the big news was that rumsfeld/wolfowitz/perle lost in their bid to have the Iraqi exiles take over. thank god; that seemed to be a clear road to disaster. I do think you will see Ahmed Chalabi and his buddies get SOMETHING in postwar Iraq, probably in the banking/financial sector (the fact that he's wanted in Jordan for bank fraud will just make it more poignant).
as to the other points, here's my gloss:
- 18 months -- rather than representing the real expected duration of the military occupation, this is most likely how long they think it will take until they actually have a good idea of how long we'll need to stay.
- Civilian administrator -- almost certainly will under UN auspices, but probably not for 6 months. For some reason I have a hunch that this person could be Asian, although a Scandanavian is most likely.
- How Iraq will be represented on OPEC, "if at all" -- we're still not satisfied with Saudi support, so we're threatening them publicly. However it's not really in our interests to fuck with OPEC too much at this point. (I would think we could forfeit a governing vote in OPEC decisions for a limited period in return for a guarantee that Iraq will get a fixed percentage of production)
- "Democracy" - not only will we not establish direct democracy any time soon in Iraq, I don't think it's at all clear that we should. This is an enormously tough issue. Any US-sponsored democratic system, for instance, would need to include women's suffrage; who knows how that plays out in a post-socialist environment where islamic ideas will be newly powerful? The likely first step would be a new local and regional electoral system which would ratify existing tribal powers...let that run for a few years and see how it does before going for a national parliament.
- Expansion of Oil for Food program and maintenance of existing bureaucracies - the funny thing is that at first we have no real choice but to EXPAND the role of the centralized state in the Iraqi economy -- there are no other mechanisms through which to distribute the cash generated through oil sales. So the US and UN will preside over a huge new government spending boom with all kinds of attendant, institutionalized corruption.
- Court system - I didn't see anything about this. But if the US really wants to create an alternative model to Islamization, the courts are probably the most important institution that needs to be built up. If they are not enforcing Sharia, what will they enforce? Presumably the UN needs to provide a "starter kit" of judicial process and basic rights, and a mechanism to codify existing government regulations. There might also be a UN supreme court of some kind at the top of the system -- although ultimately all decisions will trickle up to the US general and the UN administrator. If you really wanted democracy to survive in iraq you probably wouldn't want national elections before the court system gets a few years under its belt...
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as to the other points, here's my gloss:
- 18 months -- rather than representing the real expected duration of the military occupation, this is most likely how long they think it will take until they actually have a good idea of how long we'll need to stay.
- Civilian administrator -- almost certainly will under UN auspices, but probably not for 6 months. For some reason I have a hunch that this person could be Asian, although a Scandanavian is most likely.
- How Iraq will be represented on OPEC, "if at all" -- we're still not satisfied with Saudi support, so we're threatening them publicly. However it's not really in our interests to fuck with OPEC too much at this point. (I would think we could forfeit a governing vote in OPEC decisions for a limited period in return for a guarantee that Iraq will get a fixed percentage of production)
- "Democracy" - not only will we not establish direct democracy any time soon in Iraq, I don't think it's at all clear that we should. This is an enormously tough issue. Any US-sponsored democratic system, for instance, would need to include women's suffrage; who knows how that plays out in a post-socialist environment where islamic ideas will be newly powerful? The likely first step would be a new local and regional electoral system which would ratify existing tribal powers...let that run for a few years and see how it does before going for a national parliament.
- Expansion of Oil for Food program and maintenance of existing bureaucracies - the funny thing is that at first we have no real choice but to EXPAND the role of the centralized state in the Iraqi economy -- there are no other mechanisms through which to distribute the cash generated through oil sales. So the US and UN will preside over a huge new government spending boom with all kinds of attendant, institutionalized corruption.
- Court system - I didn't see anything about this. But if the US really wants to create an alternative model to Islamization, the courts are probably the most important institution that needs to be built up. If they are not enforcing Sharia, what will they enforce? Presumably the UN needs to provide a "starter kit" of judicial process and basic rights, and a mechanism to codify existing government regulations. There might also be a UN supreme court of some kind at the top of the system -- although ultimately all decisions will trickle up to the US general and the UN administrator. If you really wanted democracy to survive in iraq you probably wouldn't want national elections before the court system gets a few years under its belt...
- big jimmy 1-06-2003 10:46 pm