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August 10, 2007
Knocking Over The Chessboard
Does Ken Pollack realize quite what he's proposing here?
We did meet with a number of top Iraqi policymakers over there and we found exactly what you said, which was absolutely no progress at that strategic political level. These are people who know that if there were really free and fair elections, they might not win nearly as many seats as they have under the current prevailing conditions of a failed state and a security vacuum. I came away from the trip believing it may be necessary to have new elections in Iraq and maybe even a new electoral system that actually could produce a government that is more representative of the Iraqi people, with leaders who actually would be much more willing to make compromises.
So he's suggesting, essentially, that the Americans unilaterally dissolve the sovereign Iraqi government and demand new elections that would be conducted in some theoretically more proportionate way, and which would be more amenable to compromises that would, in turn, rely on marginalizing the country's most powerful parties and thus angering exactly the groups we need to abide by compromises.
What if General David Petraeus just shot himself in the face instead? Wouldn't that have essentially the same effect?
August 10, 2007 in Iraq | Permalink
Comments
That statement from Pollack is either breathtakingly dishonest or a view into a profoundly wrong-headed view of Iraqi politics. The longer this strife goes, the *more* Iraqis are likely to align with sectarian leaders/parties. The idea that "a government that is more representative of the Iraqi people" would produce "leaders who actually would be much more willing to make compromises" is completely and utterly wrong.
First of all, the current national government *is* representative of the Iraqi people, demographically speaking. I'm not sure what kind of numbers he's looking for. Second, if there were new elections, there's no way it would produce anything other than another massive religious Shia victory, probably with an increased Sadrist presence. Kurds would still overwhelmingly vote for Kurds, Sunnis would still overwhelmingly vote for Sunnis, and the only group certain to lose even more ground would be Allawi's secularist party, which isn't doing much -- especially since their leader, the former Iraqi PM no less, apparently spends most of his time in London.
If he wants to wipe the slate clean and establish a secular strongman (back to the Allawi or Chalabi choice, I guess), he should just say so, but pretending that more elections are the way to compromise is totally incorrect.
Posted by: AJ Rossmiller | Aug 10, 2007 2:21:01 PM
So he's suggesting, essentially, that the Americans unilaterally dissolve the sovereign Iraqi government and demand new elections
Not that I can see. He says nothing about how new elections would come about. He might have in mind pressuring the Iraqis to call for new elections. Of course it's not likely they would without very strong pressure.
Posted by: Sanpete | Aug 10, 2007 2:29:11 PM
The comparison to a chessboard is an apt one. I don't think Pollack actually sees Iraq as being made up of real, breathing people; rather, they're pieces in a game.
Posted by: Fiat Lux | Aug 10, 2007 2:51:16 PM
He says nothing about how new elections would come about
Sanpete, Pollack's statements came across as sounding like "Who will rid me of this troublesome priest?" when it came to claiming that Iraq needed a new electoral system, and this is what Ezra is picking up on.
Posted by: Tyro | Aug 10, 2007 2:54:01 PM
Of course it's not likely they would without very strong pressure.
See, we wouldn't just do it unilaterally. We'd FORCE them to do it. Those two things are totally different!
Between this and his answer about the national power grid, Pollack may very well be the stupidest person on the face of the earth.
Posted by: Seitz | Aug 10, 2007 2:57:13 PM
I swear I had a great spoof comment in mind but didn't bother to post it, something like, "He's not suggesting that. He's says it may be necessary, but you have no evidence he actually wants America to do anything to make it happen." Too bad I wasn't quicker.
Posted by: Cyrus | Aug 10, 2007 4:16:25 PM
I don't think Pollack actually sees Iraq as being made up of real, breathing people; rather, they're pieces in a game.
Why do you think that?
Tyro, Pollack isn't King, and I don't see anything like what you suggest in what he says.
Seitz, there is a huge difference between the US dissolving the government and calling elections and pressuring the Iraqis to call elections.
Posted by: Sanpete | Aug 10, 2007 4:26:38 PM
Seitz, there is a huge difference between the US dissolving the government and calling elections and pressuring the Iraqis to call elections.
Depends entirely on what is meant by "pressure".
Posted by: WB Reeves | Aug 10, 2007 4:46:19 PM
Seitz, there is a huge difference between the US dissolving the government and calling elections and pressuring the Iraqis to call elections.
