TO: Professor Eusebio Mujal-Leon

FROM: Ben Turner

SUBJECT: Final Paper, "Is Iraq Democratizing?"

I. Introduction

Iraq has launched from a "rogue state" to a major international geopolitical issue in six
years as a result of American occupation. Despite political setbacks such as the Sunni parties
withdrawing from past elections, a full-blown insurgency, a massively contracting economy, and
lack of representation by key figures in Iraqi politics; Iraq has reduced violence, held a recent
election and referendum, has signed a new Status of Forces Agreement, and appears to be on the
path towards building a sustainable democracy. Is Iraq on this path to democratization now?
How are the elite parties in Iraq structuring themselves and how well is this predicted by
democratization theories? Will Iraq choose democracy or authoritarianism? Does it have a
choice about its future, or will it be responding to geopolitical and regional pressures?

It will be argued in this paper that Iraq is on a path towards being a longterm buffer state
for stronger regional neighbors. Iraq will attempt to extricate itself from foreign influences that
seek to use it as a buffer state against other players. The pressures will be strong for Iraq to seek
national and internal stability as its paramount national interest, and thus an authoritarian
government will rise up under the mantle of Shi'ite nationalism in order to protect itself and the
Iraqi borders. Under threat of fractionalization, the authoritarian government will attempt to
strictly prevent the Kurds and Sunnis from separating or disengaging from the nation.

As an extension, Iraqi democratization is a long way off. Iraq must achieve autonomous
security of its borders before it can hope to build the civil society complex and secure enough to
formalize and consolidate democracy. While Iraq currently holds national and provincial
elections, this is maintained primarily under the aegis of the American military -- under the veil,
the Shi'ite-led government is consolidating its power and waiting for American forces to leave.

All this said, there are also ways in which Iraq could avoid slipping back into
authoritarianism, consisting of major regional security agreements, reconciliation among the
major ethnic factions in Iraq, and leadership that desires true democratization, pluralism, and
representation for the national interest.

Page 1 of 22
II. A History of Mastery and Occupation of Three Ethnic Cities

The region of Iraq has long suffered from foreign occupation, since after the Sumerians
of Mesopotamia lost their rule. It was the Persians who brought Islam, and the Turks and
Safavids traded the territory for a while. Eventually after rule by both the Mamluks and the
Ottomans, the UK came in in the modern era to demarcate the borders of Iraq. Iraq has
traditionally been made up of mainly two cities, Baghdad in mid-Iraq and Basra in the southern
tip of Iraq, a gateway to Iraq's only sea port of Umm Qasr. But the UK added Mosul, a city-state
up in the north that had previously existed as a separate tribal region.

The result is that in today's Iraq, the borders are arbitrary and there are three primary
city-states within Iraq: Baghdad, Basra, and Mosul. Basra has always been in a heavily Shi'ite-
dominated area to the south (below the Shi'ite holy cities of Najaf and Karbala), while Mosul is
the gateway to the Turkoman and Kurdish Sunni northern region of Iraq. Under Saddam
Hussein's rule, Baghdad was firmly Ba'athist, representing more of a bureaucratic totalitarian
city than anything else.

II.a. The Disruption of US Occupation

In 2003, the US invaded Iraq and remained there, and has since sloppily occupied the
country for 6 years under the auspices of democracy promotion. Eva Bellin writes, in an article
about American support of political reform in the Middle East,

"In short, the ideal of democracy promotion will, at times, conflict with the
United States' core interests. Some inconsistency and halfheartedness is thus an
inevitable part of democracy promotion. Recognition of this fact ought to recommend
retreat to a more modest agenda than that suggested by the Bush administration's
rhetoric."1

Did the US even know what its core interests in Iraq were? Democratic rule? A non-
nuclear state? A non-failed state? After many foibles, such as removing any Ba'ath members
from government administration, installing unknown politicians into the highest Iraqi

1
Bellin, Eva. "Democratization and Its Discontents", Foreign Affairs, July/August 2008.
http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/64462/eva-bellin/democratization-and-its-discontents?
page=show
Page 2 of 22
government positions, and sanctioning Shi'ite consolidation of power over the government and
security forces, the US has been presented with a series of "lesser-of-two-evils" choices in its
pursuit of democracy promotion, democratization, stability, and security.

The first major choice the US had to make was whether to support the Shi'ite-dominated
government, led by Nouri Al-Maliki, or try to break it down. The official US policy was to
support an Iraqi nationalist government so it stuck with Maliki, even after he was found to have
routinely rounded up Sunnis, allowed sectarian conflict to clear Sunnis out of Shi'ite
neighborhoods, and imprisoned and tortured competitors in prisons to retain power.

The US also decided to arm and pay the Sunnis to stop attacking Americans, a decision
implemented by General David Petraeus and his senior advisors. This, more than the Surge, led
to a massive dropoff in violence to achieve Petraeus' goal of building a security space to allow for
political progress. As Thomas Ricks wrote in his excellent book "The Gamble" about the years
2006-2008 in the Iraq War:

"Petraeus laid the groundwork for that approach in the letter he issued to the
troops as he left Iraq. While the initiative had been retaken, he expressed disappointment
about the political state of Iraq. “Many of us had hoped this summer would be a time of
tangible political progress at the national level,” he wrote. “One of the justifications for
the surge, after all, was that it would help create the space for Iraqi leaders to tackle the
tough questions and agree on key pieces of ‘national reconciliation’ legislation. It has not
worked out as we had hoped.” It would be hard to charge that he was being rosy about
Iraq."2

It is unfortunate, however, that the US, by virtue of its occupation, has put Iraq on a
track far from democratic consolidation, as now Iraq is a weak nation with little economic
output and many outsiders hoping to carve out influence within its borders. The US, occupying
a land where tribal relations dominate, is the strongest tribe, as Bing West titled his book about
the American occupation of Iraq.

