Former President Bush likes to fantasize that his decision to invade Iraq will be vindicated by history. It won’t. It will always be seen as ill-advised policy that was catastrophically costly in both dollars and human lives. But there is one thing that can make his blunder seem less awful. And that one thing is if Iraq can actually maintain a democratic system of government where there are free and relatively fair elections, and where there are occasional peaceful exchanges of power. I am still not sure how likely such a prospect is, but yesterday’s provincial elections went off fairly well. It’s true that five candidates for office were assassinated, and it’s also true that there were many glitches and problems with people’s voter registrations. But, overall, the elections went smoothly considering the recent history of Iraq.
Iraq’s neighbors, Turkey and Iran, also have democratic elections, although Iran’s are marred by the influence of the Council of Guardians who both determine who can run for office and hold the real power in the government. Iraq is the only Arab country that has a government that is truly elected by the people. To date, their elections have been heavily distorted by America’s influence and backdoor meddling, but going forward it is certainly possible that Iraq will develop a more purely indigenous political culture.
It is a big ‘if’, but if Iraq can hold together and maintain periodic elections that include peaceful transfers of power, it will eventually become a positive influence on its Arab neighbors. At the same time, that positive influence could be deeply destabilizing and undermine the credibility of the Assads of Syria and the royal houses of Saudi Arabia and Jordan.
Moreover, true Arab democracy is not going to start out as a natural ally of the United States. True Arab sentiment is deeply suspicious and hostile to American foreign policy in the Middle East. One of the persistent questions about the neo-conservative project is why they ever thought Arab democracy would be good for Israel’s security. Our entire foreign policy has been predicated on the idea that we cannot afford Arab democracy because a) we don’t want instability, and b) the Arab street opposes the peace agreements that Egypt and Jordan made with Israel. Have those assumptions been wrong? I never could understand the neo-conservatives’ real motives. Smashing Iraq into little pieces made sense because that would prevent them from ever projecting power again beyond their borders and threatening Israel, Kuwait, or Saudi Arabia. But building them up into a democracy? That is more likely to lead to both instability and a deterioration in Israel’s position.
As with all things in the Middle East, things are complicated and unpredictable. If the United States can help create a peace agreement in Palestine, and if Iraq can make it as a functional democracy, and if America can develop a green-based energy sector, then there might a bright future for the Middle East. If all of that were to happen, Bush’s decision to invade Iraq wouldn’t look quite so terrible. If others can take Bush’s lemons and make lemonade, maybe all of this carnage and waste will not have been for naught.
But I wouldn’t get my hopes up. For the foreseeable future, the decision to invade Iraq will be considered as the worst blunder in U.S foreign policy history. And that doesn’t even take into account the decisions the Bush administration made after they invaded.