/ a. authoritarian government; provision of freedoms, rights, and representations; democracy crosses stubborn Islamic line; elected governments installed in both countries for first time; benefits from, rather than introduces, U.S. 4-phase, post-conflict methodology; footprints of possible Middle East democracy b. remove totalitarian/ b. authoritarian government; provision of freedoms, rights, and representations; democracy crosses stubborn Islamic line; elected governments installed in both countries for first time; benefits from, rather than introduces, U.S. 4-phase, post-conflict methodology; footprints of possible Middle East democracy

cannot explain relationship between conflict and democracy; cannot explain idiosyncrasies hampering 4-phase, post-conflict methodology; unable to explain religion-politics mix; difficulty in adjusting to Middle East democracy since no past Soviet influence

cannot explain relationship between conflict and democracy; cannot explain idiosyncrasies hampering 4-phase, post-conflict methodology; unable to explain religion-politics mix has not addressed Sunni-Shi’a variations to tackle democracy; dependence on conflict to trigger democracy is audacious and unrealistic

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Table 9.5 (cont.) Democratization Theoretical Patterns

Strengths

Weaknesses

Conflict-driven Thesis: a. U.S.: a. remove totalitarian/ a. authoritarian government; provision of freedoms, rights, and representations; democracy crosses stubborn Islamic line; elected governments installed in both countries for first time; successful 4-phase, post-conflict methodology introduced b. Multilateral: b. remove totalitarian/ b. authoritarian government; provision of freedoms, rights, and representations; democracy crosses stubborn Islamic line; elected governments installed in both countries for first time; benefits from, rather than introduces, U.S. 4-phase, post-conflict methodology; cannot explain relationship between conflict and democracy; more effective outcomes in Afghanistan than in Iraq

rationale for conflict weak and subjective; ignores conflict costs, supplies of troops, what democracy means, what consequences might be; no fall-back plan to 4-stage, post-conflict methodology; statehood threatened; past history not encouraging rationale for conflict missing; ignores conflict costs, supplies of troops, what democracy means, what consequences might be; no fall-back plan to 4-stage, post-conflict methodology; statehood threatened; past history not encouraging when coat-tailing U.S.; unrealistically assumes multilateral principles and rules

Turning to the strengths, both the wave and conflict paradigms can point to a number of common credentials. Both removed totalitarian/authoritarian governments, thus liberating human capacities, freedoms, rights, and representations; democracy was taken deeper towards the Islamic heartland; and elected governments were installed in both countries for the first time. Yet, since the wave argument relies on spontaneous domestic movements, and the conflict thesis on an external program, the unique claims to strength of each elevates the conflict thesis over the wave (which cannot even explain why conflict or how conflict relates to democracy). The United States, more than

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any other actors, can take credit for the phased, post-conflict democratization methodology: The wave thesis and multilateral forces benefited from this, but the United States alone took charge in making it the instrument. In turn, this methodology survived many idiosyncratic pressures, such as ethnic rivalries—another source of U.S. credit. Multilateral supervision of conflict-driven democratization also claims better outcomes in Afghanistan than U.S.-supervised democratization in Iraq. Both fourth and fifth wave arguments, like their conflict counterparts, point to a possibly successful Iraq as triggering an Islamic shift towards representative government. The fifth wave does this explicitly, built as it is upon George W. Bush’s greater Middle East democratization plan. If this plan ever sees the light of day without inciting conflict, the fifth wave could emerge as the most useful of the paradigm permutations being considered. That, however, is a big if, especially when the weaknesses side of the equation is evaluated. Here, too, the two conflict variations carry more liabilities than their two wave counterparts. All four share the same problem of a generic 4-phased, post-conflict democratization blueprint capturing the many country-specific idiosyncrasies. Laden as they are with ethnic rivalries and ethnic spillovers engendering criss-crossing neighborly influences, these idiosyncrasies expose the underlying problem of Afghanistan and Iraq, and probably many other Islamic countries: of artificial states established over peoples rather than the peoples working out their own statehood, a distinction between state-nations and nationstates, in Barry Buzan’s parlance. Neither the wave nor the conflict arguments can explain religion-politics admixtures, essential to Islamic countries but omitted in the wave conception and the conflict blueprint of democratization. Turning to the specific weaknesses, the wave arguments carry fewer than the conflict counterparts, as just observed. Neither of the wave arguments can explain conflict as a means towards democratization, especially if triggered by another country. Even as a new wave element, explaining conflict as a rationale is even more remote to wave argumentation. Be that as it may, the fourth wave thesis would find extension to greater Middle East democracy difficult to sustain since a number of Middle East countries, not all, with no Soviet influences belong to this category. Similarly, the fifth wave argument remains hard pressed to speak for Islamic countries without first accounting for Sunni-Shi’a variations, or even awaiting a U.S.-supervised conflict when the U.S. public increasingly demands force withdrawal.

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Both U.S.-supervised and multilaterally supervised conflict variations, assume conflict, raise it to a pedestal to deliver the cookies (democracy), and ignore costs, supplies of troops, a conception of the democracy being implemented, and an end-point. Individually, the U.S.-supervised version does not have a fall-back to the 4-stage, post-conflict methodology: If that falls apart, democratization could be discredited. Under pressure, the United States is making adjustments in Iraq, but the multilateral force in Afghanistan still does a better adaptation job under European commanders. Nonetheless, both versions seem ill-placed to explain the rationale for conflict, the United States more so than multilateral, thus drying up sources of troops and materials. Both directly threaten statehood even though both claim to defend the statehood status quo; and their disregard for the peculiarities of history in carving an unknown future goes against the local current. Individually, U.S.-supervision carried prospects of a low success rate even before Afghanistan and Iraq, and with Afghanistan and Iraq, the prospects seem, at best, 50–50 presently—certainly not convincing ratios to seal any argument. The multilaterally supervised counterpart assumes multilateral principles and rules on democracy, which neither the U.N. nor NATO currently have. Of these two agencies, the NATO is likely to be more acceptable locally than the United States, even though the United States is more prepared to stay longer than NATO—but neither can realistically hold the future in its hands nor shape that future in its own image. In short, both strengths and weaknesses bring very formidable forces to the drawing board. Success in Germany and Japan is no reason to replicate the approach in Afghanistan and Iraq since circumstances, rationale, and expectations are vastly different. The wave argument seems similarly relevant to a western, Christian ballgame based on secularity and rationality—factors less important than religion and emotions in Afghanistan, Iraq, and the general Muslim world. Rather than a pot of gold, the end of the democratization rainbow in Afghanistan and Iraq is but a crossroads, captured by the Rubicon and Waterloo metaphors: With a lot of sustained external engagement under a multilateral body, Afghanistan could cross that Rubicon into a safer future; Iraq, on the other hand, could be the Waterloo of at least Middle East democracy without claims of culpability. The common message of homegrown democracy going the farthest should also be the most important lesson learned—giving democracy its much overdue third cheer!

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INDEX Aasafi, Hamyon Shah, 234 Abbas, Khodayyir, 140 Abdallah, Abdallah, Afghani Foreign Minister, 77, 101, 157, 159 Abu Ghraib, 78fn, 180 Achilles Heel, 32 Adenauer, Konrad, German Chancellor, 61, 125fn Afghani economic development, 26 Afghani-Iraqi democratization, 8, 125fn, 174–8, 183, 185, 207, 211, 265 Afghanistan, 2–4, 7–8, 11–4, 17–20, 22–3, 25, 30, 33–5, 69, 71–5, 77, 79–83, 85, 87–91, 93–106, 110–9, 122–4, 126–9, 131–4, 136–9, 142–5, 147–8, 151–60 passim, 164–84 passim, 185–224 passim, 225–59 passim, 261–77 passim Afghanistan Independent Party, 234 Afghanistan Nationalist Party (Qanooni’s group), 234 Africa, 5, 12, 16, 29, 31, 58, 66–7, 80, 122, 142 Ahmedzai, 157 Ahrari, Ehsan, 85fn Ajami, Fouad, 229fn Albania, 15, 142fn al-Abbadi, Haidar, 140 al-Adeeb, Ali, 245 al-Alim, Mohammad Baker, 166fn al-Alwass, Alaa Abdessaheb, 140 al-Barak, Ahmed, 140 al-Barwari, Ms. Nisrin Mustafa, 140 al-Bulani, Jawad, 248fn al-Chaderchi, Naseer, 140 al-Din, Dara Noor, 140 al-Dulaimi, Adnan, 236, 245 Algeria, 16, 19 al-Ghadbass, Ali Faek, 140 al-Hafex, Mahdi, 140 al-Hakim, Abdel Aziz, 166fn, 192 al-Hashimi, Ms. Aquila, 139–40 al-Hashimi, Tariq, 245–6 al-Huda, Bint, 229 al-Jaafari, Ibrahim, 140, 161fn, 166fn, 241, 245–6, 248 al-Khuzzai, Raja Habib, 140 Allawi, Ali A., 140, 161