But the US has had to ratchet back its plans in Iraq, seeking stability instead of
democratization for the time being. Tom Ricks:

"There was good reason for this quiet ratcheting down. As Steven Metz, an astute
strategic analyst, put it, encouraging democracy was at odds with the larger goal of

2
Ricks, Thomas. "The Gamble: General David Petraeus and the American Military Adventure
in Iraq, 2006-2008", Penguin Press HC, 2009, Kindle version, highlight location 4812-4816.
Page 3 of 22
 stability: “Our current strategy is based on the delusion that we can have stable, or
modulated democratization,” he said. “Few things are more destabilizing and prone to
chaos than democratization. I think we can have either democratization or stabilization.
The issue is whether we can tolerate several decades of often-violent instability ..."3

There seems to be acceptance among the senior leaders on the Iraq mission that
democratization does not play well with stability, and so the emphasis for American forces in
Iraq has significantly changed.

II.b. Maelstrom of Forces Awaiting American Departure

At the same time, both the Americans and other foreigners understand that the
American military protection of Iraq is drawing down soon under President Obama. This has
manifested itself in several interesting ways. For starters, Americans have changed from a
counter-terrorist, quick-strike policy to one of counter-insurgency, or protecting the population
to convince it to work with them.

Al-Qaeda for its part has refocused its efforts onto Pakistan and the FATA provinces in
Afghanistan/Pakistan as the US has taken measures to ruin Al-Qaeda's operations in Iraq. But
there is still a vast power vacuum in Iraq, and in particularly a paranoia and sense of fear among
Iraqi Sunnis about Shi'ite domination, so Al-Qaeda will probably be able to safely re-enter the
country once American support leaves; the Iraqi security services are just too weak to catch
them.

The Iranians have a large stake in the future of Iraq. While they are content to let the US
worry about securing Iraq, Iran certainly has a stake in making sure Iraq does not fall apart as
well. Iran was a former enemy of Iraq's during the days of Saddam Hussein. While both
countries were predominantly Shi'ite, Iran is Persian and Iraq is Arab, and the twain shall never
meet. Furthermore, Hussein was a secular Ba'athist who acted Sunni in order to keep his
influence with the Iraqi elites. This pseudo-Sunni/Ba'athist elite was extremely rich and was
given all the nicest property and resources that Hussein could offer. In Hussein's absence (and
indeed during his hanging), the Shi'ites have emerged as the strongarm majority party in Iraq.

Iran, for its desires, has long sought to co-opt Iraq. It has sent agents, spies,
ambassadors, and more to provide support, intelligence, EFPs (explosively-formed penetrators,

3
Ricks, Kindle version, highlight location 3257-3260.
Page 4 of 22
and weapons to the Iraqis for resisting outside influence and to consolidate Shi'ite power. Iran,
knowing it can cow its now primarily Shi'ite neighbor into working with it, if not fully becoming
clientelist, now has a buffer against possible competitors to Iranian power.

Iran has downplayed its Persianness and has advocated to Iraq its Shi'iteness against
threatening Wahhabist violent terrorists under the flag of Al-Qaeda. This is a policy in direct
contrast to Saudi's diminishing influence in Iraq. Juan Cole, who writes a superb blog as a
University of Michigan history professor and expert in Middle Eastern politics and affairs, said
in a blog post:

"Al-Maliki, a Shiite, was snubbed by Saudi King Abdullah, who refused to meet
him on the grounds that he had reneged on his pledge to reconcile with the Sunni Arabs
of Iraq. Al-Maliki's Da`wa Party had angered the Saudis a couple of years ago by
launching a protest movement against Wahhabism, the established branch of Islam in the
Saudi kingdom."4

Its soft and covert power has brought it many seats in the Iraqi Parliament, a pliant
Maliki government, the ability to tell Muqtada Al-Sadr what to do, and economic opportunity for
Iraqi goods to win over the business elite. The US is playing right into Iran's hands.

Muqtada Al-Sadr, a constant thorn in the US's side, has told his militias to stand down
for the time being in the northeast neighborhoods of Baghdad (to include the slum, Sadr City)
and in Basra and to some degree the other Shi'ite cities of Karbala and Najaf. Al-Sadr, not a
cleric of religious erudition, exists as a populist strongman whose Shi'ite militias have been able
to infiltrate Iraqi security forces and foster a nationalist, anti-American agenda. But what is
most interesting is this sense of nationalism Al-Sadr has, which can be used to fight off Persian
influence, or as Tom Ricks explains:

"Indeed, given that Sadr is more of an Iraqi nationalist than many of the people
the U.S. government has supported in Iraq, it isn’t clear why the U.S. government holds
that diminishing him will restrain Iranian influence in Iraq. “That’s the million-dollar
question,” said Capt. Jeanne Hull, a military intelligence veteran who during 2008 was on
her third tour in Iraq, all of them working for Petraeus. She also was almost certainly the
only soldier serving in Iraq who was simultaneously doing research for a doctoral
dissertation for Princeton University. She had been assigned to work on Sadrist issues on

4
Cole, Juan. "Fadl Still Blockaded; Truck Bomb in Mosul; Doha Summit Fails to Unify Arab
voices", Informed Comment blog, 31 Mar 09. http://www.juancole.com/2009/03/fadl-still-
blockaded-truck-bomb-in.html
Page 5 of 22
 this most recent tour. “I don’t think we’ve looked at it deeply enough to know if backing
the GOI [government of Iraq] is the same as backing Iranian interests.”5

Juan Cole tried to explain the sensitivity of Iranians and Iraqis in determining their
differences and similarities:

"The Arab League Conference in Doha, Qatar has wrapped up, and it too
had implications for Sunni-Shiite reconciliation (or lack thereof) inside Iraq.