Form over substance. There's literally no difference. Sure, officially we can't do anything without them agreeing to do it, without re-overthrowing their government. But I'm pretty sure that when Ezra says that Pollack is calling for the US to "unilaterally" dissolve their government, he has taken that into account.
Posted by: Seitz | Aug 10, 2007 4:53:53 PM
I tend (again) to agree with Sanpete - the problem here isn't, a Ezra suggests, that America needs to dissolve the sovereign government. It's that Pollack is essentially admitting that there isn't a sovereign government and that the much-heralded election process got us... mostly what we had already: a government that structurally can't govern the territory it's supposed to. By suggesting we need to, yet again, start over wit a new government, it seems to me Pollack's saying that any talk of the "surge" succeeding is nonsense - we're securing a country that isn't really quite a country, so even if we "secure it", we have nowhere to put it. The problem that needs solving in Iraq has always not been a military one; we have a fine army that does fine army-type work. The part we're not good at is precisely what Iraq needs: a transition to independent governance and taking control of its own governmental functions. We have no idea how to make that happen, and the worse thing is, it's not likely to happen in any case. I'm not sure anyone has a solution for what's wrong in Iraq. Which is why I think wise people are so flummoxed by what we're supposed to do next - no solution is good, and almost everything points to things getting worse. And this is not how Americans see things, given that we prefer to see most things as hopeful and solvable. I don't think we have that here.
Posted by: weboy | Aug 10, 2007 5:02:25 PM
weboy, this strikes me as Pollack maintaining some plausible deniability. He doesn't come out and SAY "the US needs to disolve the iraqi government", but he doesn't come out and SAY "the surge isn't going to do any good, because it does nothing for the political situation."
If the surge fails, he gets to say, "well, as I said, the main problem was a political problem, not a military one." If the US just so happens to provoke a dissolution of the government, he can say, "well, as I said, this is what needed to happen before there'd be any improvement."
You almost prove what everyone has been saying about Pollack's latest media blitz: he's a weasel.
Posted by: Tyro | Aug 10, 2007 5:16:50 PM
Seitz, our taking over again and our getting the Iraqis to start over themselves aren't essentially the same in either substance or form/perception. I agree with Ezra that it doesn't appear Pollack's thought this through very much. It's hard to see how a better government would come about by a new election. That doesn't mean a better government isn't needed ...
Posted by: Sanpete | Aug 10, 2007 5:34:05 PM
Well, Tyro, I do think Pollack's pretty weaselly, anyway; I haven't spent a lot of time on their original op-ed or the debate that's ensued since only because I think they provide one data point in a sea of others that say even if the surge is accomplishing things, they're not things that solve the overall problem in Iraq. Similarly, I think whether the Iraqi government crumbles on its own or the US forces it (I have to admit, I don't really buy this possibility that much), I think the bigger issue is that we've tried, what, three times now to establish a working order in Iraq and nothing seems to work. Pollack's best answer is that we need to try again? Come on - how many times do we want to see an Iraqi experiment in government fail before we admit that there's a bigger problem here than finding a government structure that works for them? Isn't Pollack a weasel most for admitting here, in so many words, that the real problem in Iraq can't be solved by a surge... which would be the same surge he just got through praising as being so successful?
Posted by: weboy | Aug 10, 2007 5:52:31 PM
Posted by: Israel-site | Aug 11, 2007 10:59:22 AM
While Pollack is an idiot, what he is suggesting - a fundamental change in the iraqi constitution -will, I think, have to come about. The validation of the Constitution was a farce at the time it was done. The Constitution was deeply flawed, and written with a host of American consultants, some of whom - like Peter Galbraith - openly want to split up Iraq - and the document they came up with made Iraq legally ungovernable. It is as if the Americans had invited in the British to write our constitution. The Sunnis were promised that if they came into the political process, the constitution would be amended. They did, they tried, they were blocked.
The deeper implication here is that the Iraqi election of 2005 was held in such circumstances that it gave the rightwing a chance to celebrate purple fingers but was otherwise a joke on the voters. They could vote for some rather ill defined parties, and voted, sensibly, for the only thing they knew about those parties - their religious and ethnic composition. They know better now.
