STUBBORN ADHERENCE TO VISION BEING HIS CHIEF VIRTUE:

In Iraq, Bush Pushed For Deadline Democracy: Timeline Yields Constitutional Order, Not Peace (Peter Baker and Robin Wright, December 11, 2005, Washington Post)

A powerful debate was raging, officials now acknowledge, among the president's top advisers over postponing the Jan. 30 interim election in hopes of first tamping down the flaring insurgency and bringing disaffected factions to the table.

"There was a good debate in front of the president," recalled national security adviser Stephen J. Hadley. "It was a close question and if it had gone to consensus, I don't know how it would have come out."

Ultimately, it did not go to a consensus decision but to Bush, who opted to stick with the election, a decision with distinct costs and benefits as the United States labored to build a democratic government in Iraq from the ground up. When U.S. administrator L. Paul Bremer transferred sovereignty to Iraqi authorities in June 2004, he left behind a script with hard-and-fast deadlines for drafting a constitution and forming a government, a script that culminates Thursday with another election for a permanent parliament.

The story of the 18-month process that unfolded after Bremer left Baghdad was one of steadfast fidelity to the script, as well as a costly period of U.S. inattention and endless frustrations with squabbling Iraqi leaders, according to a wide array of Bush advisers, Iraqi politicians and others involved in the effort. While Bush refuses to set a timetable for military withdrawal, he has stuck doggedly to the Bremer political timetable despite qualms of his staff, relentless violence on the ground and disaffection of Iraq's minority Sunni Arabs.

Bush's deadline democracy managed to propel the process forward and appears on the verge of creating a new government with legitimacy earned at the ballot box. His approach resulted in a constitution often described as more democratic than any in the Arab world. Yet by pushing forward without Sunni acceptance, the Bush team failed to produce the national accord it sought among Iraq's three main groups, leaving a schism that could loom beyond Thursday's election. And the Sunni-powered insurgency that was supposed to be marginalized by an inclusive democracy remains as lethal as ever.

"The key for a long time in Iraq to stabilization . . . has been to pull in significant elements of Sunnis near the insurgency into the political process," said Larry Diamond, a Stanford University scholar who for a short time advised U.S. authorities in Iraq, only to become a scathing critic. The press to meet the Bremer deadlines, starting in January, he said, only fueled the militants. "Much of the violence after that was entrenched or reinforced by the elections when the Sunnis were pressed to the margins."

In private, Bush aides agree there were tradeoffs but found no better alternatives, and they take heart from signs that Sunnis who boycotted the January election plan to participate this week.

No president in modern memory has been more willing to gamble on his own vision, nor won the gamble more often.

MORE:
Politics, Iraqi Style: Slick TV Ads, Text Messaging and Gunfire (ROBERT F. WORTH and EDWARD WONG, 12/11/05, NY Times)

The campaign is being conducted with few real rules. Technically, the Independent Electoral Commission of Iraq is in charge, but it has little money to investigate the more than 80 violations that have been reported in the last month, said Safwat Rashid Sidqi, a commissioner. Last year, the commission fined the Shiite alliance about $1,500 for campaigning after the 48-hour cutoff point before the vote, a pittance for a party with deep pockets.

Money has become a campaign issue too, though there are no limits on spending or contributions, and no public funding. Critics of Mr. Allawi, a White House favorite, accuse him of taking American government money, while enemies of the Shiite alliance say that group gets much of its financing from Iran. Both groups deny the charges, though the sources of their large war chests remain mysterious.

One of the more promising aspects of the election is the participation by Sunni Arabs, who largely boycotted the vote to elect the 275-member National Assembly last January. Many are risking their lives by campaigning in areas where the Sunni-led insurgency is at its worst.

Hatem Mukhlis, the leader of the Assembly of Patriots, a secular Sunni party, has been traveling three or four times a week from Baghdad to Salahuddin Province, an insurgent stronghold whose capital is Tikrit, Mr. Hussein's hometown.

"My father upgraded Tikrit with money and schools," said Mr. Mukhlis, a doctor who lived in the United States for 20 years and met with President Bush at the White House before the war. "They remember my father for the services he provided the people."

