1115.org

Back in June 2004, the news media latched onto a lovely prop that was conveniently leaked by the Bush Administration: a handwritten note from Condoleeza Rice to George Bush that celebrated Iraq’s newfound sovereignty. Yet another turning point for the country and a feel-good moment for all the war supporters who had not yet discovered purple finger paint.

A lot has happened since June of ‘04, but publicly our officials have continued to promote the concept of Iraqi sovereignty; one only needs to look to any recent Bush speech or question-and-answer session, where the President is quick to say that Iraq’s direction and ultimate fate is the responsibility of the Iraqis themselves. While this is certainly a logical thing to say, recent events have shown that our commitment to Iraq’s sovereignty isn’t exactly what the President and others have claimed publicly.

Item #1: Iraq’s ruling political parties demand that the US relinquish control of security:

Despite confusions, one thing was certain: Shiite leaders are up in arms against the US forces who brought them to power by ousting Saddam Hussein’s Sunni-dominated Baathist regime.

“The Alliance calls for a rapid restoration of (control of) security matters to the Iraqi government,” Jawad al-Maliki, a senior spokesman of the Shiite Islamist Alliance and ally of Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari, told a news conference.

The US handed over formal sovereignty in 2004 but 133,000 troops in the country give it the main say in security.

Baghdad provincial governor Hussein al-Tahan said he would halt all co-operation with US forces.

Item #2: President Bush inserts himself into the formation of Iraq’s government by saying he will not accept the current prime minister:

The American ambassador has told Shiite officials that President Bush does not want the Iraqi prime minister to remain the country’s leader in the next government, senior Shiite politicians said Tuesday.

(…)

The ambassador, Zalmay Khalilzad, told the head of the main Shiite political bloc at a meeting on Saturday to pass on a “personal message from President Bush” to the interim prime minister, Ibrahim al-Jaafari, said Redha Jowad Taki, a Shiite member of Parliament who was at the meeting.

Mr. Khalilzad said Mr. Bush “doesn’t want, doesn’t support, doesn’t accept” Mr. Jaafari as the next prime minister, according to Mr. Taki, a senior aide to Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim, the head of the Shiite bloc. It was the first “clear and direct message” from the Americans on a specific candidate for prime minister, Mr. Taki said.

Now the details surrounding both these stories can be argued until clocks run backwards, but the main point is simple: if the Iraqis, or at least the ruling parties representing them, want us to stop providing security and keep out of their political affairs (which is their responsibility, according to the president’s public statements), on what basis do we say no, even if we think we know better than they do?

For all our talk about freedom and democracy, if it turns out to be true that Bush has been trying to force the Iraqis to choose one candidate over another, or if we keep our troops in the country against their wishes, Iraq isn’t a democracy—it’s a puppet state, and all the purple fingers and elections will mean little.

America may be a democracy, but that doesn’t in any way mean that all democracies are going to agree with America’s wishes just because they have elections. If Iraq does indeed tell us to get lost, it will be the true test for Bush’s stated commitment to let Iraq handle it’s own affairs. We’ll see.