Allawi Group, 187, 191, 200, 230 Allawi, Iyad (Ayad), 140, 206, 211, 236, 266 Alliance for Peace Progress (APP), 3 Allinson, Gary D., 54 Allied Control Council (ACC), 56 Allied Council for Japan (ACJ), 56 Allied High Commission, 125fn Allied Powers, 50, 125fn al-Maliki, Nouri (or Nuri or Nur), 125, 230, 241, 245–7, 264 al-Mahhadani, Mahmoud, 226, 246 Almond, Gabriel, 40 al-Muhammedawi, Abdel-Karim Mahoud, 140 al-Majun, Sami Azara, 140 al-Modarresi, Ayatollah Had, 247 al-Qaeda, 73–4, 77, 95–6, 106, 118, 128, 132, 134, 154–5, 178, 180, 193, 195–7, 210, 214, 262–3, 268, 272 al-Rabii, Mouwafaq, 140 al-Rubaie, Mowaffak, 166 al-Sadir, Ayatollah Muhammad Sadiq, 229 al-Sadr, Moqtada, 160–1, 171, 193, 199, 229–30, 243, 247, 259, 269 al-Samarrai, Ayham, 140, 244 al-Sistani, Ayatollah Ali. See Sistani. al-Sistani, Mohammad Redha, 161, 245 al-Shahristani, Hussain, 245 al-Attiyah, Khaled, 226 al-Ulloum, Ibrahim, Mohammad Bahr, 140 al-Ulloum, Mohammad Bahr, 140 al-Waali, Shirman, 248 al-Yawer, Gazi Mashal Ajil, 140 al-Zaubai, Salam, 246 American Enterprise Institute, 86 Amin, Samia, 69, 79 Amstutz, J. Bruce, 58fn Anbar Awakening, 268 Anchluss, 32 Anderson, John Ward, 265 Annan, Kofi, U.N. Secretary General, 104, 126 Anwari, Seyyid Hussein, 128, 136 APP, see Alliance for Peace Progress Arabic, 76, 103, 168, 187

296

index

Arabs, 113 Arab world, 5, 127 Argentina, 15 Armenia, 15, 142fn Aristotle, 130, 267 Asia, 12, 58, 66–7, 80, 122, 127, 129, 254 Askariya Mosque, Samarra, 269 Assyrian, 140 Aswad, Ziad Abderrazzak Mohammed, 140 Atlantic Charter, 51–2 Atlantic, North, 39 Australia, 142fn, 214 authoritarian systems, 154, 174–6, 179, 207–8, 225, 242, 257, 264, 274–5 Axis powers, 52 Azerbaijan, 15, 142fn Azimi, Professor, 191 Ba’athists, 9, 38, 53, 57, 73–5, 77, 88, 97, 101, 105, 138, 139fn, 198, 229–30, 235, 248, 265 Ba’ath party, 108, 139 Badr organization, in Iraq, 191 Baghdad, 4, 38, 81, 93, 100–1, 107, 123, 138fn, 142, 193, 197, 211, 229–30, 232, 244, 255, 266 Bahaaeddin, Salaheddin, 140 Bailey, Sue, 208fn Baker, Luke, 192 Baker, Peter, 217fn Balkhi, Mohammad Hanif Hanif, 136 Baluchis, 113, 123, 155–6, 171, 239 Bangladesh, 15fn, 133 Barrow, Greg, 105fn, 127fn Barzai, Massoud, 140 Basic Law, German, 50, 60 Basra, 99, 140, 142, 230 Bastian, Sunil, 45fn Beeston, Richard, 136fn Belarus, 15 Belgium, 98fn Bergen, Peter, 86fn Berlin, 128 Berlin crisis, 62 Bernstein, Jake, 5fn Bidiscombe, Perry, 60fn Binder, Leonard, 28, 39 bin Ladin, Osama, 99, 105, 154, 179, 215 Binnendjik, Hans, 20fn, 90fn Bismarck, Otto von, 41fn, 58

Bisson, T.A., 61fn bizonal arena, wartime Germany, 55 Blair, Tony, British Prime Minister, 107, 133 Boehling, Rebecca, 61fn Bokhari, Farhan, 204fn, 224 Bokhari, Imtiaz H., 17fn, 80fn Bolivia, 15 Bonn (Conference), 72, 77, 90, 96, 99–106, 111, 117, 129, 131, 142, 146–7, 151–9, 177, 187–8, 196, 200, 204, 214, 220, 262–5 Bonn Accord, December 2001, 17, 57, 72–3, 97, 124–5, 144, 153, 155, 157, 186, 188, 193, 196, 235, 264 Bosnia Herzegovina, 15, 70 Bosworth, C.E., 11fn bottom-up democracy, 19, 47–8, 57–9, 63, 89–90, 117, 137 Boucher, Richard, 213 bourgeois instinct, 47 Brahimi, Lakhdar, 100, 104–5, 127, 132, 136, 138, 163–4, 167, 169, 265 Brand, Constant, 213 Brazil, 15 Bremer, Jennifer, 141 Bremer, III, L. Paul, 100, 139, 142–3, 160–4, 169, 204, 214, 263 Britain, see Great Britain. British empire, 55 Broader Middle East and North African Partnership Initiative (BMENAPI), 70 Brooks, Stephen G., 67fn, 178fn Brown, Harold, 5fn Brussells, 118 Brzezinski, Zbigniew, 267 Buchanan, Paul G., 19, 20fn Bulgaria, 15, 142fn Bulos, Bahman Zaya, 140 Burhani, Nadera Hayat, 202 Burns, John F., 229fn, 269fn Bush Doctrine, 6–7, 12, 37, 82, 84, 85fn, 89, 172, 178fn, 216, 219 Bush, George H.W., 6–7, 177, 179, 216 Bush, George W., 3, 5, 6, 14, 16–7, 30, 34, 70, 74fn, 78, 84, 85fn, 86, 93–6, 106–8, 133, 141fn, 149, 162, 164, 166, 177, 179, 216, 247, 255, 263, 272, 276 Bush, Jr., see George W. Bush Bush, Sr., see George H.W. Bush Buzan, Barry, 58, 112, 276

index Caesar, as reference, 10–1, 189 Callaghy, Tom, 22, 24 Cambodia, 3, 31 Camp, Roderic Ai, 28, 29fn Campbell, Kenneth J., 33 Canada, 180 Canellos, Peter S., 160fn Carlucci, Frank, 99 Carr, E.H., 37fn, 45fn Carter Center, 48 Carter, James ( Jimmy), 5fn, 174 Carroll, James, 5fn Catholic (democratic wave), 116 caucus-based elections (Iraq), 163, 181, 190, 204, 265 Cavour, Count, 41fn Center for Civic Education, 76 Central Asia, 14, 18, 34, 71, 116, 129, 172, 213, 215, 232fn Central Intelligence Agency, U.S., 6, 78, 167 Chalabi, Ahmad, 74, 78–9, 87–90, 95–6, 99–101, 106–8, 111, 117–8, 123, 138–41, 143, 147–8, 161, 166, 181, 191, 211 Chamberlain, Neville, 125fn Chandrasekaran, Rajiv, 162fn, 163fn, 166fn Chapouk, Sondul, 140 Cheney, Dick, U.S. Vice President, 5, 78, 93, 95–6, 106, 216 Cheney Doctrine, 6 Childs, Nick, 214fn Chile, 15, 38 China, 49, 51, 55, 127 Chirac, Jacques, French President, 133 Chomsky, Noam, 28, 30fn Christian(s), 39, 139–40, 171, 229, 239, 277 Christian Democrat Party (CDP), German, 61 Christianity, 10, 189 CIA, see Central Intelligence Agency Cincinnati Museum Center, 106 Civilian Administrator of Iraq, 94, 100, 108 Clay, Lucius D., 50, 59, 61 CLJ, see Constitutional Loya Jirga. Clinton, William L. (Bill), 5, 99, 123 CNN, 48 coalition(s), 226–56 passim, 268, 271, 273 Coalition Government (Iraq), 237 Coalition of the Willing (COW), 187

297

Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), 17, 57, 72, 95, 97, 125, 141, 160, 186–7 Cold War (and post-Cold War), 2–3, 12, 17, 22, 38–9, 45–6, 51, 55, 62–3, 67, 116, 160, 178–9, 216 Coleman, James S., 11fn, 27, 39, 40fn Communist Party, in Iraq, 139–40, 234–5, 238 Constabulary force, 50, 60 Constitutional Loya Jirga (CLJ), 125, 134, 148, 186–7, 189, 200, 202–3, 228 Copenhagen (democratic) criteria, 26, 28–9 Cordesman, Anthony H., 33fn Corn, David, 33fn Costa Rica, 15 Council of Foreign Ministers, 49, 56 Council on Foreign Relations, 5, 252fn Council of Representatives, Iraqi, 190, 201–2, 225–6, 241, 244, 246 conflict school of democracy, 30–3, 45–8 conflict-democracy linkage, 45–8 Crane, Keith, 45fn, 52fn Crawford, Texas, 93, 106 crises and sequences, political development, 27–8, 39–41 Croatia, 15, 70 Crocker, Bathsheba N., 108fn Crocker, Ryan, 231 crusade, democratic, 12, 83 Cuba, 30–1 culture, 4, 8, 21, 27–8, 40–1, 122, 140, 145, 167fn Cyprus Group, Afghanistan, 95, 100, 104, 126, 130 Czech Republic, 15, 142fn Czechoslovakia, 15 Dalacoura, Katerina, 70 damoclean (sword), 195, 198, 222, 256, 268 Danchev, Alex, 107 Dari, 187 Davis, John, 33fn Da’wa (also Daawa) Islamic Party, 140, 191 DeGrasse, Beth Cole, 45fn democracy, 29fn, 30–43, 45–9, 51–6, 59, 60, 62–6, 69–72, 75–7, 79–81, 83–5, 87–91, 94–6, 98, 100, 102, 105, 117–9, 121–2, 124, 130, 137, 139, 141–2, 144–5, 147, 149, 151–84