Al-Zaman reports in Arabic that the Arab League had initially planned to
hold its next meeting in Baghdad, but the continued poor security in that city has
dissuaded the organization, which will meet in Libya instead. Iraqi Prime
Minister Nuri al-Maliki protested the switch. (It is likely that the move came at
least in part in response to the identification among member states with the
Sunni Arab population of Fadl District, which was being besieged by Shiite Iraqi
troops as the conference unfolded. Most Arab League member states are strongly
Sunni and many see Shiite Islam as Persian rather than Arab--which is untrue
and unfair.) "6

III. Is Iraq Any Longer a State?

This paper argues that Iraq is losing its coherence as a state. While the appearances of
Iraq are those of Wolfgang Merkel's "defective democracy", in which the country has elections
but remains illiberal (with few institutions) and delegative, pressures on Iraq threaten to rip it
apart once the American forces leave. It can be said that these cleavages have already begun.

Robert Baer, a former CIA officer, argues that Iraq is already no more:

"Between March 20 and April 9, 2003, allied forces obliterated the state
of Iraq, a nation that will never be put back together in any form resembling the
old Iraq. What the war planners didn’t understand was that Iraq was an army
rather than a country. In destroying the Iraqi army, the allies destroyed Iraq."7

5
Ricks, Kindle version, highlight location 6178-6184.
6
Cole, Juan. "Fadl Still Blockaded; Truck Bomb in Mosul; Doha Summit Fails to Unify Arab
voices", Informed Comment blog, 31 Mar 09. http://www.juancole.com/2009/03/fadl-still-
blockaded-truck-bomb-in.html
Page 6 of 22
III.a. Iraq as a Buffer State

Geopolitically, Iraq is the focus point for the Middle East. This strategic position must
have played a role in why the architects of the American invasion chose Iraq: if Iraq could
democratize, it would provide a beacon of freedom to the rest of the Middle East. 8

But Iraq also is a buffer between two very competitive ideological states, Saudi Arabia
and Iran. Both are the primary funders and advocates for Sunni and Shi'ite religions,
respectively. Iraq has been unleashed from its quasi-Sunni rule to become a majority Shi'ite
country, and this will threaten the Saudis who also feel pressure within the failing state of
Pakistan and a trapped pseudo-Kurdistan.

Iraq has no natural borders and thus is prone to smuggling, refugees leaving, and other
setbacks of an extremely porous border.

It is in Iran's best interest to keep Iraq functioning to give Iran a healthy block of space to
its western flank. The Saudis are worried about their position as the chief oil supplier:

"The American backers of the war claimed that with massive investment Iraq’s
production could be taken to 6 million barrels a day. If they’re right, and if Iran proceeds
with its de facto annexation of Iraq and its oil, the combination of Iran’s current
production of 4.21 million barrels a day with Iraq’s 6 million would put Iran within range
of becoming the world’s largest producer, ahead of Saudi Arabia."9

III.b. Will the Kurds and Sunnis Remain Part of Iraq?

The northern tip of Iraq, Kurdistan, is made up of Sunni Kurds who seek autonomy of
their own while being trapped within the national borders of Iraq. To some degree this means
that Kurdistan falls under American protection, as the Americans see Kurdistan as the only truly

7
Baer, Robert. "The Devil We Know: Dealing with the New Iranian Superpower", Crown, 2008. Kindle
version, highlight location 503-505.

8
CNN.com. "Bush, in Europe, to urge support for Iraq", CNN.com, 21 Feb 05.
http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/europe/02/20/bush.europe/index.html
9
Baer, Kindle version, highlight location 419-422.
Page 7 of 22
successful and pacified area of Iraq. But because of tribal conflicts, Kurdistan is also a target for
Turkish oppression and Iraqi governmental desire for Kurdistan's vast oil resources.

Explains an article on Kurdistan:

"Saddam had placed Kirkuk outside the Kurdish region of northern Iraq, which
has enjoyed wide-ranging autonomy since 1991. But Iraqi Kurds, many of whom see
Kirkuk's oil wealth as vital to the future viability of their region, have called for the
province to be part of their autonomous region.

Iraq's parliament has proposed evenly dividing powers in the local parliament
between Arabs, Kurds and Turkmen but the Kurds bitterly oppose the plan, pointing to
their superior numbers. Under the Iraqi constitution, a referendum was to have been
held on the future status of the city but the vote has been repeatedly delayed in recent
years amid ongoing demographic concerns."10

Kurds aside, General Petraeus' gamble to buy off the Sunnis has worked. The Sunnis
now protect themselves against Al-Qaeda and have cash to provide for their internal stability.
But the Sunnis clearly aren't happy with their standing in Iraq, now that they are not only the
weaker party now, but on top of that a demographic minority (estimates put it at about 65%
Shi'ite, 35% Sunni in Iraq11).

Some disagreed with this plan, as Tom Ricks writes:

"Not all American military officials were comfortable with the approach, worrying
that the short-term security gain obtained would create long-term political problems.
“What we’re doing is creating a secessionist state out west,” said a senior U.S. military
intelligence official. “The Anbar tribes will be capable of keeping order, and also of
keeping a Shiite-dominated army out of Anbar.” In other words, argued retired Army Col.
Andrew Bacevich, the Americans were avoiding military defeat by embracing political
failure."12

And not everyone thinks this will solely be political failure:

10
Associated Press. "Iraq MPs request more time for Kirkuk vote report",
google.com/hostednews, 15 Apr 09.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jC4rIrpGTvgIPZXqJf5eefVV3JXw
11
CIA World Factbook. "Iraq", 23 Apr 09. https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-
factbook/geos/iz.html
12
Ricks, Kindle version, highlight location 4074-4077.
Page 8 of 22
 "John McCreary, a veteran analyst for the Defense Intelligence Agency, predicted
in September 2008 that the arrangement imposed by the U.S. government on Iraqi
factions would unravel, likely with a Shiite attack on the U.S. presence. The Americans
have imposed power sharing on Iraq’s factions, he said, and that should worry us for
several reasons. First, it produces what looks like peace but isn’t. Second, in such
situations eventually one of the factions seeks to break out of the arrangement. “Thus,”
McCreary wrote, “power sharing is always a prelude to violence,” usually after the force
imposing it withdraws."13

The United States, now a paymaster both for the Sunnis and for the Shi'ite government,
is playing both sides off against each other, hoping for peaceful reconciliation. But Maliki's
government has already been jailing Sunni political challengers and installing Shi'ites in every
level of government. The Sunnis, for their part, will turn on the Americans if their pay stops
coming in, and the Saudis, seeking to re-establish their own buffer, will certainly invest a lot of
money into arming the Sunnis and destabilizing the increasingly centralized Shi'ite Maliki
government in Iraq. The Sunnis feel marginalized with little sway on the Shi'ite government.
Indeed, Maliki has taken steps to retain a policy of excluding "Ba'athists", code for Sunnis.14

And, lastly, will the Shi'ites remain part of Iraq, for that matter? Robert Baer
pessimistically adds:

"Yet Basra and its surrounding area are not really part of Iraq anymore. Quietly,
without firing a single shot, the Iranians have effectively annexed the entire south, fully
one-third of Iraq. In Basra today, the preferred currency is the Iranian rial. The Iraqi
police, the military, and at least one of its intelligence services answer not to Baghdad, but
to the Iranian-backed political parties, SCIRI, Da’wa, and other Shia groups under
Tehran’s control. But it’s not just the police; the same Iranian proxies run the
universities, the hospitals, and the social welfare organizations. They exert more control
over daily life in Basra than the central government does—and clearly more than Britain
or the United States."15

III.c. Ability to Retain Security and Autonomy

13
Ricks, Kindle version, highlight location 6135-6139.
14
Dagher, Sam. "Iraq Resists Pleas by U.S. to Placate Baath Party", NYTimes.com, 25 Apr
09. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/26/world/middleeast/26baathists.html?_r=3&ref=world
15
Baer, Kindle version, highlight location 1396-1401.
Page 9 of 22
 Thus, Iraq's best hopes might be to split apart into different areas. If the Sunnis manage
to take Al-Anbar and some of the ethnically Sunni areas to the north of Baghdad, while the
Shi'ites take the south and the Kurds take the north, then the regional geopolitics may stabilize
faster. What would be less predictable would be a continued nationalist government in Iraq that
binds together the Kurds, Sunnis, and Shi'ites. Regional influences and desires for autonomy
weigh heavily upon the fledgling government in Iraq.

Such outcomes may not seem so realistic at this point, but this is because the US is
currently acting as the regional balancer (albeit not very well) with its 130,000+ troops in Iraq.
Once the US withdraws, the security situation in the Middle East will quickly unravel and will
need to be re-balanced. This will occur whether the US leaves now or leaves in one hundred
years as some have suggested, because Iraq is too weak to protect itself and not geographically
blessed to have natural border protection. The prize of massive oil resources in Iraq is too much
to pass up for most countries, and the incentives to keep Iraq a buffer state for various nations is
too great for its neighbors to allow it to consolidate its autonomy.

IV. The National Iraqi Regime

IV.a. The Current Regime

It is difficult to define Iraq's current regime type. Much of the apparatus is dominated by
American influence to include a large American military presence. Iraq has had fairly successful
elections and referendums, but they were dominated by Shi'ites and Kurds; the Sunni minority
boycotted the first election, but it participated in the latest election after it realized it was only
hurting its cause by avoiding the vote. If there was voting fraud, it was only to confirm a
growing presence of the Shi'ites within government positions, as a direct result of Al-Maliki, a
Shi'ite, being the president of Iraq.

The latest governorate elections in 2009 consisted of 75% parties that were newly
formed, an encouraging sign for the complexification of the political elite within Iraq.16 Parties

16
Wikipedia.org. "Iraqi governorate elections, 2009", Wikipedia.org.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraqi_governorate_elections,_2009
Page 10 of 22
who appealed for a strong central government did very well within 51% total participation (a
drop from previous numbers), which was a negative piece of news for Kurdistani separatists.17

Wolfgang Merkel talks of the regime type "defective democracy", which he breaks up into
"exclusive", "domain", "illiberal", and "delegative".18 Iraq exhibits universal electoral rights, so it
is not "exclusive". However, it could be argued that Iraq does have elements of the other
classifications: Maliki does not have control of the military (the US influences the Iraqi military
more than Maliki does, and he will have to successfully usurp it once the Americans leave), but
he does control militias, access to Iran, and other "veto powers", as Merkel calls them. Iraq also
is not limited by the judiciary very much at all (as defined by "illiberal" and "delegative"), and
constitutional norms are constantly violated, so much that figures like Ayatollah Sistani (see
below) speak of the norms' viability as if they were near non-existent and never followed. As
Merkel defines it, "the principle of the rule of law is damaged, affecting the core of liberal self-
understanding, namely the equal freedom of all individuals." 19 Iraq is, if nothing else, firmly in
the hands of Shi'ites.

