From Idaho to Iraq and back - ending colonial adventures

by Rami G. Khouri

From: The Jordan Times (used w/permission)

The "Agreement on Political Process" that was signed days ago by the US occupation authority in Iraq and the American-appointed Iraqi Interim Governing Council is an important document that will be interpreted in different ways. It is idealistic, bold and ambitious in its stated quest to define a transition from American-occupied Iraq to a situation of full Iraqi sovereignty in a free and democratic country.

The agreement embodies powerful principles of democratic pluralism, equality before the law, representational federalism and the consent of the governed. It is audacious in the sweep, speed and clarity of the proposed democratic transition (the text is available at the CPA website: http://www.cpa-iraq.org). In just 66 lines, it offers a blueprint to wipe out three decades of Iraqi-engineered Baathist tyranny and the previous five decades of British-made post-colonial incoherence, and replaces them with an American-inspired Thomas Jefferson on the Tigris.

The specifics are impressive, and hard to argue with. The document drips with references to "freedom", "equality", "rights", "due process", "independence of the judiciary", "transparency", and other such fine political values. Its democratisation procedures include selection of representative individuals to regional bodies that will ultimately draft a national constitution, ratification of the constitution by the citizenry, caucuses at governorate level to select individuals who will collectively form a transitional national assembly, a constitutional convention of directly elected Iraqis, and other such ringing aspects of accountable democratic governance as it has been successfully practised for many decades in Iowa and Idaho.

This document encapsulates the best and worst of America today. It spells out and offers others the finest American governance traditions. If this were a commercial website, I would want to put all these democratic values in my shopping cart. The US gets an A+ for intent. But it gets a D- for implementation. For, the manner of Washington's attempt to transform Iraqi despotism into Iraqi democracy is na