Iraq's Post War Settlement (or Lack Thereof)
Why can't America deliver on its promises in Iraq? Why was the war less than a month long, and two months later things have barely improved? Firstly let me say that my view has been skewed by the biased coverage delivered by just about every news agency. America's failure makes interesting news, so naturally, there's plenty of coverage. Of course, they can't be all wrong. Unfortunately, positive outcomes are rarely newsworthy.
Much as I hate to defend the Americans, sometimes it can be fun to play the devil's advocate. I'm hoping that this will outline some of the reasons why Iraq is still lawless, and some reasons why perhaps America should be given some slack (for now).
1) America's plan for the end game was not fully developed before the war
The old adage says, never count your chickens before they hatch. There was some talk of the post-war settlement from the administration prior to the war, but much of it came off as pre-war bluster. Perhaps some of it was. Some were urging the administration to make such plans before the war, while others were shocked by the arrogance of such talk since they believed that there would be a long war. WWII may provide some useful perspective on how to plan the end game, but let us recall that the allies had plenty of time in which to hash out their plans. None of the powers had post-war plans prior to the outbreak of war. In that sense, it's not so unusual that America's post-war plans have been so haphazard.
2) Bureaucratic Overlap and Competing Jurisdictions
Who is really in charge? America's civilian administrators or the military? Technically the administrators are in charge, but there must undoubtably be friction between the soldiers and the administrators. What about the body in charge of the reconstruction? How do they fit into the grand scheme of things? Perhaps Iraq should have been placed under the direct rule of a military proconsul. At least then one would know who's in charge.
3) Lack of money
America has committed considerable sums of money for the reconstruction of Iraq, though the provisional administration always seems to be short of cash. They need money to pay civil servants, and to administer public services. The problem is mostly that money is not finding its way to the right places at the right times. Going back to problem 2, it's not like the civilian adminstration in Iraq can appropriate military helicopters or transports for their use, at least not very easily. Without a functional banking system in Iraq, the problem is only exacerbated.
4) Failure to use local resources
In the rush to administer Iraq after the war, America has probably ignored a number of opportunities for confidence-building measures. This problem has a cultural dimension to it. American administrators are trying to do things in an American fashion. They are not thinking like Arabs, Iraqis, or Muslims. Why doesn't America cooperate more with Shia clerics? (Perhaps out of fear they they may seize political power) Right now, the clerics are providing the most visible source of order, albeit sometimes intolerant order. Aparently America would rather see chaos in Iraq rather than cleric-imposed order. Furthermore, America has failed to use residual institutions from Saddam's regime since they fired all the Ba'athist bureaucrats and dissolved the Iraqi military. While there is justification for this because of suspicion of disloyaly and collusion with the Saddam's remaining resistance. In any case, America could have made much better use of local institutions and resources.
5) Intrigue by foreign powers
Iran is probably the most guilty in this case. This is a bit of a conspiracy theory, but it is believed that Iran's Ayatollahs control certain factions within the Shia population in Iraq, and have been using their influence to stymie America's efforts.
6) Remnants of the Old Regime
Saddam Hussein and his cronies had a lot of time to come up with a contingency plan for if and when they would be ousted. Undoubtably this is why Saddam has not been found. Part of such a contingency plan probably included plans to stymie the post-war settlement, and to set the scene for the return of the old regime.
7) Short Attention-Span
With the war over, Americans can go back to focusing on other things and let the administrators deal with things. Without the attention of the media, or at least diminished attention, the process of the post war-settlement can get away with moving slowly. The Bush administration itself is largly ignoring developments in Iraq except for the odd sound-bite indicating the capture of some member of Saddam's regime. The administration has moved Iraq to a lower priority since the war ended.
8) Unrealistic Expectations
This applies not to the administration in Iraq or in the White House (though I'm certain that the argument could be made). I'm talking about us, the armchair administrators. We're free to criticize all we want without knowing a thing about what's happening on the ground in Iraq. Two months after the war ended, many expected Iraq to be far along the road to recovery. The only reason that Iraq's situation seems bad is because we expect the situation to get better immediately. I would contend that our belief in a fast reconstruction is not based on empirical experience, or any logic at all. We have no reason to believe that Iraq's situation can be dramatically improved in two months. It's easy to have such expectations because we are, on the most part, ignorant of the actual situation, and we have no sense of the difficulty of establishing a new government in a country that presently lacks one, and no party is strong enough to impose itself (especially since the Americans do not want impose because that would seem like imperialism). There are some bases for comparison such as Japan after WWII. However, that reconstration took a considerable amount of time, much more than 2 months.
So, let us all be a bit more patient and try to make our expectations more realistic. I would also ask, could any other country do any better? Before rushing to criticise America, please consider whether anyone else could do any better. Could you if you were in charge? Everyone likes to think yes, but the answer is probably no. Many a country has a good repuation with regards to development, and development projects, but few have every had the obligation to create a new regime. So please, cut back on the vociferous criticism if you can't prove that you could do any better.
