From the issue dated November 8, 2002
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Instability in IraqSaddam Hussein is gone, brought down by a combination of prolonged American
After an initial strong deployment of troops while searching and destroying weapons of mass destruction, the United States has limited its military role to securing oil installations, rejecting the idea of an occupation to maintain overall security in the country until an elected government could take over. As a result, there is only a small international force in Iraq, which tries to maintain security in the capital but not in the rest of the country -- just as in Afghanistan. The country remains quite unstable. In the absence of an occupying force, the United States has been unable to make much progress toward the democratic transformation of Iraq, although it maintains its rhetorical commitment to the idea. It has installed in power a government of returning exiles and former military officers who contributed to the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. The returnees have remained as divided and unable to cooperate as they were while in exile. With a weak power base inside the country, they are no match for domestic factions, which have stronger ties to the population, and certainly no match for the military. In practice, there is no civilian oversight of the military. The military faction controls the major ministries and constitutes the major power bloc in the government. The government cohabits uneasily with two other major political forces. Tribal leaders have taken advantage of the weakness and disarray of the central government to establish their control over much of rural Iraq. Islamist organizations have grown rapidly, not because they have massive popular support, but because they have proven to be excellent organizers, as in other countries. Secular, liberal political parties, on the other hand, have had trouble developing a message that attracts much support; they remain small and divided, appealing mostly to small constituencies of better educated, urban Iraqis. Under these conditions, the United States has been hesitant in pushing for the holding of elections and has settled for the concept of a slow, prolonged transition. Neither the civilian government nor the military has solid control over the country. The Kurdish areas remain de facto outside government control. However, the Kurds have not seceded for various reasons: fighting among the Kurdish factions; and U.S. and, more broadly, international opposition to recognizing an independent Kurdistan, for fear that doing so would destabilize Iraq even further and also precipitate the demand for independence by Kurds in Turkey and Iran. Kurdistan has thus joined Kosovo and Somaliland in the category of de facto states that do not enjoy de jure recognition. The government is still considered a transitional one, to remain in power until elections can be held. With outside supervision, one year after the demise of Saddam Hussein, Iraq organized a "national dialogue" among representatives of major political organizations and locally elected delegates, similar to the loya jirga of Afghanistan. Following the dialogue, the process of drafting a constitution was started with the help of outside experts. A constitutional draft calling for a federal state has been circulated, but it has not been approved. Elections have not been held because the country is too divided. Marina S. Ottaway, senior associate and co-director of the Democracy and Rule of Law Project at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and author of Democracy Challenged: The Rise of Semi-Authoritarianism (Carnegie Endowment, forthcoming) http://chronicle.com Section: The Chronicle Review Volume 49, Issue 11, Page B12
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Copyright © 2002 by The Chronicle of Higher Education