U.S. Lowers Sights On What Can Be Achieved in Iraq

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...1300853_pf.html

The Bush administration is significantly lowering expectations of what can be achieved in Iraq, recognizing that the United States will have to settle for far less progress than originally envisioned during the transition due to end in four months, according to U.S. officials in Washington and Baghdad.

The United States no longer expects to see a model new democracy, a self-supporting oil industry or a society in which the majority of people are free from serious security or economic challenges, U.S. officials say.

"What we expected to achieve was never realistic given the timetable or what unfolded on the ground," said a senior official involved in policy since the 2003 invasion. "We are in a process of absorbing the factors of the situation we're in and shedding the unreality that dominated at the beginning."

Administration officials still emphasize how much they have achieved despite the chaos that followed the invasion and the escalating insurgency. "Iraqis are taking control of their country, building a free nation that can govern itself, sustain itself and defend itself. And we're helping Iraqis succeed," President Bush said yesterday in his radio address.

Iraqi officials yesterday struggled to agree on a draft constitution by a deadline of tomorrow so the document can be submitted to a vote in October. The political transition would be completed in December by elections for a permanent government.

But the realities of daily life are a constant reminder of how the initial U.S. ambitions have not been fulfilled in ways that Americans and Iraqis once anticipated. Many of Baghdad's 6 million people go without electricity for days in 120-degree heat. Parents fearful of kidnapping are keeping children indoors.

Barbers post signs saying they do not shave men, after months of barbers being killed by religious extremists. Ethnic or religious-based militias police the northern and southern portions of Iraq. Analysts estimate that in the whole of Iraq, unemployment is 50 percent to 65 percent.

U.S. officials say no turning point forced a reassessment. "It happened rather gradually," said the senior official, triggered by everything from the insurgency to shifting budgets to U.S. personnel changes in Baghdad.

The ferocious debate over a new constitution has particularly driven home the gap between the original U.S. goals and the realities after almost 28 months. The U.S. decision to invade Iraq was justified in part by the goal of establishing a secular and modern Iraq that honors human rights and unites disparate ethnic and religious communities.

But whatever the outcome on specific disputes, the document on which Iraq's future is to be built will require laws to be compliant with Islam. Kurds and Shiites are expecting de facto long-term political privileges. And women's rights will not be as firmly entrenched as Washington has tried to insist, U.S. officials and Iraq analysts say.

"We set out to establish a democracy, but we're slowly realizing we will have some form of Islamic republic," said another U.S. official familiar with policymaking from the beginning, who like some others interviewed would speak candidly only on the condition of anonymity. "That process is being repeated all over."

[alexgreatau 0]

Slink,

My biggest fear is that Iraq will turn into an Shiite-Islamic Republic that is allied with the Shiite Mullah's in Iran. Of course, that reality would be far worse for world affairs than an Iraq controlled by Sadaam Hussien. Don't get me wrong here, removing Sadaam was the right thing to do but not allowing the Sunni's and Kurd Iraqi's to comprise some of the highest levels of government in Iraq will be a big mistake.

In my personal opinion, we should have given eastern Iraq to Iran, northern Iraq to Turkey, and Western Iraq to Kuwaiit.

Then again, the United States of America had to fight one revolution, go through a strenuous constitutional convention process, fight a civil war, and pass 27 amendments to the constitution before we could get it right. Even our democracy is still a work in progress.

Let's just hope for the best in Iraq.

Alex

[CCTAU 3,344]

Slink,

My biggest fear is that Iraq will turn into an Shiite-Islamic Republic that is allied with the Shiite Mullah's in Iran. Of course, that reality would be far worse for world affairs than an Iraq controlled by Sadaam Hussien. Don't get me wrong here, removing Sadaam was the right thing to do but not allowing the Sunni's and Kurd Iraqi's to comprise some of the highest levels of government in Iraq will be a big mistake.

In my personal opinion, we should have given eastern Iraq to Iran, northern Iraq to Turkey, and Western Iraq to Kuwaiit.

Then again, the United States of America had to fight one revolution, go through a strenuous constitutional convention process, fight a civil war, and pass 27 amendments to the constitution before we could get it right. Even our democracy is still a work in progress.

Let's just hope for the best in Iraq.

Alex

174442[/snapback]

People do seem to forget how long it took us to get where we are today. Seems like a lot less folks died in Iraq than in our own civil war (600,000). But the left expects this to only take a few years. Bush has already told folks that it will take many years to fight a war on terrorism and re-building Iraq is part of that war.