WASHINGTON, 11 December 2003 — America’s serious recession is finally ending — and just in time to suit President George W. Bush. That’s a major plus for Bush, and a heartbreaker for presidential candidate Howard Dean, or whoever else Democratic voters will decide upon in the next 11 months.
Unlike former President George Herbert Walker Bush, it looks like his son is going to be very lucky. There have been major economic changes in the past four years, and even though a lot of very highly-paid jobs are gone — perhaps forever — consumer confidence is back and growing rapidly, and it seems the economy will continue to improve.
With prosperity at least around the corner, election forecasters can focus their undivided attention on the war in Iraq. Voters’ attention is shifting. Things are not going at all well in Iraq, and the voters will have to decide who takes the blame. There is a thick miasma of bloodshed in the so-called Sunni triangle, from Bakuba in the east and Faluja in the west and all the way up to Tikrit, and even in Mosul to the north.
In Iraq’s south — from Kuwait north to Basra in the east, to Nassiriya to the west and on to the holy cities of Karbala and Najaf and even in Baghdad itself — things are more stable. All Iraqis, however, whether they are Shiites, Sunni, Kurds or members of the tiny Christian minorities, are deeply concerned about the future of their country.
It is clear that US administrator L. Paul Bremer has not solved the major problem of what to do about security. Some said from the beginning that US authorities should have allowed Iraqi veterans to return in order to stop the looting and destruction that followed the US Army’s victory. It seems likely that someone will have to pay a political price for such a grave turn of events.
One prime candidate for “taking the fall” is Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, with his ever-cocksure attitude that he is always right. Another is Undersecretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, who has had no military experience at all. He and his colleagues have been consumed with giving Israel carte blanche for all the Iraqi petroleum it will ever need and eliminating other potential opponents such as Iran and Syria.
Certainly another prime candidate for taking the blame is Bremer himself, “the de facto viceroy” of Iraq. Luckily for Bremer, it appears that he and Bush have become soul mates, based on Bremer’s smooth delivery in crisis situations and the speed with which he can fix a “bobble” when things go badly. Like CIA Director George Tenet, a holdover from the Clinton administration, Bush likes him and seems to depend on him come what may.
Secretary of State Colin Powell, who has his own political clout, appears safe. Nor is National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice in danger of taking the fall.
As November 2004 nears, presidential election strategist Karl Rove will move to the fore. He will make some new ground rules — among them that Iraq must be finished, come what may, by June 30, with no visible impediments remaining. That may be easier said than done, but that’s Rove’s ultimatum and woe betide anyone who doesn’t stay on schedule. Being on schedule means winning the election, after all, and not staying on schedule means losing it.
Right now Iraq’s Shiites are undergoing a major electoral crisis of their own. Their most influential cleric, the Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, has insisted that a provisional government be chosen through direct elections before a constitution is drafted. That would delay all of Washington’s plans to be out of Iraq by the end of June.
Over the last weekend of November, members of the Iraqi Governing Council faced up to the fact that, given the June 30 US deadline, they cannot be delayed by Sistani’s stalling tactics. Even though not all Shiite delegates have made their wishes clear, it appears certain that there will be no such delay.
Council members fear that revamping the local councils will diminish their role and affect Sistani’s position: “If we could reform (the councils), maybe even by holding some local elections, it might satisfy him,” said one US officer.
For his part, Bremer is currently preparing to undertake an Iraqi-wide “information campaign” to explain his new plan to integrate Iraq’s five existing political parties into one militia, and why it is good for Iraqis. This represents a real departure for Iraq, but Bremer is insisting on it as the way to improve law and order in the country.
Iraqi Sunnis, meanwhile, who were used to having their own way under Saddam Hussein, have suffered a setback. This occurred when Sunni gangsters tried to hijack from US convoys tens of thousands of new Iraqi banknotes scheduled to be delivered to two banks in Samarra, north of Baghdad. The ambushes were carefully planned but, as the fighting continued, other Samarrans may have joined in the running battle, according to US news reports.
The gunfight lasted for more than four hours. According to US forces, at least 46 Iraqis were killed, including some who may have been innocent bystanders. Many of the Sunni tribesmen carried their dead away, so only the US version is available. It appeared, however, that instead of the hit-and-run tactics that characterized past encounters, the Iraqis stood and died in place. On the other hand, The Independent on Dec. 5 reported that far fewer Iraqis died, only eight, and all civilians. If this version is correct, the US story bgins to fall to pieces.
Only time will tell whether the result will be a new respect for America’s enormous firepower or the creation of new Sunni enemies. As American occupiers are discovering, the Sunni Iraqis are tough by nature, and there may be other serious incidents before Iraqis (Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds) become accustomed to working together to make their broken country function again.
If it doesn’t fail like previous US efforts, Bremer’s radical new approach could be the key to integrated militia forces. At least he is willing to experiment — and to give up when a new system does not work. After all, Bremer has less and less time to improvise as, day by day, the June deadline looms closer.
— Richard H. Curtiss is executive editor of the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs.
