February 2005 Issue
Do the elections in Iraq portend a bright future for the country?
Face-OffCullen Roberts '08 vs. Morgan Cohen '08
From the Right, Cullen Roberts '08
The elections undeniably succeeded in meeting their short-term goals. Voter turnout of roughly 60% surpassed all expectations, and terrorist attacks fell far short of predictions. Iraqis, on the whole, celebrated their first democratic experience. These facts, however, merely begin to answer the question of Iraq’s future. The elections presage a bright future only so far as they overcome Iraq’s two largest impediments to democracy: the Shiite-Sunni schism and the terrorists’ hopes of turning Iraqi public opinion against the US. Both have been thwarted.
Indeed, despite a failed Sunni boycott, the elections embody the necessary signs of compromise and cooperation between Iraq’s different religious groups. The Association of Muslim Scholars, a prominent Sunni group that previously demanded a boycott, now desires a place at the constitution’s drafting. Its members have apparently realized the futility of opposing democracy. The ballots will not be overturned, and it is in the Sunnis’ best interest to work within the system. Sunnis, albeit reluctantly, desire cooperation. Shiite leaders, in turn, have reciprocated. And Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi has begun meeting with Sunni leaders to find them a place at the table – even though their boycott caused them to forfeit their voice. The Sunni-Shiite fissure thus shows the beginnings of a symbiotic resolution.
Similarly, the elections suggest to a great extent the undoing of terrorist ambitions. Certainly there were fewer bombings on Election Day than expected. But more importantly, the Iraqi people were undeterred by the threats of such bombings. By voting in surprisingly large numbers, Iraqis demonstrated the very initiative and iron resolve that will continue to be necessary for the success of their infant democracy.
From the Left, Morgan Cohen '08
While the national elections on January 30 undoubtedly marked a turning point in the history of Iraq, it remains to be seen whether or not that turn will be towards democracy. A sovereign government, and certainly a democratic one, simply cannot exist under foreign occupation. Given the Bush administration’s unwavering support for the authoritarian regimes of Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Egypt, and Uzbekistan, the prospect that a true democracy will emerge in Iraq seems quite slim.
Historically, popular representation has been antithetical to U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. As Vice President Dick Cheney's Defense Policy Guidance report explained in 1992, “Our overall objective is to remain the predominant outside power in the [Middle East] and preserve U.S. and Western access to the region's oil.” On December 22, 2004 at the National Press Club in Washington D.C., Iraqi Finance Minister Abdul Mahdi told a handful of reporters and industry insiders that he was committed to issuing new ownership regulations that would open Iraq's national oil company to private foreign investment. As Mahdi explained, “This is very promising to the American investors and to American enterprise, and certainly to oil companies.”
In other words, Mahdi is proposing to privatize Iraq's oil and put it into American corporate hands. Most troubling is that Abdul Mahdi is the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) candidate for Prime Minister and is rumored to be the front-runner for the post. Despite the symbolic nature of the election, I fear that America may lapse into the troubling pattern of guaranteeing political power in exchange for unfettered access to oil.