A Turkish Conundrum

BAGHDAD—March 13, 2015. With Saddam Hussein a distant memory and the one year anniversary of Iraq’s liberation from the occupying forces approaching, the new democratic president has asked the leaders of Hamas and Islamic Jihad to join him in a celebration of the Iraqi independence day.

While the prospect of a future democratic government in Iraq embracing terrorist groups may seem far-fetched, a look at what happened in Turkey last weekend should give the Bush administration pause about hastily deposing Saddam Hussein. Working with foreign democracies has not always proved to be the bargain that we had anticipated.

Despite 30 billion dollars in inducements, the Turkish parliament voted down a measure that would have granted U.S. forces the use of bases bordering Iraq, significantly complicating the Pentagon’s war plans. Turkey’s rebuff is a significant problem for American military strategists. But, the future disposition of a democratic Iraqi regime may turn out to be even more problematic.

Thus far, the assumptions that have governed U.S. war preparations have presupposed a transition to a benevolent and benign democratic government in Iraq. Such a government would be presumably pro-Western, allowing the United States favorable access to its markets and supplying oil at stable prices. But a consideration of other precariously situated democracies might better inform President George W. Bush’s foreign policy team of the risks of action in Iraq.

Massive bouts of civil unrest stimulated by Islamic fundamentalism forced the Algerian government to postpone its 1991 elections, originally scheduled for June of that year, until December. When Algerians finally took to the polls, they overwhelmingly elected members of the Islamic Salvation Front. Following these unexpected results, the military cancelled the elections, and a bloody civil war ensued causing an estimated 100,000 deaths from 1992 to 1999.

Bloody strife as a result of disputed elections is no less likely in Iraq than it was in Algeria. Though Saddam Hussein is certainly a brutal and despotic ruler worthy of intense opprobrium, President Bush needs to ask himself some critical questions about the character and temperament of any future Iraqi government.

Maintaining democracies that are cooperative members of the world community is not always easy. The current situation in Venezuela proves that democratic leaders can quickly morph into tyrants, and abuse their own people. Battles can also erupt between people of various ethnic groups within a nation—a situation that the world witnessed most recently in the Balkans. Fundamentalist Islamic groups also may pose a grave challenge to the stability of a newly forged democracy, just as they now constantly challenge the legitimacy of Pakistan’s regime.

The point is that a friendly and peaceful democratic government in Iraq is anything but the foregone conclusion that the Bush administration thinks it is. With world opinion quickly mounting against him, Bush and his bellicose buddies have decided that the more sagacious course of action would be to unilaterally and forcibly depose Saddam Hussein, rather than to strengthen the containment policy that has worked over the past decade. They know they can win the war; it’s too bad they can’t count on winning the peace.

—Zachary K. Goldman is an advertising manager.