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Democracy in Iraq: A Paper by Faisal Istrabadi
(August 6, 2002)

Prospects for Democracy in Iraq

Chairman Biden, Sen. Lugar, and Members of the Committee:

I am pleased to have this opportunity of contributing to the debate about the future of Iraq as it relates to the national interests of the United States, where I was born. I speak as an American citizen, but I do so as one who has lived in Saddam Hussein's Iraq, and one whose family fled the depredations of that regime. Too often, Mr. Chairman, others who have not experienced Iraq's Bacthist brutality first hand have arrogated to themselves the right to speak on behalf of Iraqi-Americans. Those of us who have experienced Saddam Hussein's savagery, however, are united in our belief that it is time for the United States to act to help the Iraqi people liberate themselves from the unspeakable oppression to which they are now subject.

In the post-September 11th world, there is no reasonable doubt that Iraq's current regime constitutes a clear and present danger to the vital national interests of the United States and our allies in the region. Whatever one may think of Iraq's current capabilities of projecting weapons of mass destruction, two things are known to an absolute certainty: This regime has spent untold billions of dollars in acquiring or attempting to acquire chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons; and it has actually used weapons of mass destruction against its own population as well against at least one neighboring country. Only the naive could find any comfort in their supposition that the regime does not now have such weapons in its armamentarium; no rational observer could doubt the demonstrated desire of this regime to amass such weapons. It is patently self-evident that we cannot take the risk that our vital interests will be jeopardized in the future as the regime continues to seek acquisition of these weapons.

Thus the Administration has the unmitigated support of Iraqi-Americans in its evident determination to eliminate what the President has rightly termed an evil regime. What we have not heard from this Administration, however, is its commitment, expressed at the highest levels, to the establishment of democracy in Iraq. The balance of my remarks, therefore, will be devoted to establishing, first, that it is in the vital national interests of the United States to foster democracy in the Middle East generally and in Iraq in particular; and, second, that Iraq and Iraqis are ready for democracy, notwithstanding - indeed partly because of - Iraq's history of tyranny during the past forty-four years.

A common criticism of US policy in the Middle East is that we are satisfied with the existence of petty dictatorships throughout most of the Arab world, as such regimes are easier to deal with than genuinely pluralistic governments. There may be truth to this analysis in terms of the history of our dealings in the area, particularly during the Cold War, when our vital interests made the defeat of the Soviet Bloc an imperative priority. In that fight, we made necessary accommodations which in a time of lesser peril we likely would not have made. The desideratum for ascertaining whom to support centered on one consideration: Was the regime pro- or anti-Communist?

Times, however, have changed. We have witnessed the crimes of 9/11 in which the majority of the terrorists who attacked us were nationals of one of the governments which we have consistently supported over the past five decades. Despotic regimes - necessary allies during the Cold War - have engendered bitter hatred against them from significant sectors within their own populations, resulting now in our being targeted largely because of our historic support of these petty tyrannies. These regimes have ironically only fanned the flames by attempting to extinguish any political sentiment not following the government line, so that a radical brand of Islamic militancy has arisen as the only medium of political dissent.

Democracy, therefore, becomes our greatest weapon - and our first line of defense - in the war against international terrorism represented by such groups as al-Qacidah and outlaw regimes such as Iraq's. I submit that, if the governments in the region tolerated genuine political diversity within their borders, it would be far less probable that the hate-filled jargon of an Usama bin Ladin could tempt people (even educated members of the professional class) in such countries. I am not suggesting that the United States needs to fight its current allies in the region, though it is reasonable to conclude that we must encourage that our Arab allies begin the process of transition to pluralism. In Iraq, however, a country which has challenged and continues to challenge our vital interests in the region, we have both the opportunity and the responsibility to ourselves to take a strong stand against the political intolerance which infects the region, and which has had such devastating consequences here. Helping to foster democracy in such countries as Iraq is an essential component in the war against militant fundamentalism in the region and throughout the Islamic world.

Aside from stemming the tide of radicalism, there are other pressing reasons for supporting the establishment of democracy in the Middle East, starting with Iraq. It is obviously in our interests to promote peaceful and friendly relations amongst all the nations of the region. It is a part of the American credo - and the history of the world over the past fifty years bears it out - that democracies do not go to war with each other. When disputes have arisen between democracies, they have been resolved almost universally through pacific means with reference, for instance, to principles of international law. In the absence of democracy, peace treaties in the region will mean very little so long as one of the signatories has assumed political power through violence or the threat of violence. Only when genuine democracies sign treaties with one another can peace truly be said to be worth more than the price of a single bullet.

Our interests in the region will last certainly as long as the oil supplies do, if not even longer. Stability - true stability - is not the product of an iron fist. That type of stability is only as long-lived as the period before the next coup or the assassin's bullet. True stability is engendered in the Middle East in the same manner as it is in every other part of the world: When citizens are enfranchised and thus have a stake in society. The fall of the late Shah of Iran should have taught us that lesson. After thirty years of iron rule, the Shah's overthrow resulted in an adversarial relationship with Iran which continues to damage our objectives in the region. Stability - measured in terms of our interests in the region - can only come about when the peoples of the Middle East are governed by genuinely responsive governments, governments dedicated to improving the lot of their citizenry by promoting economic development and regional and international commercial relations. Such development is only possible, it seems to me, as pluralistic institutions arise to replace the cult of personality or family extant in most Arab countries today. The experience of Eastern Europe after the fall of the Soviet Union shows that, as governments tend towards democracy, economic relations between countries expand and tensions are generally lowered. There is every reason to conclude that democracy will have the same salutary effect throughout the Middle East, starting with Iraq.

