“The lesson of President Jimmy Carter’s abandonment of the Shah of Iran in 1979 should be a warning,” wrote high-ranking National Security Council (NSC) veteran Richard Clarke in 2004 amidst the Iraq war. In his controversial memoir Against All Enemies: Inside America’s War on Terror, he thus harshly criticized President George W. Bush’s similar democracy promotion in Iraq in a manner that only undercut his benign assessment of “real Islam.”
Americans should “be chastened by the costs of eliminating the regime of Saddam Hussein, almost twenty-five years after the Shah, also without a detailed plan for what would follow,” Clarke wrote. He himself had struggled for ways to end Hussein’s dangerous dictatorship while serving in the NSC under President Bill Clinton. Yet Carter’s abetting in 1979 the rise of Iran’s brutal Islamic republic demonstrated that good intentions of deposing dictators such as the Shah or Hussein were not enough for democratization in the Muslim world.
In Iraq’s case, Clarke particularly focused on two decisions taken by the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) under Bush’s Presidential Envoy to Iraq, L. Paul “Jerry” Bremer, less than two months after the March 20, 2003, invasion of Iraq. The May 16, 2003, CPA Order Number 1 banned Hussein’s Nazi-inspired, totalitarian Ba’ath party in a “de-Baathification” that entailed the removal of entire groups of party members from government positions. The May 23, 2003, CPA Order Number 2 meanwhile dismantled Iraqi security forces.
Analysts such as George Mason University public policy professor James Pfeiffner in his 2010 Intelligence and National Security journal article “US Blunders in Iraq: De-Baathification and Disbanding the Army” have roundly condemned Bremer’s decisions. As Clarke elaborated in 2004:
Before the war the Administration gave the impression to Iraqis who were closely watching that we only had a problem with Saddam and his sons, plus a handful of others. If they were to go peacefully (or with a bullet), we would be satisfied…Because of those messages, many Iraqi commanders did not fight and actually sent their troops home.
Bremer’s subsequent decisions, merely days after becoming on May 11, 2003, Bush’s “viceroy,” as Pfeiffner termed Bremer, were disastrous, Clarke argued:
Not only did the United States announce it was dismissing the Iraqi army officer corps, it went on to relieve anyone who was a member of the Baath Party from any job they might hold. The hundreds of thousands of people affected by this bait and switch were then told that the pensions they had planned on when hitting retirement age would not be there. It is little wonder that U.S, popularity plummeted and critical infrastructures and services in Iraq stopped working.
The firing of the army and de-Baathifcation apparently came as a surprise to the American who had been charged with planning the postwar occupation, retired General Jay Gardner. Months after his replacement by Bremer, Gardner admitted publicly that his plans had included recalling the Iraqi army to their posts, vetting them, and reassigning most of them to duty doing the kinds of jobs that American forces have been required to perform.
In Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, one had to join the Baath Party to gain promotion to managerial positions throughout the economy. By dismissing them all (and canceling their retirement), there were suddenly no experienced managers. Russians and others who suffered under the Communist Party would be familiar with the party membership requirement. After the fall of the Soviet Union, however, former Communist Party members were permitted to continue in some positions. Indeed, the first two presidents of Russia (Boris Yeltsin and Vladimir Putin) were former members of the Communist Party. After protests, riots, and attacks, the U.S. occupation authority said it would pay Iraqi army officers’ retirement and permit some to be involved in the new army or at least be trainers for it. By then, no doubt, some Iraqi army officers were plotting attacks on U.S. forces.
Pfeiffner considered Bremer a curious choice to lead the CPA. This Foreign Service Officer with degrees from Yale and Harvard Universities but no military experience had spent most of his career in Europe and listed in his biography Dutch, French, and Norwegian as his languages. By contrast, United States Army Lieutenant General Garner had previously directed humanitarian efforts in the Kurdish areas of northern Iraq after the 1991 Gulf War. After planning for Iraqi postwar reconstruction before the March 2003 invasion of Iraq, he directed the Office for Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance (ORHA) for merely a month before Bremer instituted the CPA.
