AN AUTHORITY JAMES WATT WOULD LOVE

Running Iraq (Amir Taheri, July 19, 2003, Townhall.com)

Two months after he arrived in Baghdad, L. Paul Bremer III, the American interim ruler of Iraq, has confounded doomsayers by creating an interim Iraqi authority as the first step towards democratisation in that war-torn land.

The new authority, presented as a governing council, is the most representative that Iraq has seen since its creation as a state in 1921.

With 13 out of the 25 seats on the council, the Shiites, who form 60 per cent of the population, have their demographic strength reflected for the first time. The Kurds have five seats, again reflecting their linguistic, religious and cultural diversity. Sunni Arabs get five seats, slightly higher than their demographic strength, reflecting their long tradition of ruling Iraq. The Christians, accounting for three per cent of the population, get one seat just as ethnic Turcomans with one per cent of the population.

Bremer Pasha's council, however, must not be seen as a parade of Iraqi ethnic and religious diversity.

Beyond ethnic and religious identities, the council members represent a rich spectrum of political traditions.There are liberals, socialists, Communists, moderate and hard line Islamists, pan-Arab nationalists, and even dissident Ba'athists.

Nowhere else in the Arab world is there a possibility of reflecting such a rich diversity in any governing organ.

But this is only the first step.

Such diverse governance, and such a diverse state, seems unlikely to work out and it would probably be a better use of our time to get Kurdistan up and running right away, but this may be an obligatory political step for now. Posted by Orrin Judd at July 20, 2003 6:02 AM