Six weeks ago, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said we would see “a major breakthrough” within “weeks” on political reconciliation in Iraq, which he believes is unfolding at “breakneck speed.”
It’s one of those quotes that looks increasingly ridiculous all the time.
A principal architect of Iraq’s interim constitution, who resigned in August as one of the country’s top diplomats, has laid out a devastating critique of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and the U.S. occupation, telling NBC News that, functionally, “there is no Iraqi government.”
The diplomat, Feisal Amin Istrabadi, said in his first interview since stepping down as Iraq’s deputy ambassador to the United Nations that “this government has got to go.”
Istrabadi said the Iraqi government itself is an illusion, stocked with incompetent administrators who had helped bring about “chaos and instability.” He pointed to the Health Ministry, dominated by the Mahdi Army militia. “You cannot have this sectarian doling out of the Cabinet ministries,” Istrabadi said. “You’ve got to bring in competent technocrats to try to run those ministries, the service ministries.”
This guy is clearly not on the same page as the Bush administration.
As it happens, Istrabadi supported the invasion, and still refuses to describe it as a mistake, but nevertheless describes a political environment that isn’t going to get any better.
Istrabadi traced what he called the country’s “chaos and instability” in part to the U.S. insistence on holding elections in 2005, before Iraq had developed robust democratic institutions to buffer the influence of religious leaders.
“Both the Shia and the Sunnis were told if they didn’t vote for their respective parties, that would be a violation of their religious duties,” Istrabadi said.
The result was a government dominated by Shiite Islamist parties and a constitution rejected by Sunni ethnic groups. Shiite Islamist parties have blamed the Sunnis for refusing to engage in the political process.
“I think the question was: ‘Should elections have been held?’ And I think that there is only one answer to that question, and that’s absolutely not,” Istrabadi said.
Istrabadi blamed the Bush administration for pushing for the elections at least two years before Iraq was ready for them.
“What did we accomplish, exactly, [with] this push towards an appearance of institutions … merely an appearance?” he asked. “Except that an American politician can stand up and say, ‘Look what we accomplished in Iraq.’ When, in fact, what we accomplished in Iraq over the last three years has been chaos and instability.”
This seems to confuse people like Fred Barnes, but when someone like Istrabadi describes the Iraqi government as a failure, sees a political system divided along stark sectarian lines, and believes political reconciliation isn’t even possible, this is a reminder of just how badly the existing U.S. policy has failed.
Time to pack up and come home.