IV.a.i. Government Composition

While elections have been fairly okay, this has been under the watchful eye of the US
military and international observers. Behind the scenes, as noted before, al-Maliki has been
consolidating his power, as Juan Cole describes:

"Al-Zaman writing in Arabic says that Iraqi troops continued for a third straight
day their siege of the Sunni Fadl distrinct [sic]. The paper alleged that diseases are
starting to spread among women and children because of the blockade and curfew. The
Sunni Arab Awakening Council in Fadl was accused of trying to revive the banned Baath
Party, and its leader was arested [sic], provoking an uprising. But the Iraqi government's
crackdown on the Fadl district raised fears or provoked protests among other Sunni
Arabs. The Awakening Council leader in Baquba, Diyala province to the east, said that he
would stop fighting extremists for the government if Adil Mashhadani,the Fadl Council
17
Cole, Juan. "Centralizing Parties advancing in Iraq's Provincial Election Results", Informed
Comment blog, 02 Feb 09. http://www.juancole.com/2009/02/centralizing-parties-advancing-
in-iraqs.html
18
Merkel, Wolfgang. "Embedded and Defective Democracies," Democratization, Dec 04. pp.
33-58.
19
Merkel, p. 49.
Page 11 of 22
 leader, was not released. Meanwhile, US officers were frantically calling their Sunni
contacts and reassuring them that the US would go to bat for them and they would not be
left to the mercy of the Shiite militias."20

Maliki's executive branch dominates Iraqi politics on the national level. Sectarian and
ethnic based parties dominate governorate politics. Rumors of government crackdowns on non-
Shi'ites continue to circulate, although it is now not as bad as in 2005-2006 in Iraq, when the
militias and local police were very brazenly operating as one outfit, and when prisons were
unveiled through investigative journalism to show systematic torture of political prisoners much
like Abu Ghraib or Saddam Hussein's totalitarian political oppression practices.

That all said, there are signs that Maliki may be changing his colors as he becomes more
experienced in his position. Tom Ricks fairly gives Maliki praise for taking on militias in a large
battle in Basra to bring it back into Baghdad's orbit:

“Basra was a colossal failure in execution, but the decision to attack was a key
step forward for the government of Iraq,” concluded Brig. Gen. Dan Allyn, Gen. Austin’s
chief of staff at the American military headquarters for day-to-day operations in Iraq.
“They chose to take on Shia militias for the first time. That was a courageous decision not
properly prepared for.”21

...

"In military terms, the outcome was ambiguous. “It was totally unclear who won
or lost on the ground,” said Lemons, the Marine sergeant. But in political terms, Basra
was a clear victory for Maliki and his army, he and others said. 'Every Iraqi I have spoken
to since then about how the prime minister did claims Maliki proved he is a strong leader
willing to crack JAM.'”

This was a remarkable change because Maliki was between a rock and a hard place,
having to deal with an increasingly autonomous Basra that threatened his national government,
using military force against Shi'ites, many influenced by or birthed by Iranians whose parent
government would prefer Maliki not intervene. This move hints that Maliki has more ambitions
than simply being an Iranian proxy, but where do his interests lie, in toto? Was he trying to

20
Cole, Juan. "Fadl Still Blockaded; Truck Bomb in Mosul; Doha Summit Fails to Unify Arab
voices", Informed Comment blog, 31 Mar 09. http://www.juancole.com/2009/03/fadl-still-
blockaded-truck-bomb-in.html
21
Ricks, Kindle version, highlight location 5498-5507.
Page 12 of 22
impress American military masters, retain a hold of his sole port city for personal or national
ambitions, or do his preferences vary?

At any rate, it was an unprecedented victory for the new Iraq, from a central
government's point of view:

"In June 2008, Austin, the new corps commander, noted that, “For the first time,
the government has positive control of the three strategic nodes—Basra, Mosul, and
Baghdad.” It was indeed an accomplishment, even if it came during the sixth year of the
war. At Umm Qasr, Iraq’s only port, just south of Basra, the amount of cargo arriving
daily tripled from the spring to the summer."22

Maliki may have succeeded in unifying the country under a centralized government.
What will he do next, though? Maliki's roots were in below-average politics before he was thrust
into the national political system. He is also not tremendously popular within Iraq. He has a
tenuous hold on the various armed forces within Iraq, despite his purging of non-Shi'ites from
the government. It is likely he will be voted out and quickly forgotten.

On Thomas Ricks' blog, he quotes an American Capitol Hill staffer in 2009.

"Maliki got votes because people saw him as a strong leader (justice and security)
and because he's done a reasonable job spreading money around through tribal support
councils, hand-picked ministers with buckets of cash to spend after certain conflicts
(Basra, Mosul, Sadr City, couple other places). ISCI currently holds the keys to future
funds because they control the Finance Ministry (Bayan Jabr, a lovely sociopath-not sure
if you've ever had the pleasure of meeting him. He was the Interior Minister who had
torture chambers in the basement. He got punished by being promoted to Finance
Minister) and we are already seeing signs that, ostensibly due to budget cuts, support for
Maliki's tribal councils and a couple other initiatives is being reduced. (By the way, a fun
side effect of this is that the budget cuts have also provided an excuse to not absorb more
SOI into the security forces. Not that huge numbers were going in already, but that trickle
has generally stopped)."23

22
Ricks, Kindle version, highlight location 5561-5563.
23
Ricks, Thomas. "Iraq, the unraveling (VI): looming intra-Shia violence?", The Best Defense
blog, 24 Apr 09.
http://ricks.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2009/04/24/iraq_the_unraveling_vi_looming_intra_shia_vi
olence
Page 13 of 22
 Despite all this, it is wise to keep Michael McFaul's humble words in mind when
thinking about Maliki's and the government's future in Iraq: "Whether leaders seize
greatness or have it thrust upon them by circumstance is not a question that these cases
[former Soviet states discussed by McFaul] will settle."24 "After the breakthrough, it
seems as if no other leader could have united the opposition and toppled the regime. But
this 'fact' only seems obvious after success."

