17 April 2003
Carnegie Scholars Say Cultivating Democracy in Iraq a Huge Task
(Say building democratic institutions will take a long time) (740) By Afzal Khan Washington File Special Correspondent Washington -- The United States faces a huge task in setting up a democratic government in Iraq, says Thomas Carothers, director of the Democracy and Rule of Law Project at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. At a briefing in Washington April 17, Carothers said that Iraq is "a divided society" of different ethnic and religious groups. He said Iraq's lack of experience in "political pluralism" would make it difficult for the country to be governed in a Western democratic manner. Carothers pointed out that Iraq's location in "an undemocratic neighborhood" with centralized oil economies made the task more complicated. "No countries with oil economies have been democratic," he said. In such a situation, the removal of a dictator, such as Saddam Hussein, is bound to create "a political vacuum" because there is no internal process of succession, Carothers said. In a worst-case scenario, Carothers fears that the United States will push too quickly for elections and a constitution in order to install a compliant, pro-American government. Such moves could further alienate "a distrustful population," he said. The "messiness" of trying to install a democratic government in Iraq would take so long that the United States might even "walk away," leaving the country to the United Nations, he said. On the other hand, Carothers said the United States might want to opt for stability instead. In such a scenario, Egypt could be a model with a strong central government. Ed Chow, visiting Carnegie scholar and energy expert, addressed the importance of transparency in handling Iraq's oil resources in the reconstruction. Chow stressed the need for "maximizing international competition" in the bidding for contracts to work in Iraqi oil fields. The question of who has the authority to sell Iraqi oil must be answered as soon as possible, he said. Chow said the Iraqi oil fields were located in the sensitive areas of the dissident Kurds in the north and the oppressed Shia Arabs in the south. He said security for those oil fields is a key issue for the next government in Iraq as well as equitable distribution of oil revenues. Joseph Cirincione, director of Carnegie's Non-Proliferation Project, said the non-discovery of weapons of mass destruction so far in Iraq is "a mystery." Cirincione said although it was still early to have scoured the entire country for them, it is frightening to think that no one is in control of those weapons. "Iraqis may turn to loot their national arsenal," he said. Cirincione said no one knows the exact quantity of the hidden weapons of mass destruction. He said there could be several hundred tons of chemical and biological weapons and that the help of Iraqi people may be needed to point out where they are hidden. In any case, Cirincione emphasized that resources must be immediately increased and deployed to search for the weapons. "It would be in the U.S. national interest to bring in U.N. inspectors to hunt for those weapons," he said. The U.N. inspectors have the experience to do a better job, he noted. However, Cirincione emphasized that the U.S. desire to eliminate weapons of mass destruction possessed by Arab countries can become a reality only if Israel is also brought to the table. Husain Haqqani, visiting scholar, addressed the impact of the Iraq war on public opinion in Muslim countries. Haqqani said less than 10 percent of the population in Arab countries supported the United States. This includes allies such as Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia. Haqqani predicted greater radicalization of the Muslim world and a rise in terrorism. But he said the terrorist acts would be more of a "retail" variety involving small groups carrying out individual acts rather than the wholesale global endeavors of Usama Bin Laden's al-Qaida. Haqqani said Muslim countries would have more anti-American Islamist parties in future elections and that there was a distinct possibility that even nationalist parties would collaborate with Islamist parties on the common platform of anti-Americanism. However, Haqqani noted the possibility for reform in Arab governments hostile to the United States because of what happened to Saddam. But that reform would be linked to similar reforms among those Arab governments that are close U.S. allies, he said. (The Washington File is a product of the Office of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)
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