298

index

passim, 185–224 passim, 225–59 passim, 261–77 passim democracy-development nexus, 26, 30 democracy promotion (DP), 26, 38, 46, 56, 84–5, 183–4, 268, 270 democratic blueprints, 3, 4, 8–9, 261 Democratic Movement, Iraqi party, 140 Democratic Patriotic Alliance of Kurds, 191 democratic peace, 109 Democratic Principles Working Group (DPWG), 93, 95, 100, 106, 137 democratic transformation, 63, 211 democratic waves, see waves, democratic; and Catholic democratic wave democratization, 1–4, 7–20, 26–30, 33, 35–7, 41–3, 45–8, 52, 54, 57–9, 62–4, 66–7, 69–84, 86–9, 93–6, 98, 101–2, 106, 109–17, 121–4, 126–34, 137–8, 141, 143–7, 149, 155–6, 164–5, 168, 170–8, 180–4, 185, 188–9, 192, 195–201, 203, 211–2, 214–5, 217–23, 235, 242–3, 251, 253, 257–9, 216–77 passim demonstration effect, 16, 27 de Tocqueville, Alexis, 1fn, 27 deutschmark, 50, 61 Development Fund for Iraq, 143 Diamond, Larry, 75–7, 81 Dickey, Christopher, 266fn, 272 Diefendorf, Jeffrey M., 56fn Diet, Japanese legislature, 51, 61 Dimitrova, Antoaneta L., 28, 29fn, 69 Disarmament, Demobilization, and Reintegration (DDR), 240–1 Dobbins, James, 45, 52, 100, 102, 105, 129 Dodge, Toby, 36fn Dominican Republic, 31 Donini, Antonio, 104fn Doorenspleet, Renske, 2fn, 28–9, 71fn Dostum, General Abdul Rashid, 99fn, 100–2, 131, 135, 153, 156, 159, 191, 199, 210, 226, 234, 253, 266 down-size, argument, 22 Doyle, Michael, 1fn, 109fn Dubose, Lou, 5fn Dunn, John, 1fn, 10, 14, 19, 27 Durand Line, 118, 213 Durani, 103fn East Europe, 54, 71, 98, 116 Egypt, 16, 19, 179, 266

Eichler, Willi, 59fn Elliott, Francis, 89fn ELJ, see Emergency Loya Jirga Elphinstone, Mountstuart, 154fn Elsen, Jon, 269fn Emergency Loya Jirga (ELJ), 125–6, 145–6, 148, 151–9, 174, 181–2, 188 endogenous factors of democratization, 46, 66, 109–12, 116–7, 145, 147, 173–4, 182–4, 219, 222, 249–50, 256–8, 261, 266–7, 270 Enlightenment, English, 10, 32 Entekhabi-Fard, Camelia, 157fn Estonia, 15, 142fn ethnic differences, 23, 69, 75, 90, 101–2, 105, 109, 151–2, 156–7, 159, 162, 171, 175–6, 180–4, 185, 189, 192–3, 195, 204–5, 207–9, 219–20, 222, 225–59 passim, 261–79 passim Etzioni, Amitai, 255fn Euro-Med Partnership (EMP), 26, 28–9, 46 Europe, 13, 21–2, 26, 28–9, 31, 80, 97–8, 116 European Advisory Commission (EAC), 49, 56 European Union (EU), 26, 69–71, 80, 118 Evans, Michael, 89fn Evans, Peter, 78fn Everest, Larry, 117fn Ewing, Humphrey Crum, 71 exilees, 40, 105, 142–3, 170, 175, 185, 211–2, 221, 263 exogenous factors of democratization, 46, 63, 109, 145, 147, 151, 173–4, 182, 216, 218, 249–57 passim, 261–73 passim exogenous threats, 218–22 passim, 257, 262, 266, 270–1 external-imposed conflict, 46, 48 Fahem, General Mohammad, 77fn, 101–2, 136, 157, 159, 206, 266 Fahim, General Muhammad, see Fahem, General Muhammad. failed states, 21, 30fn, 183 Fallujah, Iraq, 163 Far Eastern Commission (FEC), 49, 56 Farrell, Stephen, 136fn Father of the Nation, Afghani term, 152, 158, 190, 204 fatwa, 161 Fawn, Rick, 33fn, 72fn, 107fn

index Fawzi, Ahmed, 100, 127, 129 Fearon, James D., 254, 255fn Febari, Hoshyar, 244 Federal Republic of Germany, see Germany, Federal Republic of. Feinberg, Richard, 3fn Feith, Douglas, 78, 144 Feldman, Noah, 37fn Ferris, Kevin, 268fn Fetzer, James H., 38fn fifth column, 175 Filkins, Dexter, 163fn Fish, M. Steven, 28, 30fn Fischer, Joschka, German Foreign Minister, 127, 129, 131–2 Floto, Jo., 167 Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, 6 Forster, E.M., 18fn four freedoms (also see Franklin D. Roosevelt), 57, 85 Fourteen Points, see Woodrow Wilson. France, 15, 49, 51–2, 54–5, 58, 66, 96–8, 100, 106, 133, 143 Frayer, Lauren, 197fn Free Iraq Force, 107 Friedman, Norman, 33fn Frohn, Axel, 56fn Fromkin, David, 58fn Fukuyama, Francis, 3fn, 21, 31, 69fn, 74, 79, 90 Future of Iraq Project (FIP), 6, 93, 100, 106 Gaddis, John L., 7fn, 88fn, 93fn, 177fn, 216fn Gailani, Sayed Ashfaq, 234 Galbraith, Peter W., 263fn, 264 Garibaldi, 41fn Garner, General Jay, 94, 100, 107–8, 142 Garz, Seth, 3fn, 30, 31 gatekeeper, 175, 209 Geneva Accords, 95, 98–9, 123 George, Marcus, 103fn Georgia, 15, 142fn German Democratic Republic (GDR), 53 Germany, 45–6, 49, 50–67, 97–8, 101, 106, 129, 144, 178, 261, 277 Germany, Federal Republic of (FRG), 15, 31 Germany, Nazi, 45, 51 Germany Plan, 49 Gettleman, Jeffrey, 163fn

299

Ghosh, Bobby, 266fn Gilani, Sayyid Ahmad (or Ahmed), 100, 103, 135 Gilani, Sayyid, Hamed (or Hamid), 100, 103, 135 Goertz, Anne Marie, 47 Goodhand, Jonathan, 252 Gordon, Michael R., 76, 153fn, 255fn Grabbe, Heather, 28, 29fn, 70fn Great Britain, 49–52, 54–6, 58, 66, 93, 96, 100, 106, 174, 180 Great Satan, 75, 118 greater Middle East democracy, 3, 14, 17–8, 28, 30, 59, 216, 276 Greece, 1fn, 15, 30 Greek, 13fn, 174 Green Zone, Baghdad, 265–6, 268, 271, 273 Grenada, 3, 31, 69–70 Greste, Peter, 104fn Griffin, David Ray, 38fn Griffin, Michael, 33fn Grindle, Merilee S., 28, 29fn Gulf states, 168 Gulf War, 85fn, 216, 231, 250 Gutman, Amy, 1fn Hahn, Erich J., 56fn Haidar, Salman, 33fn Haiti, 3, 31, 70 Hamoudi, Human, 245 Hanson, Davis, 33fn Hardy, Roger, 141fn Harkat-i-Islam, Afghani faction, 128 Hayes, Louis D., 58fn Hazaras, 75, 102, 104, 114–6, 123, 127, 135–6, 155, 157, 159, 171, 191, 239 Heffner, Richard D., 1fn Hehir, Aidan, 22fn, 31 Heidorn, Wilhelm, 59fn Hekmatyar, Gulbuddin, 155 Helmand, 254 Herat, 102, 104, 131, 210, 254 Herman, Burt, 239fn Herring, Eric, 28, 29fn Hersh, Seymour, 78fn, 99fn, 106fn, 180fn Hezb-e-Congra-e-Milli Afghanistani party, 191, 234 Hezb-i-Islami Afghanistani party, 191, 234 Hezb-i-Jamiat-i-Islami Afghanistani party, 191, 234