IV.a.ii. Opposition Parties

Once again, politics are dominated by Shi'ite-Kurdish-Sunni divides. The Kurds seek an
autonomous state to the north and have considered themselves to be independent for quite a
while now, as 60 Minutes reported, "The Kurds are very big on the trappings of statehood. It’s as
if they’re eager to prove that they exist. They have their own 175,000-man Army, the pesh
merga, which means "those who face death." When you arrive in Erbil, immigration officers give
your passport a Kurdish stamp. And if you want to see the Iraqi flag, don’t come to Kurdistan. It
has been banned."

Once again, foreign influences step in, as 60 Minutes continues:

"The Kurds have a saying: no friends but the mountains. There are 30 million
Kurds in the world, the largest nation without a state. But only five million reside inside
Iraq’s borders. The rest are in Iran, Syria and primarily Turkey. There are so many Kurds
in Turkey that the Turks are afraid that an independent Kurdish state would lead to
unrest; they are dead set against it.

"So Kurdish leaders believe that, at least for the time being, the answer is
federalism, a soft partition of Iraq into three parts. Kurdistan in the north, a Sunni state
in the middle and a Shiite region to the south, with Baghdad as only a nominal capital.

"While Barzani and Kurdistan may be paving the way for such a division, the
American government doesn’t want partition of any kind, no matter what it’s called. The
Bush administration and the U.S. military see Kurdistan not as a shining new nation but
as a shining example to the rest of a united Iraq."25

24
McFaul, Michael. "Transitions from Post-Communism", Journal of Democracy, Vol. 16, #3,
July 05, p. 17.
25
Schorn, Daniel. "Kurdistan: The Other Iraq", 60 Minutes, 05 Aug 07.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/02/16/60minutes/main2486679.shtml
Page 14 of 22
 American policy dictates national unity for Iraq and retaining its current borders,
while Turkey sees Kurdistan as a potential destabilizer for their own country, and it has
often "violated" Kurdistan's border with the US's permission (since it sees Kurdistan as
Iraqi territory) to go after terrorists.

The Kurds have oil, which is a trump card because everyone wants them at the table.
The Sunnis out west do not enjoy such a benefit since much of Al-Anbar is desert, even though
some oil reserves have recently been discovered.26 The Sunnis are in a bind because they are
outnumbered and have little leverage without external financing from Saudi and the US.

What the Sunnis fear most has yet to happen: ethnic cleansing once American forces
leave. This is a legitimate concern that will be covered more later.

IV.a.iii. The Military

The Iraqi military is more closely-aligned with the US military at this point, although
Maliki has nominal control over them. The US funds and trains the Iraqi military and has done
a fairly good job of professionalizing it. But such a process is not sustainable and once
Americans leave, the Iraqi military will be in disarray. Maliki's priority will be to try to assume
control of it immediately. However,

"Maliki's problem is that he really only directly controls a couple things-the

Special Forces (CTB) and the Operations Cells that have been set up in Baghdad, Basra,
Mosul, and I think one or two other places. But really, at the end of the day, he only
controls the Special Forces and two, maybe three, Army divisions who's commanders he
has on speed dial on his cell phone. The rest of the Army is Kurd or has heavy levels of
former Badr Brigade folks or whatever, and the Interior Minister is developing into a
political rival. So, his main avenues of response are likely to be to try to leverage US aid
(and the embassy and MNF-I are being a little leery of this so as not to seem to be picking
winners) or to go after some of his opponents. There have been a couple raids and heavy
handed use of Iraqi Special Forces, and some of it seems to have been aimed at Maliki's
political opponents, including ISCI supporters/officials (it's a little unclear)."27

26
Roggio, Bill. "Oil, Anbar and the Insurgency", The Long War Journal blog, 21 Feb 07.
http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2007/02/oil_anbar_and_the_in.php
27
Ricks, Thomas. "Iraq, the unraveling (VI): looming intra-Shia violence?", The Best Defense
blog, 24 Apr 09.
http://ricks.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2009/04/24/iraq_the_unraveling_vi_looming_intra_shia_vi
olence
Page 15 of 22
IV.a.iv. Missing Players

Most striking about the political system in Iraq is that the most influential people within
Iraq are not represented within the current government. If one traveled to Iraq and talked to
people on the street in 2005-2006 (when this author was there), the Iraqi Shi'ites, soldiers and
civilians, would ask you whether you knew who Sistani was and how great he was. Posters of
Sadr would line the walls of souks in Sadr City, the slum of Baghdad. Sunni tribal leaders would
often stay hidden among their people to avoid targeting by American military and Al-Qaeda
alike. Ba'athists have been blackballed completely.

How can Iraq make a serious claim at being a consolidating democracy when so many of
the key figures involved in shaping Iraqi identity and opinion are ignored or boycotting
participation? The reality is a bit more nuanced.

"Al-Zaman [The Times of Baghdad] reports in Arabic that that Grand Ayatollah
Ali Sistani, the spiritual leader of Iraq's Shiites, was asked by Agence France Presse if he
supported the return of members of the former Baath party to public life. He is said to
have replied that this matter is governed by the Iraqi Constitution, which must be obeyed.
(The constitution outlaws the Baath Party). The AFP question was prompted by
statements made by Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa after his meeting with
Sistani a couple of weeks ago. Moussa implied that Sistani favored national reconciliation
with all Iraqis. Sistani in his reply appeared to repudiate Moussa's report of their
conversation and to underline his own commitment to continued debaathification."

