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So long, suckers!
2004.06.29 — Government | War | by Derek Jensen
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Start the engines, captain; I'm gonna make a break for it. [source] |
The ink wasn't even dry on the handover document before L Paul Bremer was in the air, trailing a long banner that read: "SO LONG, SUCKERS!" To use the old cowboy metaphor, Bremer got the hell out of Dodge two days early to avoid having to face the Dalton gang. That doesn't help the new sheriff in town, Iyad Allawi. The undertaker is measuring that sad son of a bitch for a pine box.
Consider for a moment that in order for Bremer to leave the country within a couple of hours of the handover ceremony, he must have packed all his bags and papers in secret and sent them ahead to the waiting plane. This wasn't a departure; it was a getaway. I think he was even shouldering a laptop bag and fingering a boarding pass during the signing ceremony.
The fact that Bremer hit the road so quickly speaks volumes about the power being transferred. First, it says that Bremer couldn't guarantee the security of the proceedings. If they had held the transfer ceremony in public on the appointed day, there would have been fireworks of the most lethal sort.
Second, it says that Bremer expects trouble anyway. Those fireworks that were likely being planned are not going to go back in the box. They'll be used against the fledgling Iraqi government, which will have to ask the American occupa— uh... "guest" army to suppress them.
And last, it says that Bremer and Co. never had a real plan for leaving the country. The truth is that there was no exit strategy because the Bushies never intended to exit. They wanted permanent bases in Iraq, where a couple of hundred tanks and helicopters would be ready at a moment's notice to put the fear of God into Syria and Iran.
The truth is that there was no exit strategy because the Bushies never intended to exit. |
They may still get them. Depending on how quickly the new government can win the hearts of the people of Iraq, they may find support for the insurgency waning. If that's the case, we can expect American troops to be replaced at a rapid pace with Iraqi troops. But a sizeable force, say... 37,000, would remain anyway probably for, say... 50 years.
But if the insurgency continues to grow into jihad, as some have suggested, the fighting will continue and Americans will continue to die even as they flee the country. If they cannot be replaced by Iraqi troops effectively, it could became a major route resembling the panicked pullout during the fall of Saigon.
I had a tough time finding a citation for the fall of Saigon that didn't include annoying audio of helicopters and frantic radio calls apparently designed specifically to trigger terrifying flashbacks in vets. Weird.
If that happens, people like the new "prime minister" (let's remember that he's not elected) Allawi will be left holding the bag and shouting to the enemy that he is handing over control to them even as the last helicopter pulls away from the American embassy.
I wish the new (still not democratic) government of Iraq the best of luck. If things go well and free elections come off in six months (and don't result in the election of a bunch of loony mullahs), democracy has a decent chance.
The best way to assure that democracy has a chance, I think, is to take a few simple steps in implementing the elections. (This plan assumes a general easing of the insurgency, by the way.)
Each local election would include secular and religious candidates to vote for. |
First, a series of local elections should take place, producing genuine democratic local officials. These would become natural candidates for national office, but in specific ways. Each local election would include secular and religious candidates to vote for. Mullahs and whatnot would not be eligible for secular seats, and vice versa. Then, national elections would be held in which secular candidates would be eligible for regular governing seats in a national congress and religious candidates would be eligible for advisory seats in a religious body. This religious body would have no real power over the congress or courts, but it would provide recommendations for legislation and sentencing, at least as far as they intersect with religion.
Without this kind of separation of mosque and state, it's quite likely that Iraq's faithful will feel obligated to vote religious figures into secular offices.... |
Without this kind of separation of mosque and state, it's quite likely that Iraq's faithful will feel obligated to vote religious figures into secular offices, since they were so marginalized in the era of Saddam. Giving them their own local and national body would give them a place of recognition.
If the mullahs are able to gather power and take control of the state, that would be unfortunate, but this approach would at least make it less likely. And anything that fosters democracy in Iraq is likely to inhibit Islamic fundamentalism, and that will help to make us—and the world—a lot safer.
f e e d b a c k
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