14 years- yup 14 whole years for between the revolutionary wars and the ratification of the constitution.
Time will tell on this one and my bet is that this first try will fail, and most likely the second and even possibly the third, but at some point they will get it right and it will work as people become more accustomed to their freedoms and power they will learn to communicate and compramise. Hopefully they can learn to respect each others beliefs along the way. If that happens, and yes it will take time, you can look for Iraq to the envy of the region
For some other analysis, read juancole.com. He’s a history prof from Michigan that has a pretty good understanding of the Middle East. He’s on the liberal side, but has also put out some pretty good ideas on what needs to be done in Iraq–i.e. he doesn’t simply advocate cut and run. There are some funny results in this election that he points out that has him thinking there was some ballot stuffing going on…
I am not understanding your point here, Casey. I have it on very good authority from your previous posts that the Constitution was going to fail and it would be a disaster.
I must misunderstand your last post since it seems like you now think it would have been a good thing for it to fail.
You were completely wrong about the Constitution failing. Have you examined what is wrong with your information sources or thought processes that made you so certain of that? Has that examination led you to conclude some of the other things you are certain about might similarly be completely wrong?
That’s right … keep those dire predictions coming. Nothing is good in Iraq … it is all a disaster. Just like the elections last January. Civil war was right around the corner, no one would vote, they would all be blown up, the elections were meaningless, the constitution would never be completed … ever. Keep predicting how terrible it is going to be and keep telling yourself it is really, really bad over there and nothing has gone right or well or ever will be right or good. Write those predictions down, file them away with all the other dire predictions of disaster and quagmire in Iraq. Keep them for a while and see how you do. In the meantime, make yourself feel better by repeating to yourself how bad it is. No matter what positive steps are taken work as hard as you can to describe them as failures … you will be happy until finally … much to your heart’s dismay … our efforts in Iraq are indisputably a success. Then you can revel in your sadness and disappointment.
Be sure to educate yourself on Juan Cole’s beliefs before taking them to heart. To say he’s liberal is quite an understatement.
From Frontpage:
Cole’s view is shaped by his fundamental belief in a conspiracy of Jewish “neo-conservatives” that largely runs U.S. policy toward the Middle East. His recurrent theme is that a nebulous ‘pro-Likud’ cabal controls the U.S. government from a small number of key positions in the Executive Branch. He never names the leaders or organizations behind this fabulously clever and utterly secret conspiracy but vaguely associates it with AIPAC, MEMRI, and any prominent Jew in the Bush administration.
14 years sounds like a long time, but it isn’t when the fastest mode of communication is a horse on a dirt road. A simple letter could takes weeks to get to someone if ever. Now we have cell phones, internet, satellites and video conferencing.
Travel from one end of the country could take weeks in revolutionary times and could be a very arduous affair. Now we have cars, trains and jets and can reach any major city in the world in less than a day.
Different worlds. 14 years today might as well be 140 years back then.
You’ve forgotten to mention that the current draft of the constitution divides the country into semi-autonomous regions, where the Sunnis get the middle of the country. That would be nice except for the fact that the middle is the only area that doesn’t have oil, and therefore, money. Given a choice between limited political power and extremely limited economic prospects, and continuing or ramping up a major insurgency, which do you think they will pick?
Doesn’t exactly sound like a recipe for stability and Kumbaya to me.
I am back up at the nice big base (LSA Anaconda) trying to catch a flight out for my R&R leave. Sure am looking forward to getting back to family and home.
A view of the election from southern portion of Sal Ah Dyin province.
It seems sometimes that some people just can’t wait for bad news and bad things to happen. They are almost gleeful? I’ll defend their right to view and express things that way but I don’t understand it. We worked very hard to make the election run smoothly and uneventfully. The Iraqi Bn we’re responsible for working with provided security at voting sites (Sunni and Shiia villages and towns) throughout the province. At the last minute we received orders to move down into northern Baghdad environs and secure two late breaking voting sites in Sunni towns (Al Thar and Muslahya). The Iraqi 4th Bn moved in, cleared the sites and deployed to provide security. The elections officials, IEC-I, and police came out after our Iraqi soldiers set up and on voting day many thousands of Sunni’s came out to vote in both these sites–no doubt they mostly voted “no.” So the Sunni population from the Tarmiyah qada will not be able to say they were disenfanchised. The vote went smooth and uneventful because of the professionalism and competence we’ve managed to instill in the fledgling Iraqi Army. There is still more work to do but I was very proud of what they accomplished–warts and all.