"At the same time, the Islamic Mission Party (Da`wa) led by Prime Minister Nuri
al-Maliki called for the criminalization of the Baath Party, on the grounds that it issued a
law in 1980 making it a capital crime to belong to the Da'wa, and carried out numerous
pogroms against Da'wa members. This call appears to envision going beyond firing
Baathists and forbidding them to hold political office to actually prosecuting them for
party membership. Since Sunnis were disproportionately present in the Baath Party
(though there were plenty of Shiites in it, too), any such step would lay an especially
heavy burden on the Sunni Arabs."28

28
Cole, Juan. "Fadl Still Blockaded; Truck Bomb in Mosul; Doha Summit Fails to Unify Arab
voices", Informed Comment blog, 31 Mar 09. http://www.juancole.com/2009/03/fadl-still-
blockaded-truck-bomb-in.html
Page 16 of 22
It is interesting that Sistani takes the constitutional viewpoint. However, him being an Iranian
Shi'ite, it would be in his best interest to continue a policy of de-Ba'athication. The US has
attempted to make overtures to him but he has avoided any contact with the Americans on Iraqi
nationalism and anti-occupational grounds:

"Ayatollah Ali Sistani is very roughly the pope of Shia Islam. This is by virtue of
the fact that Sistani has the most followers among Shia Islam’s largest subsect, “Twelver
Shia,” so called because of its tenet that the prophet was followed by twelve divinely
chosen successors. About 80 percent of Shia follow Sistani’s spiritual guidance. Generally
viewed as apolitical, a moderate, and a rival to the Iranian clerics—a “quietist” cleric—he
was the man the United States and Britain had pinned their hopes on to line up Iraq’s
Shia behind the occupation and shepherd them into building a modern, secular,
democratic Iraqi state. Our ayatollah on our white horse."29

So Sistani, surprisingly, has not proven as useful as initially thought.

"Having had almost no contact with average Iraqis, Sistani comes across as
cloistered, aloof, and elitist—in other words, little better than an exile. He may be more
credible than Ahmed Chalabi, but the Iraqis can’t help but look at Sistani as a foreigner.
Sistani isn’t as powerful as the raw number of his followers suggests."30

Underneath the hood of Iraq, force and violence still reign. Cosmetically, there are
elections and politicians speak of democracy, but citizens on the street recognize militias, tribal
loyalties, and sectarian neighborhood divides.

"Washington and London had been encouraged when Sistani supported Iraq’s
constitutional referendum and parliamentary elections. (Then again, Iran and Iran’s
proxies did the same. With the Shia a majority in Iraq, this wasn’t a surprise.) But
democracy wasn’t what was at stake in Iraq; armed force was. Without a militia, Sistani
couldn’t control the street. He was unable to stop intra-Shia violence or Shia
assassination squads, or influence the Shia government in Baghdad. Several of his
assistants were assassinated. And so today—little different from Saddam’s era—Sistani
rarely leaves his house in Najaf. He is no more capable of controlling Iraq than Karbalai
was Karbala."31

29
Baer, Kindle version, highlight location 686-691.
30
Baer, Kindle version, highlight location 715-718.
31
Baer, Kindle version, highlight location 752-757.
Page 17 of 22
IV.b. Iraq's Defective Democracy

Wolfgang Merkel helpfully continues his analysis of defective democracies by listing

causes of such a regime. The causes most pertinent to Iraq are Merkel's "level of
modernization", "social capital", civil society and national identity, and "type of authoritarian
predecessor regime".

IV.b.i. Level of Modernization

Merkel talks about the "more unequal the distribution of societal resources" being a core
component of a defective democracy -- within Iraq, almost no one gets any electricity or water
every day. Infrastructure is not only damaged from war and from looting, but it is siphoned to
pro-Shi'ite neighborhoods before Sunni neighborhoods. The Shi'ites do not get much access to
resources compared to a developed nation, but there is clearly still routing of resources based on
ethnicity and religious creed. Electricity is mainly produced through gasoline generators,
making gasoline a particularly sensitive topic for Iraqis who now pay black market rates instead
of the pennies they paid before American occupation. Again, Shi'ites have co-opted that
resource as well. Merkel aptly describes this situation as "further [complicating] the
enforcement of constitutional and democratic standards against the rational self-interest of the
powerful and endangers marginalized groups' loyalty to the regime, even after democratic
institutions are formally established."32

IV.b.ii. Social Capital

Merkel talks about defective democracies being more likely if "social capital is
accumulated along ethnic and religious lines".33 Many of Iraqi's white collar talent has already
fled the country after the sectarian conflict in 2006. Iraq, which previously consisted of a
sultanistic regime where all parties sought influence and employment with the Ba'athist
government as it was the only employer in town, has now turned into a regime dominated by
ethnic and religious politics. This has only worsened with time, as Tom Ricks explains in the
2005 elections:

32
Merkel, p. 53.
33
Merkel, p. 53.
Page 18 of 22
 "In the 9 primarily Shiite provinces, the leading Shiite party, the United Iraqi
Alliance, won 70 of 81 seats. The Kurds swept the 35 seats in their region, and Sunni
parties won 15 of 17 seats in al Anbar and Salahuddin provinces. The election results in
Baghdad, Nineveh, Diyala, and Kirkuk also resembled the sectarian makeup of each
province. This may have helped light the fuse of the small civil war that exploded in
Baghdad months after. As Petraeus himself would put it much later, 'The elections
hardened sectarian positions as Iraqis voted largely based on ethnic and sectarian group
identity.'”34

IV.b.iii. Civil Society, Autonomous Space, and National Identity

There is little interpersonal trust within Iraq anymore. Checkpoints still exist to check
sectarian identity between neighborhoods. "Ethnically mobilized civil societies often reveal the
'dark side' of 'civic' mobilization against other communities," according to Merkel, perfectly
describing the Iraq situation.35

Likewise, there is no autonomous space within Iraq to encourage active dialogue outside
the space of the defective democratic government. The Muslim world is an interesting
counterpoint to Catholic countries because Islam is near-required to be integral with
government, as Muslims mostly believe that the teachings of Muhammad must be followed
within the government, to varying degrees. Whereas in Catholic populations, they could relate
to an international message of social justice and equality, there is no conduit to an international
Muslim faith that is productive towards democratization -- in fact what is more powerful is the
international call for a stricter form of Muslim rule under shari'a law. For the time being, this is
the case, but perhaps Islam will eventually push downward a more democratic message.

