Creating Democracy in Iraq?

Leonard J. Hochberg, Ph.D.

James D. Hardy, Jr., Ph.D.

Senior Fellows, NMIRI

Editors Note: Gaining a democracy will not be easy in Iraq and most Americans know that the conditions are a high risk for the moment. Our Senior Fellows, Professors, Hochberg and Hardy, have worked with Arab translations and colleagues we trust in obtaining a copy of a list of potential members of the Iraqi Political Advisory Council. We alert the reader that all members of the advisory council may not agree to serve, but in the event these individuals do agree to serve, our authors have evaluated the cultural mix of the group via religion and ethnicity in this essay. We decided to print this essay despite these caveats. Their essay provides insights into the problems the United States must confront whenever our government exports democracy to other cultures. We hope you will find this exclusive information to NMIRI stimulating.

Received: June 15, 2003

Posted to the NMIRI website: June 19, 2003

The American government has promised since the early 1990s to replace a fascist regime run by Saddam Hussein by bringing liberal democracy to Iraq. This promise is the political equivalent of the military claims concerning weapons of mass destruction; that is to say, it has been so often and prominently repeated that, to keep faith with the U.S. government’s word, something in the area of democratic reform must be tried. Moving, therefore, with all deliberate speed, the new American proconsul in Baghdad has recently convened an unofficial meeting of a thirty-five-person Political Advisory Council, a first public step toward some form of democracy in Iraq.

It is still too early to tell exactly, or even approximately, what the powers and purview of the new Political Advisory Council will be. It does, however, seem safe to say that the new council, when it officially meets in early July, will not be a precursor to the Western version of democracy, an aggressively secular regime embodying a one-person–one-vote principle and strict majority rule. Rather, it appears to be communitarian in make-up, cleverly designed to give each distinct group a voice and each substantial group an effective veto over recommendations or decrees. Every power center is to be represented but not in terms of population proportion. The Shia Arabs have fourteen seats (40 percent) on the proposed Council but comprise around 60 percent of Iraq’s population; the Sunni Arabs have thirteen seats (37 percent), though they comprise between 15 percent and 20 percent of the population; and the Sunni Kurds have five seats (14 percent), though they make up only 6 percent of the population. The Sunni Turkmen minority have two seats, the Christian Assyrians, one seat, and the Christian Chaldeans, none.

Beyond the obvious U.S. mistrust of the Shi’ites evidenced by these data, three implications may be drawn. First, the liberating (occupying) power, the United States, has not favored the Christian minority in the composition of the Council. Given the accusation in the Arab world that the United States was engaged in a latter-day “crusade,” the new proconsul had to avoid any appearance of religious favoritism. Second, the Kurds were rewarded for their loyalty to the United States, securing slightly more that two times the percentage of seats that their population warranted. Third and most important, the Kurds hold the swing vote. Assuming that a simple majority (eighteen) will be required to make recommendations or approve administrative appointees, a bloc vote of the Kurds is required for either the Shia Arab or Sunni Arab members to secure a majority. This gives the Kurdish members an effective veto, provided they vote with one of the two Arabic groups. While each ethnic group does not have an absolute veto over the proposals of the other groups, this gerrymandering of the membership foreshadows how a constitution inspired by John C. Calhoun’s idea of concurrent majorities, proposed in his Disquisition on Government, might work in Iraq.

The overall assumption seems to be that the various major communities, Shia Arabs, Sunni Arabs, and Sunni Kurds, so distrust each other that only by balancing the Shia against the Sunni Arabs, with the Sunni Kurds holding the decisive votes, can a central government administer the entire country. Moreover, the distribution of council seats recognizes internal divisions within communities and exploits these to guarantee further that community solidarity will be as difficult to obtain as intercommunal agreement. For example, there is a Shi’ite Arab communist in the company of Shi’ite religious leaders, and Sunni Arab Ba’athists are included along with Sunni Arabs persecuted by Saddam Hussein. The whole is designed to force upon perhaps reluctant participants the habits of negotiation, compromise, majority building, and understanding an alien point of view.

To date, the formal function and power of this proposed Political Advisory Council only include approval over the appointment of key administrators. Its real authority and writ will come from how well it can work. If the tribal, religious, party, and civic leaders accept their appointments and demonstrate that national concerns override parochial ones, the council will eventually assume ever-greater visibility and authority. We, indeed all Americans, can only hope this will be so, for the council will, if it succeeds, be a significant down payment on the American pledge to bring democracy–democracy of a communitarian sort but democracy by Iraqi standards nonetheless–to Iraq. On a more quotidian level, a successful council will serve to make more palatable the continued American control of Iraq.

