Iraq's government has failed and america's is on the verge - As we approach the sixth anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the US, and General David Petraeus's report on the "surge" in Iraq, the question being asked here, even by staunch Republicans who share the president's goals, is: why has the

**Member** Joined: Jul 02, 2007 Posts: 614

As we approach the sixth anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the US, and General David Petraeus's report on the "surge" in Iraq, the question being asked here, even by staunch Republicans who share the president's goals, is: why has the Bush administration been so incompetent? Behind that is a larger question about how the American political system as a whole is failing to deliver consistent policy and good governance. In the course of three months spent in the US, I have heard this larger issue raised again and again by people with intimate experience of the ways of Washington.

Congress, the administration and senior military commanders berate the Iraqi government for failing to meet Washington's political and security "benchmarks". But the long-suffering ordinary people of Iraq are entitled to ask in return how the American government has delivered on its own promises. Take, for example, the benchmark referred to in shorthand by American politicians as "deBa'athification". What this actually means is undeBa'athification: that is, belatedly reversing the decision by the sometime US viceroy Paul Bremer to purge virtually all members of Saddam Hussein's ruling Ba'ath party from the fledgling structures of the new Iraq, thus removing the competent along with the criminal and corrupt. Together with the decision to disband the Iraqi army, this is now regarded - even by many then at the highest levels of the American and British government and army - as among the most fateful mistakes made in the occupation of Iraq.

We can argue about whether these and other mistakes were actually decisive to the outcome, or whether - given its history and the legacy of Saddam's tyranny, exacerbated by years of western sanctions - Iraq was almost bound to collapse into a bloody mess. But there are now only about three people in the world (G Bush, R Cheney, D Rumsfeld) who would not acknowledge that US policy over Iraq was deeply flawed and inconsistent. The question is: why? Next week we will again be considering what the US can tell us about Iraq and its government; we should also consider what Iraq tells us about the US and its government.

Take that decision about deBa'athification and the disbanding of the Iraqi army, for example. First of all, didn't they have anyone versed in Iraqi history and Arab politics, not to mention the history of other occupations, to warn them? If yes, why weren't they listened to? Second of all, how was the decision taken? This has been the subject of some controversy in recent days, as those involved play another favourite Washington game: pass the buck. ("I warned against it", "blame it on him!" I'm waiting for the Bob Woodward-type book which has George Bush saying "It wasn't me, it was Cheney!" Or vice versa.) What actually seems to have happened is that an initial decision, authorised by the president, to keep the Iraqi army largely intact, was then reversed by Bremer, working with the Pentagon, without any serious consultation with the national security adviser or the secretary of state. The president was informed in advance, but only in one throw-away sentence in a letter which did not spell out clearly the full extent of the intended purge, let alone its possible consequences.

What a way to run a government. With a hands-off president, a weak national security adviser, an overmighty baron at the Pentagon, and a conspiratorial vice president exercising unprecedented power, there was not one consistent Iraq policy but several competing ones, changing over time. When I discussed this with a retired senior military officer he compared it, rather originally, to the confused strategy of the Austro-Hungarian empire at the beginning of the first world war. Unable to prioritise between a number of strategic objectives (smash Serbia, fend off Russia), it ended up achieving none of them. This was the chronically confused state that the writer Robert Musil called "Kakania".

In Washington, this new Kakania, they call it the inter-agency process. Even with a stronger president, more attuned to foreign realities and more in command of the detail, there is a chronic problem of strategic coordination and of implementation. Another example, rather different in kind, is the gulf between the proclaimed goal of promoting democracy around the world, supposedly the top priority of the Bush administration in its second term, and what has actually happened. Here the problem has been less the presence of strong, competing agencies than the absence of any major agency seriously committed and equipped to pursue that goal. (The semi-autonomous National Endowment for Democracy is an honourable but small exception.) What has the United States really done to promote democracy, by peaceful means, in Egypt, Iran or Saudi Arabia over the last three years? Precious little.

The policy Kakania is compounded by the political one. The minute involvement of Congress in the entrails of government, the disproportionate influence of lobbyists and funders, and an absurdly frenetic election timetable, all further contribute to what Musil called "kakanian conditions". A new president spends his (or maybe next time her) first year getting his (or her) political appointees confirmed by Congress and their staffs put in place. Then the administration has a year to do something. Then it's the mid-term Congressional elections. Then the next presidential race begins, so a first-term president is already running for a second term, while a second-term president is a lame duck. Congressmen and women, meanwhile, having to stand for election every two years (a ludicrously short term), are no sooner re-elected than they have to start raising money for their next campaign. That also means doing favours, earmarking Congressional appropriations for clients in their districts, and other kakanian practices that the US would never dream of promoting in its development and democracy programmes around the world. (Do as we say, not as we do, is the motto.) What a way to run a country.

Ordinary Americans are getting fed up with this, though less over Iraq than over domestic issues like healthcare. Barack Obama is sure of a big cheer every time he attacks the bad old ways of "Washington insiders" - which is also not-so-subtle code for his main rival, Hillary Clinton, still clearly the Democrat front-runner. But actually there's an argument that it needs a Washington insider who understands how the complex, opaque and deceptive system works, in order to change it. And no one could be more of a consummate insider, more formidably familiar with both the issues and the instruments of US policy, than Hillary. Especially when she is aided and abetted by Bill, in a prospective role which he describes - quoting Scottish friends - as that of "first laddie".

According to her campaign website, reason number seven (of 10) for choosing Hillary is "to restore competence and end cronyism in government". (Reason number one is "to end the war in Iraq".) To start doing that, she might take a leaf out of Gordon Brown's book. Brown launched his premiership with a lucid and impressive paper on "the governance of Britain". The same is badly needed for the governance of the US. Then the US government could set itself, as it has set the Iraqi government, a list of benchmarks. But who should monitor their implementation?