“Freedom and democracy” American-style
“All who live in tyranny and
hopelessness can know: the United States will not ignore your oppression, or
excuse your oppressors. When you stand for your liberty, we will stand with
you.
“Democratic
reformers facing repression, prison, or exile can know: America sees you for
who you are: the future leaders of your free country.”
These are the words of President
Bush in his inaugural
address on 20 January. Bringing
freedom and democracy to the world, beginning with the Arab world, is now
apparently the primary focus of US foreign policy.
Palestine
There
are words, and there are deeds. When
President Bush came to power in 2001, there was one Arab leader who had been
elected by an unambiguously fair democratic process. That was Yasser Arafat.
But for the next four years until his death, President Bush refused to
meet President Arafat and treat him as the duly elected leader of the Palestinian
people.
President
Bush was so committed to bringing democracy to the Middle East that he refused
to deal with the one Arab leader with an unambiguous electoral mandate. Palestinians were told to get a new
leadership because the US (and Israel) didn’t like the one they had elected in
1996 – and getting a new leadership was a condition for negotiations leading to
a Palestinian state.
Here are
his words in what was hailed as a landmark
speech on 24 June 2002, because he committed the US to a so-called
two-state solution in Palestine:
“Peace requires a new and different Palestinian
leadership, so that a Palestinian state can be born.
“I call on the Palestinian people to elect new leaders,
leaders not compromised by terror. I call upon them to build a practising
democracy, based on tolerance and liberty. If the Palestinian people actively
pursue these goals, America and the world will actively support their efforts.
“If the Palestinian people meet these goals, they will be
able to reach agreement with Israel and Egypt and Jordan on security and other
arrangements for independence. And when the Palestinian people have new
leaders, new institutions and new security arrangements with their neighbours,
the United States of America will support the creation of a Palestinian state
whose borders and certain aspects of its sovereignty will be provisional until
resolved as part of a final settlement in the Middle East.”
If the Palestinians get a
new leadership acceptable to the US, then they can have a state. Otherwise, they can’t. That’s democracy American-style. Freedom means freedom to vote for leaders of
whom America approves.
It may be that Bush himself believes the dogma he is
spouting that the interests of the US would be best served if every state in
the world had a democratically elected leadership, reflecting the views of its
people. But it must be assumed that
somebody in the White House has read recent polls of Arab opinion, which
suggest that the US is viewed unfavourably by an overwhelming majority in Egypt (98%), in Saudi Arabia (94%), in Morocco
(88%), and in Jordan (78%).
(This data is from a poll by
Zogby International in July 2004, which is quoted in the Defense Science
Board report on Strategic
Communications, page 44. The equivalent figures for April 2002 are Egypt (76%), Saudi Arabia (87%), Morocco (61%), and
Jordan (61%), which shows how the US-led invasion of Iraq has caused its
popularity in the Arab world to plummet.)
It isn’t obvious that
democratically elected regimes in these states would dance to America’s tune in
the way that the existing regimes do. A
democratically elected Saudi administration could easily lead to the $100
barrel of oil.
But, of course, Iraq is a
shining example of the US, having liberated it from an evil tyrant, ushering in
a new age of democracy and freedom, isn’t it?
An election, made possible by the exercise of US military force, took
place on 30 January 2005. Could there
be a finer example of US commitment to freedom and democracy?
It is instructive at this
point to recall the sequence of events that led to these elections being
held. Back in July 2003, the US
governor of Iraq, Paul Bremer, appointed a 25-member Iraqi Governing
Council. In the following months, he
displayed no public enthusiasm for holding elections: he showed no discomfort
at governing Iraq without a trace of a democratic mandate. Not only that, he showed no discomfort at
issuing Orders, the purpose of which was to alter fundamentally the economic
system operating in Iraq, allowing, for example, state owned enterprises to be
sold off to Iraqis and to foreigners.
One could be forgiven for thinking that the US didn’t give a
fig for the opinions of Iraqis, notwithstanding its dedication to bringing
freedom and democracy to Iraq. One
could be forgiven for thinking that its primary objectives in Iraq were to make
it a land safe for international capital to
exploit and for the US to establish a large military presence in the Middle
East.
Without the military
resistance to the occupation, it is a reasonable bet that this would have
happened. After the resistance made its
presence felt in the autumn of 2003, however, Bremer was called back to
Washington for a crisis meeting. The
first plans to hold direct elections leading to any Iraqi government emerged at
that point.
There was to be a “handover”
of power to an Interim Iraqi government on 30 June 2004, the date being chosen
to reassure the US electorate before President’s re-election campaign began in
earnest that Iraq wasn’t another Vietnam. This date was set in an
“agreement” (entitled Timeline to a Democratic, Sovereign and Secure Iraq)
between the US and its appointees on the Iraqi Governing Council on 15 November
2003.
However, despite the dedication of the US Government to
freedom and democracy in Iraq, it wasn’t planned that the Interim Government be
directly elected – a National Assembly was to come into being through local
caucuses, and the Interim Government was supposed to emerge from this
Assembly. What is more, this unelected
government was supposed to continue in power until a constitution was drawn up
and a government was elected under it.
This was not scheduled until December 2005.
These plans were scuppered by
Ayatollah Sistani, who demanded that the Interim Government be elected. The UN was brought in to resolve the
dispute. The UN agreed with the US that
there wasn’t time to organise direct elections before 30 June, and that date
couldn’t be moved back because of the US presidential election. However, it was agreed that the Interim
Government would be chosen by the UN special representative, Lakhdar Brahimi, after
appropriate consultation with Iraqis.
In fact, the US rejected Brahimi’s choice for Prime Minister, and
appointed its old friend, Ayad Allawi.
Under pressure from Sistani, direct elections
were scheduled for 30 January 2005 to a National Assembly, out of which a
Transitional Government would be formed.
The Assembly would also be charged with drawing up a new constitution
for Iraq.
If the US had been anxious to hold elections in
Iraq, they could have been held within months of the invasion. Almost two years after the invasion,
elections have now been held, but the US was pushed into holding them (a) by
the Iraqi resistance, and (b) by Ayatollah Sistani. Had these pressures not been applied, most likely we would still
be awaiting plans for elections – and the US would be happily governing Iraq
without a trace of a mandate from the Iraqi people.
Labour & Trade Union Review
February 2005