Ghanim, David, Iraq’s
Dysfunctional Democracy, Santa Barbara, Denver, Oxford: Praeger,
2011
In Iraq’s Dysfunctional Democracy author David Ghanim
questions whether the post-Saddam Hussein Iraq was moving towards a real
representative government. He didn’t believe in imposing democracy upon other
countries using force like the United Sates did in 2003, and saw few signs
afterward that the new ruling parties were interested in anything other than
staying in power and enriching themselves by stealing from the state. Ghanim
has a long list of why he is disillusioned from the use of victimization by the
elite, the politicization of deBaathification, the lack of rule of law,
questionable elections, a weak state, and corruption. The book reads like one
long argument or a diatribe, and the author is very convincing on many of his
points.
Ghanim starts off with what he sees as the original sin,
which were the mistakes the Americans made during the occupation. After
overthrowing Saddam Hussein the Bush administration immediately found itself in
trouble with no postwar strategy and rushed transferring sovereignty back to
Iraq. The Americans turned to the Iraqi opposition to complete that process.
The U.S. saw them as democrats, but they were not. When governments were formed
they maintained the ethnosectarian quota system created by the Coalition
Provincial Authority. That institutionalized identity politics, and allowed
them to split up the state amongst themselves, and create their own fiefs in
ministries to rob them. The parties used victimization under Saddam to justify
their new status, and politicized deBaathification to get rid of whole sections
of the bureaucracy and candidates they didn’t like in elections, while excusing
their allies. Rather than make long term plans to build a democratic system in
Iraq, Ghanim believes Washington panicked and took a series of shortcuts that
undermined the process. It came to rely upon a group of new elites who had no
vision for Iraq other than getting rid of Saddam, and who quickly turned to
dividing up the spoils of their new found positions. At the same time, they
claimed to represent their communities rather than individual Iraqis, and by
2010 changed the electoral system where it didn’t matter who won, but only the
politicking that occurred afterward. The author made a good argument that none
of these helped create a democracy in the new Iraq. It divided the country, and
allowed the ruling parties to ensure that they stayed in power. That is the
gist of his entire book, that Iraq is a dysfunctional state with an
intransigent political system.
One drawback of the book is that because it is a diatribe
there is a lot of repetition, and some specious reasoning. Ghanim returns to
the same points over and over across several chapters even though each one is
supposed to cover a specific topic. Victimization and identity politics for
example, are two favorites of the author that he constantly brings up. He does
this to emphasize his main argument, but at times it reads like a broken
record. Sometimes he goes overboard as well trying to blame the victims for
their fate. For instance, he writes that the ruling parties have to take
responsibility for their own victimization under Saddam. He repeatedly talks
about how bad Saddam’s dictatorship was, but then seems to think that those
that opposed his regime couldn’t then play up being victims after 2003. That’s
not a sound argument. Saddam ran a totalitarian government that killed
thousands. Those types of regime always engender resistance. There are plenty
of problems with the opposition parties that took power after his fall, but you
can’t fault them for sanding up to Baathist rule.
In the end, Iraq’s Dysfunctional Democracy is an
interesting read. It highlights many of the flaws and institutional problems
within the Iraqi government. The book isn’t perfect with some distractions
along the way, but it’s worth taking a look at to help understand why the new
Iraq has consistently failed at good governance.
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