300

index

Hezb-e-Nuhzhat-e-Milli Afghanistani party (or Hizb), 191, 234 Hezbollah, 140, 168 hijack/hijacking/hijacked, 12, 36, 114, 200–1, 207, 215, 258 Hinnebusch, Raymond, 33fn Hippler, Jochen, 21fn, 31 Hiro, Dilip, 85fn Hirohito, Emperor, 54 Hiroshima, 54 Hitler, Adolf, 45 Hizb-i-Islam, 155 Hoagland, Jim, 217fn Hollis, Rosemary, 107 “home-grown solution,” 105, 127 Hoon, Geoffrey, British Defence Secretary, 133 Hopkirk, Peter, 58fn Hoquqmal, Mahboobi, 158 House of Elders, Afghanistan, 192, 225 House of Lancashire, 240 House of the People, Afghanistan, 190, 192, 225 House of York, 240 Howard, Michael, 166fn, 167 Hull, Cordell, 1fn Hungary, 15, 142fn Huntington, Samuel P., 1fn, 14, 19, 27, 36, 217fn Huq, General Ehsanul (Pakistani), 102fn Hurst, Steven R., 272fn Hussain, A. Imtiaz, 3fn, 28, 91fn, 96fn Hussein, Saddam, 3, 74–5, 81, 93–4, 99, 105–9, 111, 113, 118, 123, 149, 172, 179, 258, 262–3 Hybel, Alex Roberto, 32 improvised explosive devices (IEDs), 266 International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD), also see World Bank, 50, 62 IMF, see International Monetary Fund India, 15, 100, 127, 154fn Indonesia, 15, 38, 133 Intergovernmental Council (IGC), 100, 108, 123 Interim Administration, Afghanistan, 98, 125, 134, 145, 152, 155, 157–8, 171, 230 Interim Government (IG), Afghanistan, 42, 108, 125, 186–7, 196, 225, 252 International Advisory Board, Iraq, 141 International Military Tribunals, 60

International Monetary Fund (IMF), 29, 50, 62 International Security and Advisory Force (ISAF), 97–8, 180, 188, 213 Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), Pakistan, 100, 102, 131–2, 153 Iran, 7, 16, 19, 34–5, 38, 75, 100, 102, 104, 106, 110, 112, 115–6, 118, 126–7, 132, 157–60, 162–8, 172, 174, 179, 193, 197, 211, 213, 215, 231fn, 245, 253, 264, 266, 269–70, 272 Iraq, 2–14, 16–26, 28, 30–43, 69, 71, 73–91, 93–101, 105–19, 122–6, 135, 137–49, 151–3, 159–84 passim, 185–23 passim, 225–59 passim, 261–77 passim Iraq Accordance Front (IAF), 187, 191, 226, 230 Iraq Interim Government (IIG), 76 Iraq Islamic Party, 140, 230, 234, 245 Iraq National Dialogue Front/Council (INDF/C), 187, 191, 225, 230, 234 Iraq National List, 191, 226, 234, 236 Iraq Opposition Conference, London, 93 Iraqi Governing Council (IGC), 25, 76, 139–40, 162, 231 Iraq National Accord, Party, 140 Iraq National List, 140, 206, 236, 248 Iraqi Communist Party, 140 Iraqi National Congress (INC), 95, 108, 123, 140, 191 Iraqi National Dialogue, 187, 191 Iraqi Relief and Reconstruction Fund, (U.S.), 143 Irbil, 123, 168, 236 Isikoff, Michael, 33fn Islam (or Islamic), 2, 6fn, 8, 10–1, 13fn, 16, 24–5, 28–30, 35–6, 39, 40–1, 71, 75, 82–3, 88, 95–6, 98fn, 101, 103–4, 106, 110, 113, 117–8, 152, 155, 160–2, 166, 168, 177, 179, 185, 187, 189, 191–2, 196–202, 219–21, 228–9, 230–8 passim, 245, 247, 253–4, 265, 274–6 Islamabad, 129 Islamic community, 35 Islamic countries, 29, 198, 276 Islamic Da’wa Party, Iraq, 191, 238 Islamic Da’wa Party Iraq Organization, 191 Islamic (neo)-fundamentalists, 16, 71, 179 Islamic Jihad, Egyptian, 6fn

index Islamic Party of Afghanistan, 191, 234 Islamic Revolutionary Movement, Afghanistan, 234 Islamic Social Party of Afghanistan, 191, 234 Islamic Virtue Party, Iraq, 191, 237, 245, 247 Islamicists (or Islamists), 16, 228–9 Ismael, Qasimyar, 157 Italy, 15, 41fn, 214fn Ivanov, Igor, Russian Foreign Minister, 129, 131–2 Ivanov, Sergei, Russian Defense Minister, 132 Iversen, Torben, 2fn Jalal, Massouda, 202–3 Jamat-i-Islam, Afghani party, 99, 102, 132 Japan, 3–4, 15, 21, 27, 30–2, 42, 45–6, 48–67, 142fn, 144, 214fn, 261, 277 Jeffery, Simon, 133fn, 136fn Jervis, Robert, 7fn, 83–4 jihadi/jihadists, 10, 19, 76, 110, 116, 143, 151–6, 169, 197–8, 208, 211, 225, 230–1, 237, 253, 257, 261–2, 266, 268, 270 Johnson, Chris, 251–2, 253fn Johnson, Lyndon B., 3fn Joint Chiefs of Staff ( JCS), 49, 213 Joint Improvised Explosives Devices Defeat Organization ( JIEDDO), 266 Jones, Seth G., 52fn Jordan, 110, 112, 116, 133, 163, 211, 253, 266 Joya, Malalai, 202–3 Jumbishi-i-Milli-Islami Afghanistan, 101fn, 234 Kabir, Humayun, 1fn Kabul, 4, 77, 80, 97–8fn, 100, 102–5, 128, 131–5, 137–8, 155–7, 180, 202–3 Kaldor, Mary, 47 Kana, Younaden, 140fn Kandahar, 77, 101, 103fn, 104, 133, 137, 254 Kant, Immanuel, 1, 109 Kaplow, Larry, 266fn, 272 Karan, Rajiv Chandrase, 166fn Karbala, 160, 230 Kargar, Shaher, 136 Karim, Abderrahman Sadik, 140

301

Karimi, Abdur Rahim, 136 Karon, Tony, 161fn, 162fn, 163fn, 169fn, 193fn Karzai, Hamed, 20, 57, 74–5, 77, 79–80, 90, 125, 129, 137–8, 148–9, 151–4, 156–9, 173, 182, 187, 190–2, 196, 199–202, 204, 205–7, 210, 222, 226, 232, 240–59 passim, 271–72 Kasper, Sara, 46fn Kataoka, Tetsuya, 61fn Kaufman, Justin Matthew, 32 Kazakhstan, 15, 142fn Kazem, Halima, 158fn Kazem, Seyyid Mustafa, 136 Keegan, John, 76 Kegley, Jr., Charles W., 37fn Kemp, Dann, 213fn Kemp, Geoffrey, 84 Kennan, George F., 83 Kennedy, John F., 3 kereitsus, 50, 62 KHAD, Afghani secret police, 98fn Khalili, Karim, 131, 159, 206–238 Khalilzad, Zalmay, 5–6, 95–6, 131, 138, 153, 214–5, 231 Khan, Ayub, Pakistan President, 179 Khan, Daooud, 103 Khan, Ismail, Afghani leader, 102, 131, 156, 159, 199, 210, 254, 266 Khan, Mohammad A. Muqtedar, 28, 30fn Khomeini, Ayatullah Ruhollah, 19, 118, 229fn Khost, 254 Kilani, Kanulai, 140 Kingston, Jeff, 62fn Kipling, Rudyard, 58fn Kirkuk, Iraqi oilfield, 99, 246 Kirkpatrick, Jeanne J., 32 Kissinger, Henry, 167 Klare, Michael, 28, 30fn Koenigswinter, 125, 128, 134, 136, 177 Korean War, 62 Kosovo, 70 Krasner, Stephen D., 13fn Kufa, 229 Kurdish Alliance (KA), 226–7, 229, 234, 238 Kurdish Autonomous Region, 246 Kurdish Democratic Party, 139–40, 191, 229, 234 Kurdish Socialist Party, 140 Kurdistan Islamic Union, 140, 229, 237, 245

302

index

Kurds, 17, 20, 32, 75, 81, 91–100, 108, 113–6, 118, 139–41, 143, 163, 165–9, 176, 191–3, 195, 199, 204–6, 210–1, 227–46 passim, 271 Kyrghystan, 15 Labor Day (U.S.), 108 La Palombara, Joseph, 39, 40fn Landry, Jonathan S., 167fn Latif, Wael Abdul, 140 Latin America, 3, 28–9, 71, 80, 116, 122 Latvia, 15, 142fn länder, 50, 61 League of Nations, 116 Lebanon, 16–9, 34, 78, 117, 168 Leslie, Jolyon, 251–2, 253fn Lewis, Bernard, 13fn Libby, Scooter, 5 Libya, 160 Lipset, Seymour, Martin, 21 Lithuania, 15, 142fn Litwak, Robert S., 30fn, 160 Lobe, Jim, 254fn Loya Jirga, see Constitutional Loya Jirga and Emergency Loya Jirga. Luckham, Robin, 45fn, 47 Lustick, Ian, 22, 24, 273 Luther, Martin, 13fn Luti, William, 144 Lynch, Colum, 163fn Lyons, Gene M., 8fn MacArthur, General Douglas, 49, 50, 52, 55, 57, 59 madrasas, 87, 111, 179 MacAskill, Even, 103, 131fn MacFarland, Sean, Colonel, 268, 273 Macintyre, Ben, 154fn Mahaqiq, 226 Mahdi Army, 160–1, 168, 193, 200, 230, 245, 269 Majul, Cesar Adib., 11fn Malaysia, 40, 133 Malone, David M., 33fn Mann, James, 6fn Marji’yya, 162 Marcos, Ferdinand, of Philippines, 179 Marcus, Jonathan, 214fn Marshall Plan, 3, 50, 61 masjid, 11 Mason, Barnaby, 178fn Massoud, Ahmad Shah, 99, 101–2, 131, 206

