I read with great interest William Tucker’s Tuesday column in which he discussed my recent op-ed in the Wall Street Journal
about democracy in Iraq and specifically Mithal al-Alusi, a liberal
member of the Iraqi Parliament.
In Mr. Tucker’s piece, he compares Mr. al-Alusi to members of a
“thin, Westernized elite” in Vietnam “who were themselves
essentially aliens in their own country.”
Mr. al-Alusi, a Sunni Muslim, is a homegrown Iraqi, Haditha-born
and Baghdad-bred. He did spend part of his adulthood in exile in
Germany to escape being killed for protesting Saddam Hussein’s
human rights abuses, but I do not believe this disqualifies him
from being a bona fide Iraqi or a good source of information about
his people.
Mr. Tucker’s larger point seems to be that Iraqis are
fundamentally too steeped in tribal divisions and hatreds to
embrace democracy, and the liberal values necessary to make
democracy work. In my interviews with Mr. al-Alusi, I asked him
questions that reflected these concerns (is democracy in Iraq
realistic and do the people actually want it, or are they more
interested in killing each other?)
His answers were illuminating and, I believe, provide a prism
for understanding what is happening in Iraq that is all but absent
in mainstream media coverage.
Mr. al-Alusi is one of a dozen politicians in the Iraqi
Parliament that he considers his fellow liberals. While that may be
a small portion of the Parliament, he believes his presence and
that of his fellow liberals actually speaks to the Iraqi people’s
willingness to embrace liberal values, for those who were elected
overcame vicious campaigns of propaganda and intimidation directed
against them, and a huge disparity between their budgets and those
of Islamist candidates.
What was the reason for this disparity? Mr. al-Alusi says that
well prior to the Iraqi elections last December, Iran had
infiltrated the political process by pouring funds into the coffers
of Islamist candidates via non-governmental organizations. Also via
“donations” to nongovernmental organizations, he says Iran and
Saudi Arabia had begun to exert widespread influence over the
contents of Iraqi media, through which they tarnished liberal
candidates.
Mr. al-Alusi, for instance, was branded an “Israeli agent” on
Iraqi TV. The fact that, as he puts it, “even with this [label], I
am winning thousands of votes in Iraq,” suggests there is a real
constituency of Iraqis who not only favor democracy but also
liberal values.
Basically, the impression Mr. al-Alusi shares is that the vast,
silent majority of Iraqis want peace, want security, prefer
democracy — even with the painful compromises it entails — and
prefer making those compromises to either being victims or
perpetrators of sectarian violence, but that the violence in Iraq
is essentially a proxy war being driven by outside forces,
including Iran and al-Qaeda, funding a minority of extremists
within the country in an attempt to create an all-out civil war.
The ultimate goal? To undermine the U.S. policy of promoting
freedom in the Arab world.
Most Iraqis, al-Alusi believes, remain intimidated by Islamists
and unsure as to the U.S. commitment to the region. He believes
that there is a future for democracy in Iraq, and for Iraqi
alliance with the civilized world, but that the U.S. must be much
more bold, energetic, and consistent in supporting liberal
politicians and institutions in Iraq, including the Iraqi Security
Forces, and the Iraqi oil and banking industries.
He told me, “American politicians must not be ashamed to
say…’We are going to support [Iraqi] reformers. We are not going
to leave them alone against the well-organized fascists and fascist
regimes.’”
He also said, “If America loses here, it is the end of American
interests, the end of peace, and the end of human rights in the
Middle East and in Iraq, of course. And this is the beginning of
Iranian control, Hezbollah control, Hamas control — they will be
stronger and stronger and we will [have] lost everything.”
When I read him John Murtha’s quote that “Only the Iraqis can
solve the problem in Iraq. They’re fighting with each other, and
our troops are caught in between, and I say it’s time to redeploy,”
he responded that the idea that “if U.S. troops leave it will be
safer is totally wrong. With respect to this gentleman, he is
trying to understand Iraq from the media…If Iran wins the game
here, we’ll have a huge terrorist wave in the Mid-east, Europe, and
the United States.”
I share Mr. Tucker’s aversion to this and all foreign
entanglements and would like nothing better than see an end in
sight, especially for the sake of our brave U.S. troops in harm’s
way. Questions about tactics and strategy in Iraq still remain, but
to abandon people like Mr. al-Alusi and the other liberals elected
to Parliament as well as their constituencies, thereby handing the
region to terrorists, would be nothing short of a moral and
strategic disaster for the U.S.
Heather Robinson is a New York-based journalist who has
written for the Wall Street Journal, the New York
Post, the New York Daily News and the
Philadelphia Inquirer.
