February 4, 2010
The disqualification of some 500 candidates for the
March 7 Iraqi Parliamentary election by the
Accountability and Justice (deBaathification)
commission headed by has reportedly been
overturned only days before the
launch of the election campaign. The Independent
Higher Election Commission has said that it received
instructions from the Appeals Court to throw out the
disqualifications, and would proceed accordingly.
Details remain sketchy, since this happened too late
for today's edition of most Arab and Iraqi
newspapers, but from what I've pieced together it
looks like the crisis has been averted. Once again
Iraq has not unraveled, and Iraqis have figured out
how to prevent their own system from collapsing
around them. Quiet U.S. diplomacy, combining clear
pressure for an inclusive and fair election with
clear commitment to non-interference in Iraqi
internal affairs and the withdrawal timeline,
appears to have worked. Go figure. |
Marc Lynch is associate professor of political
science and international affairs at George
Washington University. Photo: foreignpolicy com |
|
Here are some details which have
emerged. The decision appears to include all of the
affected candidates and political entities, though
those candidates who had already been swapped out
apparently won't be let back. Al-Arabiya reports
that their cases will be reviewed after the
election, as Vice President Joseph Biden had
suggested, though I haven't seen this reported
elsewhere yet. Saleh al-Mutlak, whose ban received
the most attention, and his list have declared their
satisfaction with the decision and claimed that it
demonstrated that they had been right to reject the
constitutionality of the decision. Supporters of the
Accountability and Justice Commission's bans are
complaining bitterly, and warning that it will open
new problems down the road.
While the resolution appears to have been managed
within Iraqi institutions, the U.S. criticism of the
deBaathification bans had been mounting in recent
days. Ambassador Christopher Hill had sharply
criticized the moves, as had General Petraeus, while
Vice President Biden and President Obama (among
others) had pushed the point with the succession of
Iraqi leaders who have come to Washington DC in
recent days (don't tell Henry Kissinger,www.ekurd.netwho
very oddly complains today in the Washington Post
that Iraqi leaders aren't being invited to DC
despite the very recent visits of Barzani, Abed al-Mahdi,
and Hashemi). But it has done this without
compromising its commitment to the drawdown and the
SOFA, while consistently being sensitive to Iraqi
concerns about overt U.S. interference, and by
appealing to the self-interest of Iraqi politicians
that the election be viewed as legitimate by the
international community. This appears to be a job
well done by Obama's Iraq team, in a difficult and
very sensitive context.
This doesn't mean that all is now rosy. The
elections, as I wrote yesterday, may still very well
fail to produce "meaningful change" (however this is
defined) and could still lead to disappointment and
frustration among the losers. The process of forming
a new government after the elections could prove
explosive and drawn-out. Everyone -- Iraqis,
Americans and other international actors -- should
be proactive about avoiding problems such as those
which hamstrung the recent Afghan elections (or even
the Iranian election or the 2005 Iraqi election).
The first step is to do everything possible to help
ensure a free, transparent, and clean election ---
which should include a robust system of
international monitors (whether American, UN, EU or
independent NGO), as many Iraqi political leaders
(including Vice President Hashemi yesterday) have
requested.
But that's for tomorrow. For now, a sigh of relief
that the political crisis over the election ban
appears to have been averted -- a good sign for the
ability of Iraqis to save themselves from such
logjams, and a credit to the Obama administration's
approach.
Marc Lynch is associate professor of political
science and international affairs at George
Washington University, where he is the director of
the Institute for Middle East Studies. He is also a
non-resident senior fellow at the Center for a New
American Security.
Copyright, respective author or news agency,
foreignpolicy com | Marc
Lynch' Blog at foreignpolicy
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