Massoud, Ahmad Zia, 206, 238 Mastanduno, Michael, 8fn Mazar-i-Sharif, Afghanistan, 102, 131, 156 McCarthy, Rory, 103fn, 131fn McDougall, Walter, 59fn, 85fn McFaul, Michael, 10fn, 14, 28–9 McGarry, John, 33fn, 273fn McGeehan, Robert, 60fn McGinn, John G., 52fn McGivering, Jill, 103fn Medina, 41fn Mediterranean Sea, 34 Mehdi, Adel, 241, 245 Meiji Constitution, 32, 51, 61 Melnyk, George, 96fn Meshrani Jirga, Afghanistan, 190, 192, 225–7 Middle East, 4, 6, 12, 16, 18, 31, 34, 70–1, 85–6, 94, 108, 167, 215, 259, 274, 276 Middle East democracy, greater, 3, 14, 17–8, 28, 30, 216, 276 Middle East Partnership Initiative (MEPI), 70 Mill, John Stuart, 1fn, 27 Miller, Lynn, 13fn, 58fn Mills, Nick B., 103fn Milton-Edwards, Beverly, 111fn, 198fn Mohaqiq, 234 Mojadeddi, Sibghatullah, 190 Moore, Barrington, 47 Moore, Matt, 165fn Moqtada al-Sadr. See al-Sadr, Moqtada. Moqtada Problem, 161–2 Morgenthau, Henry J., 4–9, 53–4 Morocco, 16–19 Mosul, Iraq, 99 Moule, Thomas, 33fn Mousa, Hamid Majid, 140 Muir, Jim, 207fn Mujahedeen government, 102, 132 mujahedeens, Afghanis, 98, 100, 153, 172, 181 Munich syndrome, 32 Musharraf, Pervez, Pakistan President, 212fn, 213 Muslim(s), heartland, 71 Mutual al-Alusi List, 236 Mylroie, Laurie, 86fn Nagasaki, 54 Nagel, Stuart, 1fn Najaf, 140, 160–2, 168, 230, 234

index Najibullah, General Muhammad, 98 narco-trafficking, 63, 249–57 passim Nasirriyah, 107, 123, 141 Nasr, Vali, 11fn National Congress Party of Afghanistan, 191 National Democratic Party, in Iraq, 140, 234 National Endowment for Democracy (NED), 48, 70 National Islamic Front of Afghanistan (NIFA), 103 National Islamic Movement of Afghanistan (Dostum’s party), 191, 234 National Movement of Afghanistan, 191 National Islamic Unity for the Liberation of Afghanistan (see National Alliance), 101fn National Security Strategy, U.S., 84 National Security Advisor, U.S., 6 National Security Council, U.S., 84, 131, 239 National Solidarity Movement, Afghanistan, 234 National Unity Party, Afghanistan, 234, 236 nation-building, 21, 30–2, 37, 40, 91, 99, 178, 180 nation-state argument, 58, 112, 222, 276 Nayebzaba, Zahir, 210 Nazis, 53–4, 60 negotiations, stages, of, 97, 100, 102, 109, 125, 128, 135, 139, 146, 153, 173–4, 177, 261–6 Nejrabi, Ghulam Farooq, 234 neoconservatives, 78, 106, 119, 162, 214, 263 neofundamentalism, 111, 145, 160 neoliberalism, 3fn, 46 Nessman, Ravi, 231fn Newberg, Paula R., 37fn Newman, David, 22fn New World Order, 216 Nicaragua, 3, 31, 38, 142fn Niland, Norah, 104fn Noelle-Karimi, Christine, 101fn, 134fn, 158fn, 252fn no-fly-zones (NFZs), 17, 32, 91, 99, 143, 168, 176, 181, 229 non-governmental organizations (NGOs), 16, 20, 48, 56, 97, 249–51 Noorzai, Abdul Khaliq, 95 North Africa, 5, 16, 29, 31 North, Andrew, 232, 252

303

North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), 97–8, 98fn, 180, 187–8, 213–5, 227, 233, 259 Northern Alliance, in Afghanistan, 97, 101–2, 123, 126, 129–31, 140, 148, 153, 159, 196, 271, 273, 277 NSC, see National Security Council Nuremberg Trials, 60 Obeidi, Quadir, 248fn Office for Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance (ORHA), 95, 98, 100, 107, 142 Office of the Military Government, United States (OMGUS), 50, 56, 58 Office of Transition Initiative (OTI), in U.S.AID, 76 O’Hanlon, Michael E., 167 Okinawa, 50, 60 O’Leary, Brendan, 22, 24, 33fn, 273fn Omar, Mullah Muhammad, 77, 104–5, 133, 137, 159, 200 Omar, Rashad Mandan, 140 One percent doctrine, 5 one-size-fits-all (democracy) argument, 121, 147 Operation Desert Fox, 143fn Operation Desert Storm, 7, 32, 81, 94, 99, 143, 179, 216, 263 Operation Enduring Freedom, 99 Operation Fard al-Qanoon, 266 Operation Northern Watch, 143fn Operation Provide Comfort, 143fn Operation Southern Watch, 143fn Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), 50 Organization for European Economic Development (OEEC), 50 Organization of Islamic Countries, 132 Orlow, Dietrich, 61fn Orr, Robert C., 108fn, 113–4 Ortega, José Daniel, 38 Osman, Hiwa, 166fn Othman, Mahmoud, 140 O’Toole, Pam, 103fn Paasi, Anssi, 22fn Pace, Peter, U.S. General, 213 Pachachi, Adnan, 139–40 Pacific Ocean, 59 Pakistan, 15, 34–5, 38, 100, 102–4, 110–2, 116, 118, 126–7, 131–2, 135, 137, 155, 157, 172, 174, 178–9, 197, 211–3, 232fn, 253–4, 264

304

index

Paktika, 254 Palestine, 5, 16–7, 19, 216 Panama, 3, 31, 69 Pandora Box, 118 Panjshiristan, 134 Panjshiri Trio/Troika, 77fn, 131–2, 137, 159, 254 Parlicka, Soraya, 202–3 Parthow, Joshua, 230fn Pashtuns, 35, 74–5, 77–8, 91, 101–4, 113–6, 118, 123, 125, 127–30, 134, 136–8, 143, 148, 152–7, 159, 170–2, 176, 178, 182, 195–6, 204–5, 226–7, 271–2 Pashtun-Tadjik cleavage, 225, 236, 271 Patriotic Union of the Kurds (PUK), 140, 229, 234 Peeler, John, 28, 29fn Pei, Minxin, 3fn, 30–1 Pentagon, 5fn, 86fn, 94, 107, 216, 266 Pearl Harbor, 49, 51–2, 178 Pelletière, Stephen C., 177fn Perle, Richard, 78, 86fn Persian Gulf, 34, 71 Persians, 113 Peru, 15 Peshawar Group, Afghanistan, 95, 100, 103–4, 130, 135–6 Pesh Merga, Kurd, 166, 168, 199, 242 Petersberg, 125, 132, 137 Peterson, Steven A., 37fn, 178fn Philippines, the, 15, 38, 142fn, 179 Pinochet, Augusto, 38 Phillips, David L., 6fn Philpot, Daniel, 13fn Pilgrim Fathers, U.S., 83 Piscatori, James P., 11fn Plett, Barbara, 167, 169, 212fn PNAC, see Project for the New American Century Pohli, Michael, 101fn Poland, 15, 32, 142fn, 214fn Policy Planning (US agency), director of, 5 Polish, 46 Political Development Project, 27, 39 politics of inclusion, 47 Popolzai, Afghani tribe, 77, 103 Portugal, 15 Portuguese, 174 post-negotiations, stage of, 42, 73, 125, 262, 266 Potsdam, 49 Potsdam Conference, 49, 52–3, 63