I very much doubt that Pollack's new election would bring in American leaning moderates - Pollack's idea that they would is another of his out in space moments. In fact, they might give Sadr's parties the plurality they need to rule Iraq. Only a person who is totally blinded by ideology and the inability to even imagine what the world looks like if you aren't American could say, of a nation in which 8 million are near destititution, unemployment is near 60 percent, electricity is down to an hour a day, sewage is running in the streets, doctors are either unavailable or are working in hospitals that are almost as dangerous as the streets, that the majority of people are going to say, wow, the Americans have been so good to us! let's vote for some party that is hostile to Iran and is solidly behind free enterprise!
Pollack is just the kind of dunce they love in D.C. because he is that blind - it is his winning feature. He so exactly mirrors the D.C. bubble world.
Posted by: roger | Aug 11, 2007 12:46:10 PM
Ezra,
One thing I haven't seen talked about in any discussions of the surge is how the basic premise of the surge makes any sense. Every one writes that the purpose of the surge is to reduce the level of violence to give the political parties breathing room to make the necessary compromises, but I never see anyone ask how this makes any sense at all. The whole need to reach a compromise is that without it, the country gets torn apart by violence.
All the criticism of the surge focuses on its ability to achieve its stated goal, but no one seems to focus on the irrationality of the goal itself.
Perhaps you can draw some attention to this issue.
Thanks,
Anon
Posted by: Anon | Aug 11, 2007 2:24:04 PM
ps
"The whole need to reach a compromise is that without it, the country gets torn apart by violence." I guess I should complete the thought: if there is less violence, isn't there less urgency to make compromises?
Posted by: Anon | Aug 11, 2007 2:26:11 PM
Anon, a good deal of the violence in Iraq is from parties who don't want the political process to work and is designed to make politics and government generally impossible. It's hard to compromise with people tied to someone who just killed your cousin or burned your mosque, and hard to make a compromise become reality in the midst of chaos.
Less violence might reduce one incentive to compromise, in that one reason to compromise is to reduce violence, but without some degree of peace it's unlikely compromise can be reached at all. It's not likely that the Surge would make peace will break out so completely that that incentive for compromise will go away, in any case. Iraqis want a country that can prosper, and compromise is by far the best way to achieve that.
Posted by: Sanpete | Aug 11, 2007 3:22:59 PM
Well it only took 40 years for the British military occupation of Northern Ireland to stand down. So I suppose there's plenty of time to sort it all out.
Posted by: WB Reeves | Aug 11, 2007 3:42:57 PM
Sanpete,
Are you suggesting that the violence actually physically prevents the leaders from gathering in order to make the compromises they need to? Of course not - fly them all to Switzerland if that was the issue.
Are they going to forget that their cousin was murdered after a week of less violence? A month? A year? The violence is an expression of their hostility to each other as much as it is a cause of that hostility.
The whole 'give them breathing room' is nothing more than saying that the only way to solve the civil strife is through political reconciliation so we better stop the civil strife so they can make that political reconciliation.
I understand the 'give them breathing room' idea sounds reasonable, which is probably why so few people bother to think what it really means. I'd just like to understand practically why you think a lack of 'breathing room' is the reason they haven't come together with a government of national unity.
Thanks,
Anon
Posted by: Anon | Aug 11, 2007 6:30:51 PM
"What if General David Petraeus just shot himself in the face instead? Wouldn't that have essentially the same effect?"
No. It would give everyone not only breathing space, but a reason to cheer. Hard to see any downside, if you ask me. Count me in.
Posted by: Michael Connolly | Aug 11, 2007 6:57:35 PM
Are you suggesting that the violence actually physically prevents the leaders from gathering in order to make the compromises they need to?
No.
They won't soon forget the violence, but it's much easier to deal with the other side when you see less violence than when you see more, not only because of anger but because less violence signals more good will. Less violence also allows the government to deliver civil goods and gain the credibility needed to agree to compromise without losing support from constituents. And it builds credibility that a compromise can be delivered on by each side. None of this implies violence is the only contributor to lack of political compromise.
Posted by: Sanpete | Aug 11, 2007 7:33:58 PM
Posted by: Israel-site | Aug 11, 2007 10:24:13 PM
Posted by: taxesandmoney | Aug 11, 2007 10:24:46 PM
"Hard to see any downside, if you ask me."
I agree. Maybe it would become a trend.
Posted by: Rick | Aug 12, 2007 12:32:54 AM
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