Both US President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair urgently need a plausible exit strategy from Iraq. That they want to get out, now that their reasons for the war have so dramatically collapsed and domestic support is fading, is beyond doubt. But neither wants to leave in ignominy, with their last man dramatically lifted of an embassy rooftop by helicopter.
Both Bush and Blair want to leave Iraq, if not with a victory, then at least with some sense of "mission accomplished." Judging from their recent statements, the scenario that they are concocting is simple. In January, there will be elections in Iraq. The resulting government will then ask the occupation troops to leave, say, within a year. Withdrawal will begin next spring.
While that scenario is simple, reality is not. The first nagging question is this: will there actually be elections next January? Prime Minister Iyad Allawi assures the world that there will be, and Bush echoes his words. More neutral observers -- and indeed, the daily news bulletins about bombings and hostage taking and "insurgents" -- cast doubt on that prospect.
The probability of Iraqi elections being held this coming January must be lower than 50 percent, and we can be certain that these will not be free and fair elections throughout the entire country. Indeed, Iraq no longer deserves to be described as a united country. It has now joined the growing list of the world's failed states and can at best be described as a potential federation of three states plus the unruly city of Baghdad.
Without elections, the coalition is in trouble. What other exit strategy can it devise? Above all, however, Iraq is in trouble. What other way forward is there for that unhappy former country? The answer need not be all despair. It may be that rethinking strategy in the light of new facts will open a way forward.
After all, it might be the case that national elections in a place groping for a democratic future are not the best first step on the road to a liberal order. This is notably the case where entrenched groups -- Kurds, Shiites, Sunnis -- compete for central power. Elections, in such a case, may not even be wise at all -- indeed, they may prove to be counterproductive.
History suggests that elections do not create democracies. They confirm that the conditions for a democratic order are present. Thus, they are not the first step in the process of democratization, but the last step in a preparatory phase in which at least two conditions have been created.
The first condition is a settled territorial arrangement. In "tribal" societies, this is not easy to bring about. Bosnia's experience reveals why this is so. However much one may favor multiethnic nation-states, once such a construction has failed, it is imperative to listen to popular sentiment. Viable units will emerge that are less than ideal but at least capable of creating legitimate government -- meaning a government that is both effective and acceptable. It would be disastrous to destroy the emergent Iraqi-Kurdish entity in the name of an abstract and no-longer existent greater Iraq.
Anyone who experienced occupied Germany after World War II, as I did, remembers that the first postwar elections held there were local and regional. In fact, they established what are now the Lander (states) of the Federal Republic of Germany.
The second condition that must be satisfied before elections can be credible is security. Initially, this may be an issue for the military. But peace and quiet based on tanks and the threat of air strikes cannot be enough. Security requires not just troops, but laws and their enforcement.
What one might call "the liberal order" requires at least two institutional ingredients. One is democracy, including elections and governments held to account by parliaments and ultimately the people. The other is the rule of law.
Lord Ashdown, the High Representative of a coalition of countries in Bosnia-Herzegovina, has set a good example of how the rule of law can be established. It requires persons of great courage to become judges, and strong authorities to enforce their judgments. But it can be done. In a Muslim country, such a strategy would, moreover, provide protection against hijacking of the law by religious fanatics. It would establish what might be called the "Turkish solution." Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has taken up this very challenge, first set by his great predecessor Kemal Ataturk nearly a century ago. Perhaps what Iraq needs most is not a ballot box, but an Ataturk.
Such a strategy would be less simple than merely holding highly imperfect elections. It would make the exit of occupation forces more complex and perhaps more drawn-out. It would, however, have a more lasting impact on democratic development than a dubious process by which a limited number of people go to the polls to elect an ineffectual central government. Such a strategy might even lead to an outcome about which those who want Iraq to join a free world can genuinely say: mission accomplished.
Ralf Dahrendorf, author of numerous books and a former European commissioner from Germany, is a member of the British House of Lords, a former rector of the London School of Economics and a former warden of St Antony's College, Oxford.
Copyright: Project Syndicate/Institute for Human Sciences
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