Prave, Diethelm, 61fn pre-negotiations, stage of, 42, 72–3, 100, 102, 109, 262–3 pre-pre-negotiations, stage of, 42, 73, 262 Pridham, Geoffrey, 28, 29fn, 70fn Program Review Board, 143 Project for the New American Century (PNAC), 5, 7 Prophet Muhammad, 11fn, 41fn Protestant work ethic, 40 Putnam, Robert, 43fn Pye, Lucian, 39, 40fn Qadar, Haji Abdul, 128, 159 Qala-e-Jhangi Fort, Afghanistan, 102 Qanooni, Younus, 77fn, 100–1, 132, 136, 157, 159, 190–2, 196, 226, 236 qaums, 209 Quetta, 77, 104 quid pro quo, as policy option, 9, 17, 24–5, 29, 104, 121, 129, 137, 198, 200–1, 222, 238–9 Rabbani, Burhanuddin, 77, 99, 100, 102, 106, 128–32, 138, 147–8, 153, 155, 177, 196, 199, 200 Rahel, Ansar, 232fn Rahim, Mohammad Tufiq, 140 Rahim, Abdel Amir Abdur, 234 RAND (think-tank), 5 Rajghata, Chidapand, 104fn Rashid, Ahmed, 4fn, 37fn, 99, 103fn, 152fn, 206fn Rathwell, Andrew, 97fn, 98fn Rayment, S., 255fn Raymond, Gregory A., 37fn Reagan, Ronald, 84 refugees, 20, 26, 63, 100, 102, 106, 175, 187, 203, 211–3, 249, 253, 257, 260 regime-change, 49, 52, 59, 67, 84, 106, 109, 112, 137, 172, 175, 177, 200 regional power balances, 9, 75, 212 Rehman, Abdul, 136 reichsmark, 50 Reimer, Matthew, 176fn religion-politics mix, 8, 10, 35, 185, 189, 198–9, 220–1, 274, 276 Renan, Ernst, 154 Renaissance, Muslim, 13fn Renaissance, western, 13fn Research Triangle International (RTI), 76 Revolutionary Guards, Iraq, 91, 108

index Rice, Condoleezza, 7fn, 86 Richards, General David, 213 Richardson, Michael, 133fn Ricks, Thomas E., 84fn right-sizing, argument, 22, 24 Riker, William H., 200–4 Ritchie, Nick, 85fn, 86fn, 144fn Robinson, Neill, 22fn, 31 Rogers, Paul, 33fn, 85fn, 86fn, 144fn rogue states, 5, 7, 21, 28, 30fn, 86 Romania, 15, 142fn Rome Group, Afghanistan, 77, 95, 100, 103, 126, 129–130, 136–7, 148 Roosevelt, Franklin D., President, 51–2, 56 Rosenthal, Edwin I.J., 13fn Rossteutscher, Sigrid, 2fn Rostow, Walt Whitman, 3 Rotberg, Robert I., 37fn Rowsell, Ben, 33fn Roxburgh, Angus, 102 Roy, Olivier, 228 Rubicon, crossing the, 35, 277 Rubin, Barnett, 252 Rubin, Trudy, 269fn, 272fn Rudd, Kevin, Australian Prime Minister, 89 Rumsfeld, Donald, U.S. Defense Secretary, 78, 98–9 Rupieper, Hermann, 56fn Rupp, Richard E., 98fn, 188fn Russia, 71, 75, 100, 104, 106, 127, 129, 132 Rustow, Dankwart A., 27, 40fn Salmi, Ralph H., 11fn Saddam Hussein (see Hussein, Saddam) Sadeq, Mir Wais, 159 Sadr City, 161, 229–30 Sadrist Movement (SM), 191, 193, 230, 238, 245, 265, 269 Sadrists, 193, 199, 268–9 Salim, Ezzedine, 140, 232fn, 252fn, 253 Salahuddin Principles, 246, 247fn Samar, Sima, 136, 159 Sanford, Geroge, 28, 29fn, 70fn Sarabi, Raihalla, 159 Saran, Mary, 59fn Sarkozy, Nicolas, French President, 89 Sattar, Abdul, 95, 103, 126, 129, 136, 211 Sa’udi or Saudi Arabia, 16, 19, 35, 110, 168, 179, 366 Sayed, 157

305

Sayyaf, Abdul Rayyaf, 155 Schacht, Joseph, 11fn Schelter, Conrad, 252fn Schlagintweit, Reinhard, 101fn, 134fn, 252fn Schroeder, Gerard, German Chancellor, 133 Schultz, George P., 167 Schulze, Hagen, 21fn, 31 Schumpeter, Joseph A., 27 Schweid, Barry, 163 SCIRI, see Supreme Council for Islamic Republic in Iraq Scott, Peter Dale, 33fn Scowcroft, Brent, 6 Seddiqui, Suhaila, 136 Serbia, 15 Shadid, Anthony, 164fn Shah of Iran, 38, 179 Sharī a, 110–1, 161–2 Shahrani, Iraqi Vice President, 191 Shalan, Hazem, 193 Shi’a(s)/Shi’ites, 57, 100–1, 108, 110–2, 114–6, 118, 136, 139–41, 143, 159–63, 165–73, 176, 179–81, 191–7, 199, 201, 203–6, 209–11, 217, 237–8, 242, 245–6, 255, 259 Shibli, Hisham Abderrahman, 140 Shi’ite Arc, 168 Shinto Japan, 67 “shock and awe,” 100, 107 Shulski, Abraham, 144 Shura-i-Nazar, Afghani party, 99fn, 102, 137, 154 Siddiq, Suhelia, 159 Simon, Reeva Spector, 58fn, 266fn sine qua non, as policy option, 9, 24–5, 121, 200–1, 222, 229, 239, 256–8, 262 Singh, Robert, 7fn Sirat, Abdul Sattar, 95, 103, 129, 136–7 Sistani, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-, 25, 161–5, 171, 181, 193, 199–200, 243, 245, 259, 263–5, 269 Sistani Factor, 23, 161 Skelley, Esther M., 29fn Slavin, Barbara, 253fn Slovakia, 15 Slovenia, 15, 142fn Smith, Adam, 40 Smith, Graham, 21fn, 31 Smith, M. Campbell, 1fn Smith, Peter H., 29fn Snell, John L., 52fn

306

index

Social Democrat Party (SDP), German, 61 Social Science Research Council, 27 Solarz, Stephen J., 167 Solidarity, Polish, 46 Somit, Albert, 31, 37fn, 178fn Soviet communism, 17, 38, 54–5, 62–3 Soviet Union, 17, 49, 51, 53–5, 66, 98, 102, 104, 106, 116, 152, 274, 276 Soviet Union, successor states, 29, 71, 80 Spain, 13fn, 15, 142fn, 214fn Spanish, 174 Special Independent Commission (SIC), in Afghanistan, 157 Specht, Minna, 59fn Sphere of influence, 176 Stalin, Joseph, 52, 54 state, 5, 7–9, 14, 20–1, 25, 29, 32, 101, 103, 109–13, 115–7, 147–8, 162–84 passim, 183–223 passim, 228–59 passim, 264–8 passim, 273, 276–7 state-building, 2, 3, 7, 13, 19, 20–1, 30–2, 40, 45, 79, 90–1, 109, 113, 115, 181 state-nation argument, 112–3, 276 State, War and Navy Coordination Committee (SWNCC), 50 Stein, Janice Gross, 42fn Stern, Jessica, 87fn, 179fn Stone, Barry, 21fn Straw, Jack, British Foreign Secretary, 132, 248 Stroebel, Warren P., 167fn Sudan, 6fn, 15 Sudetenland, 125fn Sullagh, Bayan Baquer, 140 Sunni(s), 11, 20, 25, 35, 57, 75, 77–8, 82, 87–8, 100–1, 108, 110–6, 118, 138–40, 143, 163, 167–9, 171, 173, 179, 181, 192–3, 195, 197, 199, 205–6, 210–1, 217, 225–46 passim, 266–9 Sunni-Shi’a schism, 75, 173, 225, 274, 276 Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers (SCAP), 50, 52, 54, 56, 58 Supreme Council for Islamic Republic in Iraq (SCIRI), 191–3, 230, 234, 238, 245–6, 269 Suriname, 15 Suskind, Ron, 5, 6fn Syria, 16, 19, 34, 110, 112, 115–6, 118, 168, 172, 211, 253

