Friday, 19 March 2004

Cargo-cult democracy. The late Nobel laureate Richard Feynman warned about the dangers of cargo-cult science: Of theories that don't work, and results we ignore, because we think the theories ought to work — and because we'd rather deceive ourselves than examine beliefs or admit mistakes.

"In the South Seas there is a cargo cult of people. During the war they saw airplanes land with lots of good materials, and they want the same thing to happen now. So they've arranged to imitate things like runways, to put fires along the sides of the runways, to make a wooden hut for a man to sit in, with two wooden pieces on his head like headphones and bars of bamboo sticking out like antennas—he's the controller—and they wait for the airplanes to land. They're doing everything right. The form is perfect. It looks exactly the way it looked before. But it doesn't work. No airplanes land. So I call these things cargo cult science, because they follow all the apparent precepts and forms of scientific investigation, but they're missing something essential, because the planes don't land."

At the moment, the Bush Administration is setting up Iraq with all the trappings of democracy: They've had a signing ceremony for their founding parchment, and soon they'll have an executive, a parliament, and some people in robes who look like judges. They'll even have ballot boxes and put on a fine show of an election: The New York Times will run a light-hearted story about the novelty of campaign posters in Iraq, and a TV news crew will embed itself with some local Basra candidate for a week. It'll all be very pretty and inspiring, and carefully timed to boost George W. Bush's re-election hopes.

But the rule of law has not been established.

If the American-backed Iraqi government can't secure the rights that its constitution loftily promises — if bombs and bullets continue to be the tools of choice for settling Iraqi political disputes — then all the ribbon-cutting ceremonies in the world won't make Iraq a democracy. Iraq's old constitution, the one in effect when Saddam was in charge, guaranteed freedom of speech and the right to a fair trial. Saddam's Iraq had parliaments and elections. Heck, the Soviet Union had parliaments and elections, and their consitution guaranteed freedom of religion. Haiti's constitution imposed term limits. On paper, China's had freedom of speech since long before Tiananmen Square.

The Constitution of the United States is often revered as the cornerstone of our democracy. We cherish the Bill of Rights, and we believe sincerely that our system of government should be the model for all others. But the Constitution would be empty words if not for the will of the American people to enforce it. Our Bill of Rights guarantees that "In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial"; but if we lack the courage to enforce that right, and permit the Attorney General to suspend it at will, then the Bill of Rights is a promise to ourselves that we've broken.

In Iraq we've created some of the conditions in which a democracy might thrive, first and foremost by removing Saddam Hussein. Some might argue that that step alone redeems our entire effort: That regardless of whatever else we achieve, we're leaving Iraq's government in better shape than we found it. One of the best arguments for rushing in where Bush's father feared to tread was that we've learned more about Saddam since then, and that everything we've learned tells us that removing Saddam was a moral necessity. Saddam Hussein and his monstrous sons were an affront to every ideal that we hold to be self-evident, and we'll never need to apologize for putting a stop to his murderous regime.

But Bush promised much, much more than that. Iraq was to be our showcase for creating democracy in the Mideast: It was a dangerous house in a blighted neighborhood, to be torn down and rebuilt with modern plumbing and all the latest advances. We were going to do in Iraq what we did in Germany and Japan and South Korea, where we planted the seeds of democracy and they flourished.

And, apparently, some members of the Bush Administration believed that democracy is the natural state of human existence. All we needed to do in Iraq was to remove the obstacles that prevented democracy (i.e., Saddam Hussein); once that was done, a democracy would spontaneously form. Extensive planning for the post-war was largely a waste of effort: In a matter of months the Iraqi people would be cheering for hand-picked President Ahmed Chalabi, and then throwing flowers in our wake as our tanks rumbled off into the sunset.

I'm sure that when June 30 comes around, when Bush pulls out his "mission accomplished" banner and lords it over the Iraqi government, the transition will be well stage-managed and it'll provide another excellent photo opportunity. But I fear that we've sacrificed hundreds of lives, and spent hundreds of billions of dollars, to raise the Iraqi government to the level of an Egypt: A sham democracy with paper freedoms and mock elections, that stands as our ally only because we pay them billions in foreign aid.

Ridding the world of Saddam Hussein and his WMD shell game was a worthy cause for its own sake — but that part is done now, and we need a leader who can get us the rest of the way there. We need someone who can turn Iraq from America's pet project into a civilization-wide effort — someone who understands that in Germany and Japan and South Korea we had a mandate, and support and goodwill from the rest of the free world. Today in Iraq we don't have that luxury, and we're approaching the point where it's not a luxury anymore: Our success in Iraq depends on the goodwill of the Iraqi people; and, in turn, it depends on the goodwill of people in other countries.

Cargo-cult democracy won't stabilize Iraq. Unless we want to spend the rest of our lives on Code Orange, it's time to make peace with our estranged allies, it's time to use the tools of diplomacy to restore our stature abroad, and it's time to analyze what we've done so far and to learn from our successes and mistakes. John Kerry is prepared to take those next steps in the War on Terror; George Bush either can't or won't, and that makes him the wrong man for the job.

- Posted by Scott Forbes at 12:20 pm. comments.