On voting day I had my headquarters inside the district command center along with COL Yahya’s headquarters. We actually had a video reporter with us who is filming some sort of documentary for news channels in Hawaii. We were standing up on the roof and watching out over the city and he asked me if I thought things were going well or not. I looked out over all the people walking to vote; kids playing soccer games in the streets and said ‘yes.’
In the week leading into the election we deployed a lot of barrier material to help deter/defeat VBIED attacks against polling sites. The Iraqi Army is not yet capable of doing these kind of missions. As one of our convoys of barrier material was headed down to drop off jersey barriers at a voting site it was hit with an IED–some vehicle damage but no injuries. Our US QRF responded into the area on a different route and was also hit was an IED (3x 155mm rounds buried in center of dirt canal road) the IED catastrophically destroyed an armored HMMWV in the reaction force seriously wounding three US soldiers, an Iraqi interpreter, and killing one young Soldier. We reacted in on yet a different route with Iraqi forces and were also hit with an IED that detonated on our lead Iraqi gun truck (an unarmored Nissan 4WD)–the IED was a WP round that damaged the truck some and badly burned one of our young Iraqi soldiers. It appears now that AIF emplaced a fairly sophisticated area ambush. We never did get any barrier material down to the southern voting site at Muslahya–yet the Iraqi Army went back in the next day and secured the site for voting. We’re planning a little something for the AIF cell in that area.
I don’t know how the vote will go. I’m not as optimistic as I was a couple of weeks ago. The Arabic people are great ones for conspiracy theories and they already abound in the Islamic press over here. We’ll see. As I was talking to COL Yahya yesterday before I left the Iraqi compound for my R&R leave I commented that it would be a bad thing if the referendum failed and he said–“No.” COL Yahaya (the Iraqi Bn CDR I work with) said : ‘If the Sunni’s vote no in sufficient force to defeat this constitutional proposal it will show that their voice can be heard at the ballot and that will be good. It will mean they can throw down their weapons and work their issues with ballots and not bombs. The only ones left with weapons will be those who truly don’t want peace. I will be happy to take my battalion out into the field to secure voting sites as many times as is necessary when it is part of a peacful process.’ Good point. Don’t know how many Iraqi leaders think like this–I know one who does.
So now I am headed home for two weeks leave. I’m very tired. Gotta leave the internet cafe to go back to the PAX terminal and doze on a cot waiting for my flight.
SP4 Tucker’s memorial service will be this afternoon at 1400hrs local.
Not at you Tyrius. Just responding to the last post.
A very good, informative article by Christopher Hitchens. It puts into perspective all of the misinformation coming out of Iraq as it relates to the relationships between the different groups.
I don’t understand why you see no analogy between our constitutional adoption process and the Iraqi one. We had major issues concerning foriegn trade, religion, and regional/state autonomy, etc., just as they are having. Also, a large minority of colonists never favored splitting from Britain to begin with. Seems to me there are lots of similarities.
My point is that the people are trying to decide what form of government they are going to live under for hopefully, a long time. Even in the best of circumstances, that kind of a decision is going to be contentious. Therefore, panic and gloom and doom prophesies should not ensue every time there is a disagreement.
The big difference is that our Constitution was essentially perfect. There are issues with regional conflicts and gender differences in the Iraqi Constitution. Our Founders blessed us with a Constitution that gave women the full right to vote and banished slavery.
Except that the Iraqi Constitution guarantees that the oil (and subsequent revenues) belongs to all Iraqis, not just those in the regions where it is found, and stipulates that the government must pass laws that ensure that the revenues are shared equally.
Of course for the Sunnis, this is a step backward since Saddam ensured they got the most benefit from oil sales at the expense of the Kurds and Shiites. That is the crux of the whole issue–the Sunnis got the best of everything under Saddam, and now they have to go back to being equal.