Sykes-Picot Treaty, 58 Synovitz, Ron, 241fn Tadjiks, 75, 91, 100, 102–3, 113–6, 118, 123, 125, 127, 131, 134–7, 152–9 passim, 171–6 passim, 192, 195–6, 201, 205, 208, 226–7, 234, 239, 242, 271–2 Tadjik Trio, 77fn, 100, 102, 136, 153, 159 Tadjikstan, 115, 116 Taiwan, 15 Talabani, Jalal, 140, 236, 238, 243–5, 247 talebs, 87, 178–9, 213 Taleban(s), 4, 9, 17, 25, 38, 57, 73–5, 77, 79–81, 87–8, 93, 97, 99, 101–4, 111, 126, 128, 131–5, 137–8, 143, 146, 154–5, 164, 167, 171, 175, 178–9, 181, 195–8, 200, 205, 211–3, 216, 225, 235, 241, 251–2, 254, 262, 266, 270 Talentino, Andrea Kathryn, 72 Tanham, George K., 11fn Tawafuq, Iraqi bloc, 272 Tayfour, Aref, 226 Taylor, A.J.P., 58 Tejirian, Eleanor H., 58fn Tenet, George, 6 terrorism, 5, 25, 70, 83, 86–7, 89, 96, 133, 167, 171, 216, 218, 253, 259 Thailand, 38, 42fn Thier, J. Alexander, 104fn, 137fn Thirty Years War, 13 Tikrit, 100, 107 Tojo, 50, 60 Tokyo War Crimes Trial, 50, 60 Tomlin, Brian, 41, 42fn top-down democracy, 19–20, 47–8, 57–9, 89–90, 117, 137 Tora Bora, 154 totalitarian systems, 38, 55, 60, 178, 198, 264, 274–5 Trainor, Bernard E., 76fn, 153fn Transitional Administration (TA), Afghanistan, 151, 157–8 Transitional Administrative Law (TAL), Iraq, 76, 141, 144, 146, 151 Transitional Government (TG), Afghanistan, 125, 128, 130, 146, 186, 236, 244 Transitional National Assembly (TNA), Iraq, 76 tribes (and tribal networks/rivalries), 77, 81, 90, 103

index Truman, Harry S., President, 56 Tuathail, Gearóid Ó., 22fn Tunisia, 16, 19 Turkey, 27, 35, 40, 115–6, 118, 127, 133, 142, 172, 241, 245 Turki, Abdel Basset, 140 Turkmenistan, 15, 127 Turkoman(s), 127, 139, 140, 159, 171, 239 Turks (in Iraq), 140, 238 Ul-Jazairi, Mufid Mohammad Jawad, ummah, 41, 140, 228fn United Iraqi Alliance (UIA), 226 United Nations, 10, 17, 62, 82, 94, 96–8, 101, 104–6, 123, 129, 131, 133, 136, 142, 144, 163–5, 171–2, 174, 177–8, 188, 222, 250–1, 259, 264, 271 United Nations Development Program (UNDP), 70 United National Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Agency (UNRRA), 50, 62 United States, 2–3, 12–3, 17–9, 25–6, 29, 32–3, 35, 38–9, 46, 48, 50–7, 59, 60, 62–4, 66–7, 69–75, 77–9, 81–6, 88–9, 122–3, 126–7, 129, 131, 133, 135, 137–8, 142–3, 153–83 passim, 185, 188–95 passim, 206, 211–22 passim, 229, 233, 248, 250, 255, 259, 264, 268–70, 275–7 U.N., see United Nations U.N. Resolution 1441, 93, 96, 98–100, 105 U.N. Resolution 1483, 141 U.N. Resolution 1500, 100 U.N. Security Council, 95, 100, 108, 124 Upholders of Message party, up-size argument, 22 Uruguay, 15 U.S., see United States U.S. Agency for International Development (U.S. AID), 70, 76 U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, 141 Uzbekis, 75, 100, 102, 114–6, 123, 127, 135–6, 142, 155, 159, 171, 226 Uzbekistan, 15, 116, 127, 142 VE Day, 49, 55 Vendrell, Francesco, 100, 105 Venezuela, 15fn

307

Verba, Sidney, 1fn, 28, 39, 40 Versailles, Treaty of, 55 Veterans of Foreign War Association, convention, 93, 96, 106 Vietnam, 88–9 Vietnam, South, 3, 31 Vilnius, 10, 98 von Vorys, Karl, 217fn Vulcans, 6–7 Wahdat Islamic Unity Party, Afghanistan, 191 Wahhabi, 155, 179 Waldner, David, 22fn, 31 Walesa, Lech, 46 Waltz, Kenneth N., 84 Ward, Robert E., 27, 40fn Wardak, Taj Mohammad Khan, 159 warlords, 17, 20, 102, 116, 131, 135, 139, 142, 146, 153, 156, 159, 174–5, 189, 196, 199–203 passim, 209–10, 239–41, 253, 271 War of the Roses, 240 Waterloo, 35, 89, 189, 219–20, 229, 277 wave, democratic (argument) first, second, third, fourth, fifth, reverse, 1, 27–9, 69, 71, 112, 115–6, 216, 274–7 Waxman, Henry, 141 weapons of mass destruction (WMD), 8fn, 32, 45, 74, 93, 105–6, 144, 160, 216 Weber, Max, 21, 40 Weimar Republic, 37 Weinberger, Caspar, 99 Weinert, Matthew S., 19fn Weiner, Myron, 1fn, 28, 39, 40fn Weinstein, Michael A., 80fn, 209 Weisman, Steven R., 232fn Wermester, Karin, 104fn Westphalia, 8fn, 13, 67 White House, 5, 142, 216–7 Wiarda, Howard J., 28 Wilson, III, Major Isaiah, 84 Wilson, Woodrow, 1fn, 12, 55, 63, 70, 116, 172, 215 Winham, Gilbert R., 73fn Wisai, Joya din, 203 Wisai, Noorya, 202–3 WMD, see weapons of mass destruction Wolesi Jirga, Afghanistan, 190, 192, 225–7 Wolfowitz, Paul, 5, 6fn, 32, 78, 86fn, 216 Woltow, Paul, 144

308

index

women, 4, 136, 145, 155, 158–9, 166, 170, 172–4, 179, 185, 187, 189, 194, 196, 199, 201–4, 220, 222, 227–8, 253 Woolridge, Mike, 125fn World Bank, 29, 82 World War I, 37 World War II, 3, 21, 26, 30, 32, 39, 144, 172, 178, 264 Wright, Robin, 84fn, 217fn Wurmser, David, 144 Yale University, 5 Yalta Declaration for Liberated Europe, 52 Yamaguchi, Tsuyoski Michael, 62fn Yazidi Movement for Reform and Progress, 236

Yoshida, Shigeru, Japanese Prime Minister, 61 Youngs, Richard, 20, 47, 70fn, 83fn Yugoslovakia, 15 Zabul, 254 Zaher, Mostapha, 100 Zahir Shah, Muhammad, King, 75, 77, 103, 153 Zahra, Qasim Abdul, 192fn Zai, Ahmed Shah Ahmad, 234 zaibatsus, 50, 62, 64 Zakaria, Fareed, 161fn Zarqawi, Abu Musab al-, 6fn, 163, 268 Zartman, I. William, 17fn Zebari, Hoshyar, 139–40 zones, 143, 165, 175 Zunes, Stephen, 72, 88fn

INTERNATIONAL STUDIES IN SOCIOLOGY AND SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGY 21. FUSÉ, T. (ed.). Modernization and Stress in Japan. 1975. ISBN 90 04 04344 6 22. SMITH, B.L. (ed.). Religion and Social Conflict in South Asia. 1976. ISBN 90 04 04510 4 23. MAZRUI, A.A. (ed.). The Warrior Tradition in Modern Africa. 1977. ISBN 90 04 05646 7 25. SMITH, B.L. (ed.). Religion and the Legitimation of Power in South Asia. 1978. ISBN 90 04 05674 2 31. LELE, J. (ed.). Tradition and Modernity in Bhakti Movements. 1981. ISBN 90 04 06370 6 32. ARMER, J.M. Comparative Sociological Research in the 1960s and 1970s. 1982. ISBN 90 04 06487 7 33. GALATY, J.G. & P.C. SALZMAN (eds.). Change and Development in Nomadic and Pastor-al Societies. 1981. ISBN 90 04 06587 3 34. LUPRI, E. (ed.). The Changing Position of Women in Family and Society. A CrossNational Comparison. 1983. ISBN 90 04 06845 7 35. IVERSON, N. (ed.). Urbanism and Urbanization. Views, Aspects and Dimensions. 1984. ISBN 90 04 06920 8 36. MALIK, Y.K. Politics, Technology, and Bureaucracy in South Asia. 1983. ISBN 90 04 07027 3 37. LENSKI, G. (ed.). Current Issues and Research in Macrosociology. 1984. ISBN 90 04 07052 4 39. TIRYAKIAN, E.A. (ed.). The Global Crisis. Sociological Analyses and Responses. 1984. ISBN 90 04 07284 5 40. LAWRENCE, B. (ed.). Ibn Khaldun and Islamic Ideology. 1984. ISBN 90 04 07567 4 41. HAJJAR, S.G. (ed.). The Middle East: from Transition to Development. 1985. ISBN 90 04 07694 8 43. CARMAN, J.B. & F.A. MARGLIN (eds.). Purity and Auspiciousness in Indian Society. 1985. ISBN 90 04 07789 8 46. SMITH, B.L. & H.B. REYNOLDS (eds.). The City as a Sacred Center. Essays on Six Asian Contexts. 1987. ISBN 90 04 08471 1 47. MALIK, Y.K. & D.K. VAJPEYI (eds.). India. The Years of Indira Ghandi. 1988. ISBN 90 04 08681 1 48. CLARK, C. & J. LEMCO (eds.). State and Development. 1988. ISBN 90 04 08833 4 49. GUTKIND, P.C.W. (ed.). Third World Workers. Comparative International Labour Studies. 1988. ISBN 90 04 08788 5 50. SELIGMAN, A.B. Order and Transcendence. The Role of Utopias and the Dynamics of Civi-lization. 1989. ISBN 90 04 08975 6 51. JABBRA, J.G. Bureaucracy and Development in the Arab World. 1989. ISBN 90 04 09194 7