Some question, in the specific case of Iraq, whether the Iraqi populous is ready for democracy. I submit that it is. Since the coup d'etat of 1958 in which Iraq's nascent political institutions were utterly destroyed to be replaced by the rule of a single man, Iraq has been subjected to the full spectrum of tyranny, from the leftists/communists of 1958-1963 to the fascism of Saddam Hussein. More particularly, over the past twenty years, Iraqis have paid a mortifying price for the absence of legitimate political institutions: 250,000 killed in the disastrous war with Iran; 200,000 Kurds killed in the Anfal Campaign; 200,000 killed in the Gulf War, first by allied forces, then by Saddam's thugs; then came the devastation of twelve years of on-going sanctions. The number of Iraq's dead over this twenty-year period thus approaches one million souls.

Iraqis have learnt the lessons of the consequences of tyranny. When given an opportunity, and with our help, the Kurds of Northern Iraq have re-established political institutions reminiscent of those which predated the coup of 1958. They have, for instance, elected a parliament to legislate in the areas we protect in the northern no-fly zone. The example set by the Kurds is a great lesson, not only for Iraqis, but for us as well. Iraq's Kurdish citizens began the daunting task of rebuilding a civil society at the first opportunity they had of doing so without fear of retaliation from Saddam. There is every reason to be sanguine that the rest of Iraq's population yearns equally to build a society based upon the fundamental freedoms we enjoy. Indeed, Iraq's opposition groups have recognized this truth; across the political spectrum, from the Iraqi Communist Party to the Islamists, Iraq's opposition groups have committed themselves to a democratic Iraq after the fall of Saddam and his thugs.

There are other reasons to be optimistic about Iraq's future. Iraq's population is relatively well educated. First, the literacy rate in Iraq is between 85-90%, a figure actually higher than ours in the United States. (I note, in any case, that education is hardly a sine qua non for democracy, as the examples of India and Bangladesh attest). This fact bodes well for a future, civilized discourse and for the rule of law in Iraq. Second, Iraq's intelligentsia, largely dispersed in western diaspora, is second to none. Its physicians, engineers, scientists, humanists, and thinkers occupy positions at leading academic and commercial institutions the world over. Their contribution to a post-Bacthist future will be indispensable in aiding a transfer of western conceptions of self-governance and Weltanschauung to Iraq's polity. The United States has already undertaken to bring together these expatriated experts, so that thoughts about rebuilding Iraq's social, political, and physical infrastructure can begin to germinate even before the inevitable demise of this regime.

Another reason to be optimistic about Iraq's future involves the high degree of cohesion enjoyed by Iraq's various ethnic and confessional groups. On this issue, we must guard against myths which the media have begun to peddle. A highly respected commentator, for example, recently observed that Iraq's ethnic and confessional groups are "long-time enemies." Another recent writer described Iraq as an "apartheid" state where Iraq's Sunnis playing the role of the Afrikaners. While such observations may contribute to an emerging orthodoxy, they are utterly wrong, and completely ignore Iraq's history as a nation over the last eighty years.

Sharif Ali bin al-Hussein has correctly pointed out that there is not one instance in Iraq's modern history of , say, a Sunnite village rising to massacre its Shiite inhabitants, or vice versa. The same is true of Iraq's other confessional and ethnic groups, with the exception of the maltreatment of Iraq's Jewish population over the issue of Israel in the late 1940's and early 1950's. Other than that one example, in those instances in which massacres of ethnic or religious groups have taken place, Sharif Ali is right in noting that guilt has always lain with the central government in Baghdad in exerting its authority over the population in question. Two prime recent examples are Saddam's monstrous chemical attacks in Halabja and other Kurdish areas, and his brutal suppression of the rebels in northern and southern Iraq in 1991. Saddam Hussein knows no tribal, confessional, or ethnic loyalties. He has killed members of his own family at the slightest suspicion of disloyalty. The point is this: When Iraq's central government does not play a malevolent role, Iraq's ethnic and religious groups have maintained a high degree of harmony and accord. Given a non-militarized, democratic government more devoted to development at home and peace with its neighbors, there is every reason to believe that Iraqis will rebuild a pacific, cohesive, pluralistic nation.

Nay-sayers, again quoting the same distinguished journalist whom I quoted earlier, observe that one cannot expect a "Jeffersonian" democracy in Iraq. Perhaps so, but the democracy which Thomas Jefferson helped to engender was not "Jeffersonian" either. Jefferson, in combination with other Southern aristocrats, owned hundreds of thousands of slaves, and the franchise was limited to white property-owning males. Nor is our own journey toward civil rights and full equality concluded, as the need for laws such as the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the Civil Rights Act of 1991, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, and other such laws demonstrates. We must not sacrifice our idealism and the earnest hopes of Iraq's people because we might fail to achieve perfection in Iraq.

True democracy coupled with the rule of law and the protection of civil rights is our enduring legacy to the world. Promotion of our values in Iraq is no less a matter of the national interest than it has been in Eastern Europe in the post-Soviet era. It is time for the wall of despotism to fall in the Arab and Islamic worlds, and Iraq can lead the way. If we act against the regime in Baghdad, as I believe we must, we will have not only the opportunity but the responsibility of facilitating the aspirations of Iraq's people for the establishment of legitimate political institutions. If we settle for anything less, we will not only have betrayed Iraq's suffering masses, but our own ideals as well.

Respectfully submitted,

Feisal Amin Istrabadi, Esq.
954 Eastport Centre Drive
Valparaiso, IN 46383
(219) 477-1880
fai@niia.net