Iraq's Elections: First Impressions

As a consequence, this is a victory for the Bush administration. This puts many liberals in a tough position, of course. It also points out to the problems inherent with much of the anti-war left (and that fringe anti-war right): Once we were actually at war, it was difficult to glean precisely what they wanted. I have more than my share of qualms with how the administration handled Iraq. On the merits, based on the case the administration made we ought not to have gone in to Iraq. (By which I mean, had the administration not been in such haste to go to war that it rushed in with bad intelligence and worse evidence, plus more than a hint of demagoguery, the Congress more than likely would not have given the blank check that it wrote to President Bush). We know that now. Those who claim to have known that then, however, are being honest neither with themselves nor with those to whom they claim to have had such foresight. I made a tentative liberal case for this war (which I may post in the coming days, just to see where I was right, where I was wrong, and where I was full of it). I thought it was mismanaged from the outset. But once we were in, I argued consistently that to leave, to abandon the Iraqi people, would be a catastrophic mistake.

So today Iraqis went to the polls and voted. In and of itself this was a huge victory. It reminded me most, at least on the surface, of the 1994 elections in South Africa inasmuch as people lined up to engage in the baseline activity of democracy that had been denied them for so long. This should not be seen as the end or culmination of anything, however. In its efforts to play to the cameras, and perhaps to present a warped version of reality, the administration has declared “Mission Accomplished” before with the inconvenient fact of the mission not having been accomplished.

The administration will now face an especially difficult challenge in the weeks and months to come – from both left and right, there will be substantial pressure to withdraw our troops, personnel, materiel, and, to be crass, money, from Iraq. From the left will be the same old cries of imperialism (cultural and otherwise), of warmongering, and all of the other nefarious deeds to which the left has ascribed the administration, some of which may have even have had kernels of truth. But now the administration will also face another wing of opposition – this will come from the right flank. The Republican Party in recent years has managed to be militant without being especially internationalist. What I mean by this is that among the so-called neo-conservatives, the exercise of American power has become in and of itself both a means and an ends. For the Rumsfelds and Cheneys and Wolfowitzes this has meant that planning to engage in war with Iraq has come a lot more naturally than solving humanitarian crises in Africa. The administration has proven a lot more adept at striving for democracy in the Middle East than it has at keeping its promises in Africa. (Democracy in the Middle East is a goal with which I am wholly sympathetic even if I have serious doubts about their strategy. Nonetheless, while I know I’ll draw fire from my liberal friends and colleagues for this, let me make it clear: Liberal democracy is not only good, but in the long run it should be seen as a necessary goal; Liberals who value human rights have to understand that human rights will only flower in the fertile soil of democracies that liberalism once embraced and still should.) For many conservatives, then, there will be some demand to pack up and leave Iraq. There will be a lot of hand wringing about a budget that up until now the Republicans have either ignored or actively poo-pooed. I suspect that the foreign policy realists will become more vital to or at least influential within the party and the administration will have a difficult time exercising its larger visions in the region.

I could be wrong. I quite possibly will be. But with Bush fast on his way to becoming a lame duck, and with internecine struggles already threatening to make governing, even with a more solid Congress than he had over the past four years, more difficult for President Bush, do not be surprised if the much ballyhooed Neocon ascension proves to be short lived. Iraq will be a testing ground. We need to remain engaged in the form of military, economic, and infrastructural support because if Iraq fails, we will have failed. We got ourselves into Iraq. We did a good thing by getting rid of Saddam, even if we did that good thing poorly. But now the actual hard work begins. An election is not the culmination of policy. It is also not the beginning of it. Instead, the elections should best be seen as a key midpoint of our larger vision. Leaving the Iraqis to their own devices as quickly as possible will protect neither the human rights that the left so cherishes nor the stability and security that the right claims as its main interest. For those of us who are somewhat hawkish liberals, we must be clear that it is in everyone’s interest for America’s sometimes uncomfortable engagement in the Middle East to continue.