The analogies between the US Constitution and Iraq are not apt at all. The biggest difference being that the impetus for Iraq’s Constitution or at least the dramatic changes in their governance was essentially external. We came in and said “You’re changing”. The impetus for change in here was internal. HUGE difference. Not to mention the continued presence of a liberating/occupying force overseeing the process. Nothing of the sort occurred in Iraq. Lastly, there weren’t the same type of divisions amongst the people and certainly not the same type of armed conflict at the time the Constitution was ratified.
Yes, the armed conflict was deferred until later when differences that were papered over became unmanagable, mostly thanks to our great Supreme Court and the Dred Scott decision.
In the meantime, the Iraqis are going back to polls again in two months to elect a real government with authority to do more than write a Constitution. 10,000,000 Iraqi voters practicing democracy can’t be bad.
You are wrong that there was no Iraqi impetus for change. There was the will, just not the way. The Iraqi impetus for change was evidenced by the revolts undertaken by the Shiites in the south and the Kurds in the north after the first gulf war. The bulk of the Republican Guard having escaped destruction during the war, these revolts were easily and brutally put down by Saddam while we and the coalition that freed Kuwait and urged the Iraqis to revolt sat on the sidelines and did nothing. The vast majority of Americans at that time felt we should have finished the job. Saddam’s vast system of government “minders,” secret police, torture chambers, and sycophantic military made sure no other revolts ever even got off the ground. Of course we saw, after the fall of Saddam, many Iraqis rejoicing in the streets, and those numbers would likely have been greater but for the still existent remnants of Saddam’s brutal, torturous, henchmen who to this day, are beheading and blowing up those who support the new government.
Of course, our revolution likely would not have succeeded without the French, who probably who more interested in hurting the British than helping us.
God bless you and what you are doing. I have no doubt that history will look favorably on this effort. The urge of all humans, regardless of religion, race, or color to live free and with self-determination, as evidenced by the growth of democratic institutions in the past 229 years, is one that cannot and must not be stopped by a few tyrants with bombs.
Steve, thanks for the report. Please don’t interpret the concern that some of us feel about the political process as a criticism of your work there, and definitely not as anyone wanting to get bad news. I think what I was getting at, and what Alan Shearer said more clearly, is the same as Col Yahaya’s view:
‘If the Sunni’s vote no in sufficient force to defeat this constitutional proposal it will show that their voice can be heard at the ballot and that will be good. It will mean they can throw down their weapons and work their issues with ballots and not bombs. The only ones left with weapons will be those who truly don’t want peace. I will be happy to take my battalion out into the field to secure voting sites as many times as is necessary when it is part of a peacful process.’
So I’m not sure that the fact the constitution will likely pass depite broad Sunni opposition is neccesarily a good thing in the long term. But I do appreciate the hard work and sacrifices made by yourself and the US and Iraqi army to ensure a smooth vote. Enjoy your time off - sounds like you’ve really earned it.
Best case scenario is that the Shiites and Kurds make concessions in a bid to foster national unity.
Didn’t they already do this just before the election?
Well, yeah, but apparently not enough it seems. I dont know if they didn’t give enough, or the Sunni’s are being unreasonable in what they expect - I just hope that the two (really three I guess) sides manage to come together a bit more than they are now.
That’s right … keep those dire predictions coming. Nothing is good in Iraq … it is all a disaster. Just like the elections last January. Civil war was right around the corner, no one would vote, they would all be blown up, the elections were meaningless, the constitution would never be completed … ever. Keep predicting how terrible it is going to be and keep telling yourself it is really, really bad over there and nothing has gone right or well or ever will be right or good. Write those predictions down, file them away with all the other dire predictions of disaster and quagmire in Iraq. Keep them for a while and see how you do. In the meantime, make yourself feel better by repeating to yourself how bad it is. No matter what positive steps are taken work as hard as you can to describe them as failures … you will be happy until finally … much to your heart’s dismay … our efforts in Iraq are indisputably a success. Then you can revel in your sadness and disappointment.
I think you’re reading a little too much into my post. Where did I make any “dire” prediction. All I essentially said was that it was too early to declare to voting a success, given the circumstances. But I guess, in your world view, anyone who disagrees with Bush and his 2003 “Mission Accomplished” declaration can only take satisfaction in failure.