Mr. Mukhlis said he hoped the people of Salahuddin would view him in the same light as his father, a respected military officer. He said he has opened up a printing press in Tikrit, and started two mobile health clinics that roam the province in white vans.

Like many other candidates, he has also set up a Web site, www.almalaf.net, to get out his message. On Friday, the home page showed a photo of Ibrahim al-Jaafari, the Shiite prime minister, next to the bruised back of a male detainee, alluding to the Sunni Arabs' fears that government-sponsored militias are abducting, torturing and killing Sunnis.

The headline on the site talked about "secret documents" linking Mr. Jaafari to incidents of torture.

The Web site has other draws. At the bottom of the home page, Mr. Mukhlis has posted photos of Miss Egypt and Miss Puerto Rico in bikinis.

Several American groups are teaching Iraqi politicians the basics of campaigning and helping them polish their messages. Chief among them are the International Republican Institute and the National Democratic Institute, both democracy-promotion groups with financing from the American government and ties to the two major American parties. They run workshops, help coordinate media campaigns and give lessons in organizing volunteers and conducting polls.

Still, these campaigns could never be mistaken for American ones. The sheer number of political groups and competing messages make it hard for Iraqis to distinguish one party from another. There are few debates or substantive discussions of the issues in this campaign, which is still mostly rooted in personalities and appeals to ethnic or sectarian loyalties.

Sunni Factions Plot Their Return: After this week's vote, the minority group may seek alliances with Kurds and secular Shiites to try to take back more power (John Daniszewski, December 11, 2005, LA Times)

Many Sunnis have had a remarkable change of heart about election participation, although the influential Muslim Scholars Assn. continues to stand aloof from the process and the most radical segments of the insurgency — die-hard Hussein loyalists and followers of Al Qaeda and Abu Musab Zarqawi — continue to threaten violence.

U.S. officials have pointed out that 10 million people voted in the constitutional referendum, 2 million more than in the first election of a transitional parliament in January. The White House is counting on an even higher turnout this time, with significant Sunni numbers, as evidence that the U.S.-sponsored transition to democracy is working.

With calls for a troop withdrawal rising in the U.S., some also see in the election a possible turning point that would allow American and British forces to begin to pull out of Iraq with dignity next year.

But that possibility depends on whether the elections actually usher in a government that will have the backing of a broad spectrum of all of the main ethnic, regional and sectarian groups in Iraq.

So far, Sunnis who were the most loyal to Hussein, and who felt they had the most to lose in the new governing arrangement empowering Shiites and Kurds, have been the main holdouts against the new government.

Zeidan, 57, who has twice been detained and released by U.S. forces, has been barred from running as a candidate because of his Baathist affiliations. But that does not matter, he said. His son will be among the candidates on the slate of the Iraqi National Dialogue Front, one of the Sunni coalitions, along with other individuals deemed reliable.

"The candidates we nominated are all good, patriotic elements who aim to serve Iraq and the Iraqis," he said. And those barred from running, he said, "will lead the National Assembly from the outside."

Zeidan declined to predict how many seats his and other "patriotic" Sunni groups would win, but made it clear that he thought the number would be significant.

After the elections, he said, the Sunni groups would seek to enter into alliances to try to deny power to the current Shiite-led coalition under Prime Minister Ibrahim Jafari. Possible allies, he said, include the Kurdish parties and the followers of former Prime Minister Iyad Allawi, a secular Shiite who was once a Baathist.

He said that if elected, the Sunnis would press for an early U.S. withdrawal from Iraq, and push for added constitutional changes to unify the country and reduce the chances that Iraq could break apart along ethnic and sectarian lines.

Zeidan expressed confidence that his vision would win wide backing.

"Believe me, whoever is supported by the Baathists in the next election will win, because more than 90% of the Iraqi people were Baathists," he said.

Sunni Arabs make up about 20% of the Iraqi population.

You do the math.

Posted by Orrin Judd at December 11, 2005 8:08 AM