52. KAUTSKY, J.H. (ed.). Karl Kautsky and the Social Science of Classical Marxism. 1989. ISBN 90 04 09193 9 53. KAPUR, A. (ed.). The Diplomatic Ideas and Practices of Asian States. 1990. ISBN 90 04 09289 7 54. KIM, Q.-Y. (ed.). Revolutions in the Third World. 1991. ISBN 90 04 09355 9 55. KENNEDY, C.H. & D. J. LOUSCHER (eds.). Civil Military Interaction in Asia and Afri-ca. 1991. ISBN 90 04 09359 1 56. RAGIN, C.C. (ed.). Issues and Alternatives in Comparative Social Research. 1991. ISBN 90 04 09360 5 57. CHOUDHRY, N.K. (ed.). Canada and South Asian Development. Trade and Aid. 1991. ISBN 90 04 09416 4 58. RAZIA AKTER BANU, U.A.B. (ed.). Islam in Bangladesh. 1992. ISBN 90 04 09497 0 61. AHMAD, A. (ed.). Science and Technology Policy for Economic Development in Africa. 1993. ISBN 90 04 09659 0 62. VAJPEYI, D.K. (ed.). Modernizing China. 1994. ISBN 90 04 10046 6 63. BRADSHAW, Y.W. (ed.). Education in Comparative Perspective. New Lessons from around the World. 1997. ISBN 90 04 10734 7 64. UDOGU, E.I. (ed.). Democracy and Democratization in Africa. Toward the 21st Century. 1997. ISBN 90 04 10733 9 65. BEHAR, J.E. & A.G. CUZÁN (eds.). At the Crossroads of Development. Transnational Challenges to Developed and Developing Societies. 1997. ISBN 90 04 10732 0 66. LAUDERDALE, P. & R. AMSTER (eds.). Lives in the Balance. Perspectives on Global Injustice and Inequality. 1997. ISBN 90 04 10875 0 67. LOVEJOY, P.E. & P.A.T. WILLIAMS (eds.). Displacement and the Politics of Violence in Nigeria. 1997. ISBN 90 04 10876 9 68. JABBRA, J.G. & N.W. JABBRA (eds.). Challenging Environmental Issues. Middle Eastern Perspectives. 1997. ISBN 90 04 10877 7 69. SASAKI, M. (ed.). Values and Attitudes Across Nations and Time. 1998. ISBN 90 04 11219 7 70. SPERLING, J., Y. MALIK & D. LOUSCHER (eds.). Zones of Amity, Zones of Enmity. The Prospects for Economic and Military Security in Asia. 1998. ISBN 90 04 11218 9 71. NANDI, P.K. & S.M. SHAHIDULLAH (eds.). Globalization and the Evolving World Society. 1998. ISBN 90 04 11247 2 72. ARTS, W. & L. HALMAN (eds.). New Directions in Quantitative Comparative Sociology. 1999. ISBN 90 04 11411 4 73. ISHWARAN, K. (ed.). Ascetic Culture: Renunciation and Worldly Engagement. 1999. ISBN 90 04 11412 2 74. PATTERSON, R. (ed.). Science and Technology in Southern Africa and East and South Asia, 1999. ISBN 90 04 11413 0 75. ARTS, W. (ed.). Through a Glass, Darkly. Blurred images of cultural tradition and modernity over distance and time. 2000. ISBN 90 04 11597 8 76. GERRITSEN, J.W. The Control of Fuddle and Flash, A Sociological History of the Regulation of Alcohol and Opiates. 2000. ISBN 90 04 11640 0 77. LEE, W.C. (ed.). Taiwan in Perspective. 2000. ISBN 90 04 11849 7

78. LUMUMBA-KASONGO, T. (ed.). Dynamics and Policy Implications of the Global Reforms at the End of the Second Millennium. 2000. ISBN 90 04 11847 0 79. HARRIS, R. & M. SEID (eds.). Critical Perspectives on Globalization and Neoliberalism in the Developing Countries. 2000. ISBN 90 04 11850 0 80. HOWARD, G.J. & G. NEWMAN (eds.), Varieties of Comparative Criminology. 2001. ISBN 90 04 12245 1 81. NDEGWA, S.N. (ed.), A Decade of Democracy in Africa. 2001. ISBN 90 04 12244 3 82. JREISAT, J.E. (ed.), Governance and Developing Countries. 2002. ISBN 90 04 12247 8 83. KEITA, M. (ed.), Conceptualizing/Re-Conceptualizing Africa. The construction of African Historical Identity. 2002. ISBN 90 04 12420 9 84. BERG, R. VAN DEN, Nyoongar People of Australia. Perspectives on Racism and Multiculturalism. 2002. ISBN 90 04 12478 0 85. DOGAN, M. (ed.), Elite Configurations at the Apex of Power. 2003. ISBN 90 04 12808 5 86. SENGERS, G., Women and Demons. Cult Healing in Islamic Egypt. 2003. ISBN 90 04 12771 2 87. WILSON, H.T. The Vocation of Reason. Studies in Critical Theory and Social Science in the Age of Max Weber. Edited and with a Foreword by T.M. Kemple. 2003. ISBN 90 04 13631 2 88. ZEGEYE, A. and R.L. HARRIS, Media, Identity and the Public Sphere in PostApartheid South Africa. 2003. ISBN 90 04 12633 3 89. INGLEHART, R. (ed.), Human Values and Social Change. Findings from the Values Surveys. 2003. ISBN 90 04 12810 7 90. BEN-RAFAEL, E. (ed.), Sociology and Ideology. 2003. ISBN 90 04 13104 3 91. AL-HAJ, M., Immigration and Ethnic Formation in a Deeply Divided Society. The Case of the 1990s Immigrants from the Former Soviet Union in Israel. 2004. ISBN 90 04 13625 8 92. AMINEH, M., Central Eurasia in World Politics. Conflict, Security, and Development. 2004. ISBN 90 04 12809 3 93. VINKEN, H., J. SOETERS & P. ESTER (eds.), Comparing Cultures. Dimensions of Culture in a Comparative Perspective. 2004. ISBN 90 04 13115 9 94. ASSIÉ-LUMUMBA, N.T., Cyberspace, Distance Learning, and Higher Education in Develo-ping Countries. Old and Emergent Issues of Access, Pedagogy, and Knowledge Production. 2004. ISBN 90 04 13121 3 95. HARRIS, R.L. and M. Seid, Globalization and Health. 2004. ISBN 90 04 14145 6 96. DOGAN, M. (ed.), Political Mistrust and the Discrediting of Politicians. 2005. ISBN 90 04 14530 3 97. MÉRIOT, S.-A., Nostalgic Cooks. Another French Paradox. 2006. ISBN 90 04 14346 7 99. EISENSTADT, S.N., The Great Revolutions and the Civilizations of Modernity. 2006. ISBN 90 04 14812 4 100. NIEUWENHUYS, E. (ed.), Neo-Liberal Globalism and Social Sustainable Globalisation. 2006. ISBN 90 04 15159 1 101. SCHRYER, F., Farming in a Global Economy. A Case Study of Dutch Immigrant Farmers in Canada. 2006. ISBN 90 04 15170 2

102. SHLAPENTOKH, D. (ed.), Russia between East and West. Scholarly Debates on Eurasianism. 2006. ISBN 90 04 15415 9 103. DAY, R.B. & J. MASCIULLI (eds.), Globalization and Political Ethics. 2006. ISBN 90 04 15581 3 104. ESMER, Y. & T. PETTERSSON (eds.), Measuring and Mapping Cultures. 25 Years of Comparative Value Surveys. 2007. ISBN 978 90 04 15820 7 105. PATTERSON, R. (ed.), African Brain Circulation. Beyond the Drain-Gain Debate. 2007. ISBN 978 90 04 15885 6 106. AMINEH, M.P. (ed.), The Greater Middle East in Global Politics. Social Science Perspec tives on the Changing Geography of the World Politics. 2007. ISBN-13: 978 90 04 15859 7, ISBN-10: 90 04 15859 6 107. SASAKI, M. (ed.), Elites: New Comparative Perspectives. 2007. ISBN 978 90 04 16402 4 108. RIETJENS, S.J.H. Civil-Military Cooperation in Response to a Complex Emergency. Just Another Drill? 2008. ISBN 978 90 04 16327 0 109. SASAKI, M. (ed.), New Frontiers in Comparative Sociology. 2009. ISBN 978 90 04 17034 6 110. SCIULLI, D., Professions in Civil Society and the State. Invariant Foundations and Consequences. 2009. ISBN 978 90 04 17831 1 111. BEST, H. & J. HIGLEY (eds.), Democratic Elitism. New Theoretical and Comparative Perspectives. 2010. ISBN 978 90 04 17939 4 112. BORA, A. & H. HAUSENDORF (eds.), Democratic Transgressions of Law. Governing Technology through Public Participation. 2010. ISBN 978 90 04 18043 7 113. HUSSAIN, I., Afghanistan, Iraq and Post-conflict Governance. Damoclean Democracy? 2010. ISBN 978 90 04 18033 8 114. NIEWÖHNER, J. & T. SCHEFFER (eds.), Thick Comparison. Reviving the Ethnographic Aspiration. 2010. ISBN 978 90 04 18113 7