The main Sunni party in Iraq, al-Iraqiyah or the Iraqi alliance, made news today by announcing a boycott of the parliamentary elections in March. A tug-of-war as of late has manifested its ugly head in Iraq, with the current Shia Iraqi government banning candidates with previous ties to the Baath party of former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein.
In the Wall Street Journal last week, Fred and Kimberley Kagan argued that Obama was losing Iraq to Iran, and that the recent governments debaathification efforts represented major Iranian influence on the Iraqi political process.
Today, at the Center for American Progress, Brian Katulis and Peter Juul argue that it was in fact the Bush Administration policy of preemptive war against Iraq, and to “empower the most pro-Iranian elements of Iraqi politics” which has led to the current quagmire.
What’s notable is that the Iraqi party which seems to lose most from the Maliki government’s decision to purge Sunni former Baathists from government is the Shia-led alliance of former Iraqi interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, arguably the most moderate of the parties running in the current election and one which has a strong record of opposing sectarianism, promoting civil liberties, and advocating a liberalization of the Iraqi economy.
I tend to side with Katulis and Juul’s argument over the Kagan’s. The fact of the matter is that the Obama Administration has tried as hard as possible to stop the barring of Sunni candidates in the elections, even as so far as to be called “intrusive” by Ahmad Chalabi, a Shia Iraqi politician. Yet, the simple fact remains that without outright direct American pressure – which would further spread the perception of illegitimacy on the election – nothing can be done to stop the current Shia Iran-backed hegemony on Iraqi politics.
The current quandary simply makes clear the problems of any sort of Wilsonian project of liberal democracy promotion, especially by force. Although American power took out Saddam Hussein, they also opened up Pandora’s Box of civil wars, ineffective governance, and the Iranification of Iraq. Furthermore, every plan to tinker with Iraqi democracy by the United States just makes things worse.