The Political Advisory Council has been well chosen, both in its conception and in its proposed constitution, to perform these functions. It was conceived in the long line of best colonial practice, stretching from the Romans to the British, which dictates that one should govern whenever possible through local notables, whether tribal, familial, or religious, since these individuals already possess a modicum of at least local authority and deference. This practice has the further advantage of reassuring the entire population that the outside liberating (occupying) force has no intention of disrupting communal rhythms. Moreover, the local notables can function as an informal education system for the occupying power, if the American administrators are willing to learn. Only the notables can conclude intercommunal agreements, for only they can be generally trusted. It is reassuring, to these authors at least, to see that the American civil affairs officials in Iraq are taking advantage of long-established imperial wisdom. Of course, it would have been far better if at least a framework for the council had been in place before the war. America is still new to the business of imperial rule.

Finally, we suggest referring to our previous articles for NMIRI, on May 8, 2003 and June 4, 2003. In those pieces we predicted that a communitarian democracy would be the desired form for governing a country as deeply divided internally as Iraq. We assumed that keeping Iraq intact as a countervailing force against Iran politically and Saudi Arabia economically was the primary American geopolitical goal for the post-war Near East. We see no reason to change our opinion on this matter; indeed, the events of the last five weeks have only confirmed it.

Nor has our opinion changed on the probable nature of future Iraqi democracy. Certainly, the ideals of the American Founding Fathers–ideals such as civil liberties and democratic representation–will have only the roughest approximation in Iraq. We suggest that what should emerge instead is a quasi-representational regime based on the religious and ethnic communities, combining presidential rule at the top, domination by local notables in the neighborhoods and villages, and an elected, essentially consultative assembly that acts in a limited sphere only on the basis of concurrent majorities. We suggest that the Lebanese model before the troubles will fit better than Jefferson’s ideals to the new Iraqi reality. Undoubtedly, it will improve on Saddam Hussein’s regime, though that is not a high goal at which to aim, but it will not provide the complete panoply of Western democratic liberties.

Below we append a list of the proposed membership of the Political Advisory Council as reported in http://www.nahrain.com/d/news/03/06/09/nhr0609a.html. Professor Abbas Ali, Indiana University, Indiana, Pennsylvania translated the membership list. We are grateful to him for information pertaining to the unofficial meeting of the council and to the ethno-religious status of its members. Our interpretation of these data does not reflect his appreciation of the situation in Iraq.

Number	Name	Religion	Ethnicity
1	Adnan Bachaci	Sunni	Arab
2	Hatim Jasim Muklis	Sunni	Arab
3	Iskander Jawad Wytwet	Shia	Arab
4	Mugtada Sadiq Al_Sader	Shia	Arab
5	Abdul Aziz Al-Hakim	Shia	Arab
6	Mohamed Abdallah Al-Shahwani	Sunni	Turkmen
7	Abdul Rahman Ali Al-Sahel	Shia	Arab
8	Ahmed Azi Al-deen Al-Kubasi	Sunni	Arab
9	Ahmed Chaiabi	Shia	Arab
10	Amer Abdul Jabar Seluman	Sunni	Arab
11	Nazer Khaml Chaderchi	Sunni	Arab
12	Iyad Hashim Al-lawai	Shia	Arab
13	Jalal Al-Talabani	Sunni	Kurdish
14	Musaood Mustafa Al-Barzani	Sunni	Kurdish
15	Saad Al-Baziz	Sunni	Arab
16	Saad Al-Janabi	Sunni	Arab
17	Ghanim Younis Al-Bazo	Sunni	Arab
18	Jasim Mohamed Al-Jubory	Sunni	Arab
19	Mohamed Mutlak	Sunni	Arab
20	Abdul Rahman Mustafa	sunni	Kurdish
21	Mohamed Ibrahim Baher Al-Awlom	Shia	Arab
22	Ghalb Kuba	Shia	Arab
23	Karim Mahoud Al-Mahaedawi	Shia	Arab
24	Sanan Ahmed Agaha	Sunni	Turkmen
25	Wafiq Ajel Al-Samarai	Sunni	Arab
26	Wamez Omer Nazmi	Sunni	Arab
27	Hamed Majed Mousa	Shia	Arab
28	Ibram Abdel Karim Al-shequer	Shia	Arab
29	Youndam Yousif Youndam	Christian	Assyrian
30	Ghasan Atyiahe	Shia	Arab
31	Hussian Ismael Al-Sader	Shia	Arab
32	Ali Ibn Al-Hussian	Sunni	Arab
33	Rand Rahim Franki	Shia	Arab
34	Najerfan Idress Al-Barzani	Sunni	Kurdish
35	Braham Ahmed Salah	Sunni	Kurdish

James D. Hardy, Jr., Ph.D., Associate Dean, Honors College & Professor, Department of History, Louisiana State University.

Leonard J. Hochberg, Ph.D., Associate Professor – Research, Honors College, Louisiana State University

NMIRI Senior Fellows for 2003 –

www.zianet.com/nimiri