The closest Iraq has to an autonomous space is satellite television. This trend is affecting
the rest of the Muslim world as well -- there are now many different satellite channels for
Muslims to watch internationally which project not only a Muslim point of view, but an Arab or
Persian point of view, and also more liberal Muslim views able to debate against more
conservative Muslim views, as typified by Al-Jazeera, the most successful liberalizing and
investigating TV station, with its slogan, "the opinion...and the other opinion". Satellite TV has
had magnificent effects in distributing far more information to viewers across the Muslim world

34
Ricks, Kindle version, highlight location 684-688.
35
Merkel, p. 53.
Page 19 of 22
such that now Muslims are extremely sensitive to global events and are well-informed of large
debates, despite many of these satellite stations being state-run.

Despite all this, there is indeed Iraqi national identity, part of a memory of their vicious
war against Iran. Prior to that war, Iraq was a fairly successful country, proud of its high levels
of literacy and education, rivaling the Egyptians for intellectual clout. While Iraq's borders are
somewhat arbitrary, its identity is still relevant even with sectarian and tribal conflict both
competing for the hearts and minds of Iraqis.

IV.b.iv. Type of Authoritarian Predecessor Regime

Merkel says that the longer-entrenched a totalitarian and sultanistic regime, the more
institutionalized the electoral rewards for circumvention of democratic checks and balances in
the post-totalitarian transition. Certainly Hussein was sultanistic and controlled all apparatuses
within Iraq, and while the former regime has been completely replaced, the opposition has filled
that power vacuum with similar practices.

V. Conclusion: A Future Regime

Within American journalism, where the most serious discussion of the future of Iraq is
occurring, the picture being painted is one of nervous anticipation of the worst. Tom Ricks, who
gives a more fair interpretation of what's going on in Iraq, cannot help but conclude at the end of
his book "The Gamble" that the odds of Iraq democratizing and consolidating is not good:

"McCain’s grand vision was not only at odds with the more restrained goals in
Petraeus’s campaign plan—simply of “sustainable security”—but verged on fantasy. It
resembled President Bush’s 2003 rhetoric, but flew in the face of five additional years of
painful evidence about the imprudence of that grandiose approach. It was unlikely that
Iraq would wind up a strong or genuinely democratic nation, with not only elections but
also rule of law and respect for the rights of its minorities. There was even less chance
that Iraq would be an ally against Iran, given that the Shiite politicians that the United
States had helped to power had taken refuge in Iran during Saddam’s time, and had
maintained close ties even during the U.S. occupation. Rather, the best case scenario was
that in the long run, Iraq would calm down, be mildly authoritarian, and probably

Page 20 of 22
 become an ally of Iran, but, with luck, not one that threatened the rest of the Arab
world."36

Some military officers were even less optimistic:

"Marine Col. Tom Greenwood, who had been a member of the critical “council of
colonels” that in the fall of 2006 had pushed the Pentagon toward recognizing some hard
truths about Iraq, said the surge essentially had papered over the problems of Iraq
without solving them. “I still think that the Maliki government is riddled with
sectarianism and is dysfunctional,” he said in mid-2008, and “that we have de facto
partition between the Kurds, Shia and Sunni, that Iraq is little more than an Iranian
proxy, that we have destabilized the region worse than Saddam Hussein ever did, that the
downward trend in U.S. casualties will be short-lived.” What’s more, some of the
country’s political tensions were worsening, most notably between Arabs and Kurds over
oil and the status of Kirkuk. “As Nouri al-Maliki has become more capable and more
confident, he’s actually become less inclined to reach out to those he most needs to
reconcile with,” said Colin Kahl of the Center for a New American Security, a Washington
think tank. Masoud Barzani, the president of the Kurdish region, charged the Baghdad
government with forgetting its commitments and acting like 'a totalitarian regime.'”37

It is unlikely that Iraq will consolidate its democracy without many stages of political
turmoil in the interim. Regionally, the Muslim world is undergoing a massive upheaval, with
the advent of radical Salafism and Wahhabism originating out of Sunni states and a
reinvigorated Shi'ite base taking advantage of an unleashed Shi'ite Iraqi population and the
weakening of the Saudis and Pakistanis. At the heart of this is Iran, which has many fingers in
Iraq's pie. Iraq is being torn apart from the north from Turkey and Kurdistan, from the
southwest in Saudi, and from the south and east by Iran.

Iraq's best course of action from its own point of view is to consolidate its government
and hunker itself down from outsiders, which is what Maliki seems to be doing in strengthening
his central government. The temptation will be great for Maliki to eschew pluralist
democratization, since the major parties outside of his Shi'ite parties, in the Kurds and Sunnis,
are not as intent on remaining part of Iraq. If Maliki wishes to retain Iraqi unity, he will need
Iranian and American financial and military support, one of which is intent on leaving (the US)
and one which aims to use Iraq as a buffer state (Iran).

36
Ricks, Kindle version, highlight location 5615-5622.
37
Ricks, Kindle version, highlight location 5760-5768.
Page 21 of 22
 Still, Maliki and subsequent governments may defy extremely poor circumstances and
predictions for the future of Iraq. Bold leadership and shrewd diplomacy with neighbors to
enhance regional security may reduce temptations to consolidate power in one central
government. But the trend is towards Iraq becoming an authoritarian state using nationalism
and centralization to convince its people that it is needed to protect national integrity. After
that, Iraq would be unlikely to democratize until a broad move towards democratization
successfully dominoes across the Middle East.

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