Matthew Yglesias » Rigging the Vote

Aug 17th, 2008 at 9:10 am

Rigging the Vote

Purple Finger

Dr. Irak, back from a recent trip to Iraq, refers to notes that “many U.S. commanders, coalition officials, and Iraqis expressed growing concerns that the “Powers That Be” (Dawa, ISCI, the IIP, PUK, and KDP) will use their monopoly on official power–including their dominance of governors, provincial councils, and the Iraqi Security forces–to tilt the provincial elections in their favor against the “Powers That Aren’t” (the Sadrists, Awakening groups, independents, and secularists).” Like Jim Henley I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see election-rigging of just that sort, but I’m a bit skeptical that these are “growing concerns.” As Jim says, the United States strongly backed the anti-Sadr operation in Basra that laid the groundwork for electoral hijinks.

The difference is that once upon a time the Powers That Be were seemingly friendly to a permanent bases deal, so it was important for us to help them maintain power by hook or by crook. It turns out, however, that a more confident Nouri al-Maliki isn’t really any more interested in paying host to an open-ended US military occupation than Muqtada al-Sadr is. Under the circumstances, US officials are perhaps suddenly more inclined toward skepticism about Maliki’s democratic credentials. Either way, as long as we follow the perverse continuing the operation is the goal of the operation mindset success will, of course, always remain just beyond the horizon.

Comments
21

Filed under: elections, iraq,

21 Responses to “Rigging the Vote”

El Cid Says:
August 17th, 2008 at 9:30 am
You are forgetting that The Surge (TM) will fix this too, as long as you remain committed and faithful to The Surge (TM) in your heart, and trust The Surge (TM) in all things.

The Surge (TM) bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Even if you have prophetic powers, and understand all kinds of mysteries and knowledge, but have not The Surge (TM), you are as a clanging cymbal or noisy gong.
Berken Says:
August 17th, 2008 at 10:41 am
Wow, they really are learning things from all those Young Republican twerps sent over to run the reconstruction.

As has been the case consistently since the initial dispersal of Saddam’s Sunni political apparatus, people who aren’t the least bit interested in real democracy are taking over and doing what they feel is necessary to secure their power base. No surprise here at all. We just need to stop providing them with a cover story.
Arnold Evans Says:
August 17th, 2008 at 11:14 am
Matt:

It seems to me that contra your formal training, you have a stronger grasp of the Middle East than Russia at this point.

You don’t go into the dispute over Zionism, which is the central dispute of the region, often or deeply enough, but other than that, in foreign policy, you are becoming a Middle East specialist.
Richard Steven Hack Says:
August 17th, 2008 at 11:05 pm
Arnold, I’m not sure Matt has a strong grasp of anything in foreign policy – he seems clueless about Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iran. And he won’t discuss Israel and Zionism because he’d find himself on the street very quickly once Dershowitz and that lot homed in on him.

Anyway, this piece seems relevant to the post:

US Officials Admit Worry over a ‘Difficult’ al-Maliki
http://www.antiwar.com/porter/?articleid=13313

Colin Kahl, a fellow at the Center for a New American Security (CNAS) – which has supported a long-term US military presence in Iraq – told the press this week that there was “a certain degree of grudging respect for al- Maliki” among officials with whom we met, “but more often concern about his emerging overconfidence which is making it difficult to interact with him.”

That assessment contrasts with statements of George W. Bush administration officials implying that al-Maliki’s public demands for a timetable for US military withdrawal are merely negotiating ploys or political grandstanding.

US officials admitted that al-Maliki’s overconfidence has influenced the status of forces negotiations, according to Kahl. None of the US officials in Baghdad would “lead off with badmouthing the prime minister,” Kahl said in an interview with IPS, but upon probing further, “you get a sense they are concerned that the al-Maliki regime has an inflated sense of his power.”

Al-Maliki’s new sense of confidence has been accompanied by a new political identity as a nationalist foe of the occupation, according to Kahl. “He is successfully fashioning himself as an Iraqi hero who kicked the Americans out. That makes him difficult to negotiate with.”

One of the consequences of al-Maliki’s perception of the new power relations in Iraq is that he is even less inclined than before to make accommodations with former Sunni insurgents now on the US payroll in the militias called “Sons of Iraq.”

Kahl said in the briefing that, of the 103,000 Sunnis belonging to those militias, the Iraqi government had promised to take into the security forces only about 16,000. But in fact, it has approved only 600 applicants thus far, according to Kahl, and most of those have turned out to be Shia rather than Sunni militiamen.

“There’s even some evidence that [al-Maliki] wants to start a fight with the ‘Sons of Iraq,’” said Kahl. “Al-Maliki doesn’t believe he has to accommodate these people. He will only do it if we twist his arm to the breaking point.”

Kahl said al-Maliki has made a series of moves that have consolidated his personal power position within the state apparatus as well as in relation to various armed groups in the country. He has put intelligence agencies directly under his control and has set up major military operation centers around the country which report directly to the prime minister’s office.

Even more important, however, Al-Maliki’s power position has also been bolstered by the decisions by nationalist Shiite leader Moqtada al-Sadr not to launch a concerted military resistance to US and Iraqi government campaigns to weaken his Mahdi Army in 2007 and then to give up his political-military power positions in Basra, Sadr City and Amarah in 2008 without having been militarily defeated.

Petraeus and the US military command in Iraq have asserted that al-Sadr’s decisions reflected the fact that the Mahdi Army had been weakened by US military pressures. However, the broader set of developments over the past year suggests that the primary reason for Sadr’s willingness to give up military resistance was a strategic understanding with Iran to shift to political and diplomatic resistance to the US military presence.

Then there is the threat of immediate troop withdrawal if al-Maliki does not toe the line. Kahl said he was told in Iraq that, in one of the regular videoconferences Bush holds with al-Maliki, he said, “If the negotiations crash and burn, I will be forced to pull out all US troops by Jan. 1.”

That Bush threat “got al-Maliki’s attention,” Kahl believes. He advocates the use of such threats to force al-Maliki to accommodate the interests of the Sunnis as well as those of the Sadrists, in order to bring them fully into the political system. Otherwise, Kahl argues, the security gains of 2007 and 2008 will ultimately be reversed.
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Matt Yglesias

Rigging the Vote

21 Responses to “Rigging the Vote”

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