Supporting Democracy

America really must stay involved in Iraq to keep Iraq from backsliding into a semi-dictatorship. Sure, even a pro-American autocratic state is better than having a Saddam Iraq. But we can see that this outcome is hardly stable. We need to press for democracy. Let's not speak of Iraq being not ready for democracy given the many problems Iraq has with its divisions and history. This does sound daunting:

Picture a country that has just emerged from six years of war. The economy is destroyed, and foreign troops occupy its land. Many of its people are poor and rural, and abide by customs and technologies that have not changed for centuries. With identities most strongly tied to city or region, there is little sense of national unity, and there are no strong federal institutions. The public has just approved a new constitution in a contentious referendum, following decades of dictatorship. However, the new and nominally democratic government is a vessel of patronage and corruption whereby funds, jobs, and contracts in the largely state-run economy are doled out along regional and political lines.

That sounds bad. Maybe hopeless. It was certainly the former but not the latter--it describes Italy at the end of World War II. Italy has done alright on the democracy and development front. And Italy achieved their successes within the American alliance system with America propping up democracy against communist forces that attempted to subvert the new system imposed by force on Rome by American, British, and Allied troops.

While Iraq surely needs American help to defend their external borders until the Iraqis can stand up conventional military forces with our help, my main concern is the internal threat to Iraqi democracy. An Iranian invasion we'd react to and stomp. This isn't South Vietnam in 1975.

But the deep internal divisions in a new democracy mean that somebody might decide to take the disagreements out of the political realm and settle arguments with force. Our continued civilian efforts--and a sizable military presence (3 Army combat advise and assist brigades and special forces) that would represent the toughest gang on the block--are key to inculcating the habits of democracy over the next several years and even decades. We can be the difference between democrats setting the rules and thugs setting the rules that will govern how Iraq is run.

If you doubt that this is true, consider Pakistan where powerful military and intelligence forces are a constant threat to Pakistan's weak democracy:

There is an undeclared war going on between the Pakistani government and the military-intelligence (ISI) establishment. This is nothing new, as this strife has been part of Pakistani politics for decades. But the military, and their junior ally the ISI, have taken control of over a third of government income, and a large chunk of the economy, for their own benefit. All this is, in theory, to keep Pakistan strong and able to resist an Indian invasion. But more and more Pakistanis see all this as just a corrupt scam to enrich the senior people in the military and ISI. The elected government is using American counter-terror operations inside Pakistan to weaken the ISI. The government, for example, provides hundreds of visas to the CIA, so the United States can establish its own intel network inside Pakistan. The ISI does not like this at all, because it weakens the ISI intelligence monopoly inside Pakistan. But that's exactly what the government wants, ISI knows it, and ISI doesn't like it. Meanwhile, while everyone plays the "hate America" card, the government doesn't mean it, but the military and ISI do.

We are needed by democrats--we don't "taint" them with our support. Let's step up and keep battling the forces that hate democracy (I'm looking at you, Moqutada al Sadr). It would be terribly ironic if Democrats here "take their eye off the ball" and let Iraq fail without our relatively minor continued support.

UPDATE: Sadr and other Iranian-supported groups are already killing more Americans as they anticipate our withdrawal:

"You can see an uptick in indirect fire activity down in the south — in other words, rockets and mortars and there's been an IED threat that is becoming more problematic than in the past down in the south. So we see a lot of activity," he said. ...

There are a combination of Shiite militias operating in southern Iraq, each claiming credit for various attacks, Helmick and Allen said.

The groups include Kataib Hezbollah, which has links to the Lebanon-based Hezbollah group; League of the Righteous, also known by its Arabic name, Asaib Ahl al-Haq; and the Promised Day Brigade, affiliated with anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. All are believed to get financing and support from Iran, according to a recent report from the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

U.S. officials have long contended that Shiite militias operate with funding and weapons funneled in from Iran, a charge Iran denies.

Without American troops, these Shia thugs will feel free to attack other Iraqis, have no doubt.