Bremer himself disputed the charges of Clarke, Garner, and numerous others after his year in Iraq heading the CPA before an interim Iraqi government assumed power on June 28, 2004. De-Baathification of Hussein’s despised ruling party had the approval of over 90 percent of Iraqis and only affected top government officials, not professional administrators, Bremer claimed. Iraqis, particularly Shiites and Kurds who had suffered brutal regime onslaughts, likewise hated Hussein’s security forces, a major factor in creating what some American officials called the “self-demobilized” Iraqi military. Kurdish leaders even told Bremer that they would secede from Iraq if any recall of the military occurred instead of building new armed forces. Lastly, the CPA did provide stipends to Iraqi military personal even larger than their old pensions.
Irrespective of the merits, the debates over Bremer highlight the priority for security over democratization for any pro-Western Iraqi regime change to be successful. As Middle East Forum President Daniel Pipes (for whom this writer works) has long argued, any attempt at democratizing Iraq should have been a decades-long process overseen by an Iraqi “strongman.” Pipes particularly suggested Ayad Allawi, whom the CPA appointed interim government prime minister in 2004.
Pipes rejected the massive American effort aimed at a quick Iraqi transition to electoral politics. Instead, he advocated limited American support for establishing an Iraqi government that could secure the country against threats including Sunni jihadists and pro-Iranian forces. Such a benign despot analogous to Egypt’s current President Abdel Fattah as-Sisi would also have prevented the establishment of Islamic law in Iraq, unlike the constitution Iraqis drafted under American supervision.
In contrast, Clarke observed in 2004 “that Iraq would be shaped more by the thoughts of Shi’a leader Ayatollah [Ali al-]Sistani than by Jefferson.” This hardly liberal cleric reflected the political ascension of Iraq’s Shiite majority following Hussein’s fall that empowered politicians such as Nouri al-Maliki who have turned Iraq into an Iranian satellite. His purging of Sunnis from Iraq’s government and military contributed greatly to Iraqi Sunni accommodation of the Islamic State’s advance into Iraq in 2014 while the Iraqi army collapsed once again.
This “real Islam” of sectarian strife and sharia supremacism in Iraq makes mockery of Clarke’s claims such as that Al Qaeda has a “deviant variant of Islam.” As his own analysis of, and events in, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia have shown, the real existing Islam is far less liberal than individuals such as Clarke would like. This only becomes clearer in Clarke’s clear-eyed analysis of threats from the Islamic Republic of Iran, which the next article in this series will explore.
Barbara says
Politically how much difference is there between Carter and Bushs’?
Kesselman says
“Benign despot analogous to Egypt’s current President Abdel Fattah as-Sisi” is always preferable to any revolutionary who talks on “behalf of the people.”—Aside, nation-building in severe backward countries in the Mideast and Africa are at best superfluous and at worst directly dangerous in terms of lost materiel and armed forces.
PMK says
Nation building; a fool’s errand.
rubiconcrest says
Bush wanted to attack Iraq that is clear. He then tried to dress up the fool errand. He didn’t care about the consequences. Andrew H. makes clear the consequences were predictable. Jay Gardner’s ideas made the most sense after the invasion. But in hindsight not meddling in Iraq in the first place was the smart decision. Did Bush ever consider the smartest option?
tgusa says
“he thus harshly criticized President George W. Bush’s similar democracy promotion in Iraq in a manner that only undercut his benign assessment of “real Islam.”
We have an abundance of non-muslim muslim scholars in the establishment. Bush opponents said he was dumb but at the time I didn’t really believe them. Things change. Someone should publish a book and name it, islam for dummies, and give free copies to those scholars. I am assuming they can read but I could be wrong.
James Lincoln says
tgusa says,
“Someone should publish a book and name it, islam for dummies, and give free copies to those scholars.”
Unfortunately, you are mistaken. Years back, while trying to learn about islam, I picked up a similar type book in the local library.
It totally whitewashed islam.
Most nonpolitical books in the “for dummies” series are factual and evidence-based, which gives the reader confidence in the veracity of all books in the series.
Reader beware.