On Saturday, when Iraqis go to the polls to determine the fate of the constitution that has been ambiguously patched together over the past couple months, the Bush administration will almost certainly claim a great victory in the War on Terror. There will be talk of freedom marching, and of corners turned, and there will probably be some mention of September 11th (because why should Saturday be different than any other day?).
The passage of the Iraqi constitution will have been made possible by the heavy hand of American diplomacy, and for this the White House deserves credit. Without American influence, the compromise reached yesterday between the Shia-Kurdish coalition and the Sunni minority would not have been possible. The agreement, allowing for the creation of a committee which will explore making changes to the constitution once new parliamentary elections are held in December, has earned the backing of Sunni leaders and makes it almost certain that the referendum will pass.
This will indeed be a momentous occasion for the President, but not because it brings Iraq any closer to having a democratic government or even relative security within its borders. The constitution's passage will mark a special day for Bush because it will reinforce that while he may be the lamest duck ever to sit in the Oval Office, he still has the quixotic power to instill false hope among millions, both in Iraq and in the U.S.
Back in the real world, it is obvious that the prompt, almost scripted passage of the constitution on the date deigned by America's democracy promotion playbook has little to do with legitimate government and much to do with marketing. Anyone who has been somewhat conscious for the past three years will remember the presidential aircraft carrier landing and infamous declaration of "mission accomplished," the anticlimactic capture of Saddam Hussein, the even more anticlimactic devolution of power to the Iraqis in June of 2004, and the cute but sickening display of Republicans waving blue fingers and the mother of a fallen soldier "spontaneously" embracing an Iraqi woman (who has since denounced the Iraqi constitution for failing to protect women's rights).
Each of these events was supposed to be a corner turned. Baghdad city blocks must have significantly more corners than Boston city blocks. In May, Dick Cheney declared that the insurgency was in its last throes. Since then, violence has increased and Iraq is now in the grips of an insurgency that appears to be gaining strength daily. According to sources as lofty as Air Force General Richard Myers, counterinsurgency campaigns often last as long as a decade. So any talk of turning corners, at least in terms of Iraqi security and American victory is disingenuous and foolish.
Politically, the constitution's passage will have little effect on Iraq's long term democratic viability. While yesterday's compromise acknowledges Sunni discomfort with the possibility of an Iraqi federal system, it does nothing to resolve the problem of the Kurdish and Shia desire for independence, or at least autonomy. Until this issue is resolved in a manner that is satisfactory to all three parties, there is no hope for a viable Iraqi democracy, or even a unified Iraqi state.
President Bush will speak this weekend about the power of freedom to change the world, and about the courage of the Iraqi people, and the resolve of American troops in the face of global terrorism. These pretty words are meaningless. The effort to bring democracy to Iraq has been a miserable failure, no matter how many utterly irrelevant "milestones" are passed on the road to ultimate defeat.
