Were Those Iraqi Elections Really Worth the Price?

My eyes didn't get all dewy when Iraqis held their parliamentary elections. Others were moved by inspirational scenes, thrilled that we had bestowed the gift of democracy on a nation that seems, at last, to be taking to it. I found myself trying to remember exactly where "democracy" was on the evolving list of rationales the Bush administration used to justify the war (No. 3? No. 4?), and entertaining a series of dark thoughts about the 4,400 lives and $711 billion it hamis taken us to get this far.

I admit it, I'm still angry. I know it's imperative that we look to the future, but the past is hard to forget. Especially when it keeps cropping up, with all its missteps and tragedies, in books and movies. The March 7 election itself was bracketed by the release of Karl Rove's memoir, in which he says the war probably would not have been waged had it been known that Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction -- and "Green Zone," a film in which a U.S. soldier searches in vain for WMDs based on faulty, manipulated intelligence reports. Truth makes pretty good fiction, it turns out.

There is no doubt how most Americans feel about the Iraq war. In January, 60 percent in a CNN poll said they opposed it. Last fall, 67 percent in a CBS News poll said it had not been worth the cost in lives and money. But how do Iraqis feel? To paraphrase Ronald Reagan, are they better off now than they were eight years ago?

They are free of a genocidal dictator, free to live as they please, free to exercise political rights. Their price has included years of violence, more than 100,000 civilian deaths, loss of services as basic as water and power, and – for 2 million to 4 million refugees – loss of their homes. What do Iraqis think of the tradeoff? Was it worth it to them?

Steven Simon, an authority on counterterrorism, national security and the Middle East, calls that an important question. In response he recalls what happened when Henry Kissinger visited China in 1972 and asked Zhou Enlai for his view of the French Revolution (fought nearly 200 years earlier). "It's too soon to tell," came the reply.

Statistics and anecdotes certainly point to improving conditions in Iraq. Just before the election, Newsweek published an upbeat cover story under the headlines "Victory At Last" and "Rebirth of a Nation." The voter turnout rate was more than 62 percent. Nearly two-thirds of the country supported democracy in an ABC News poll of Iraqis last year, 21 points higher than in 2007. And 84 percent rated security in their own area positively, nearly double the level of August 2007. The poll lived up to its headline: "Dramatic Advances Sweep Iraq."

Yet everything in Iraq is relative. Six in 10 people in the ABC survey said they could "obtain basic household goods," meaning 40 percent couldn't -- terrible, but good compared to what ABC polling director Gary Langer called "the dark days of 2007." Only 38 percent said they had reliable electricity -- but that was up from 12 percent in 2008. Only about 4 in 10 said they had access to medical care and clean water -- far below 2005 levels.

There's no question more Iraqis now favor democracy -- 64 percent in the poll last year, 21 points higher than in 2007. And 84 percent rated security in their own area positively, nearly double the level in August 2007. Still, more than half reported at least one violent incident "in their area" – sniper fire, car bomb, fighting – in the previous six months. And it goes on at levels that we would consider shocking in our country. On Iraqi Election Day this month, there were 136 attacks and at least 37 killed. "I've never met an Iraqi who hadn't had somebody in their immediate family killed, injured or kidnapped" since the 2003 invasion, said Rachel Schneller, a Middle East expert at the Council on Foreign Relations.

Another sobering trend confirmed by the poll: Iraq is becoming more segregated. More than 70 percent said they lived in Sunni-only or Shiite-only communities, up 18 points from just a year earlier. Langer's summation remains accurate today: "Violence continues, even if much abated. Basic services such as medical care and clean water, though better, are still in short supply. ... Sunni/Shiite segregation has increased sharply. Kurdish-Arab relations are tense. And issues from corruption to suspected vote fraud and political gridlock cloud the horizon."

Under the "you break it, you buy it" rule, those are all problems that could be on our plate going forward. To start with refugees, there are 1 million to 2 million inside Iraq and 1 million to 2 million in Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey and other countries. Those in the latter category pose a particular challenge, said Schneller, who is studying the refugee situation. "You've got another Palestinian problem, basically -- a large population of people with no future," she told me. If in five years they are still stateless and homeless and their children have no prospects, "their only real option is some sort of insurgent group or militia group."

The United States is able to take only about 30,000 refugees a year, Schneller says. Permanent resettlement is a non-starter in Syria, Jordan and other neighboring countries, which have their own economic problems and ethnic tensions. In the best case scenario, Iraq becomes stable and prosperous, refugees want to return, and the Iraqi government figures out ways to handle property claims, restitution and resettlement assistance.

The government is seen as so corrupt that in 2008, Iraq ranked 178 out of 180 nations in a public corruption report card issued by Transparency International. Eric Davis, an author and Middle East expert at Rutgers, sees risks as a consequence of Iraq's rich reserves of oil and gas, and possible plans for an Iraqi-European pipeline. "There will be a huge influx of wealth in the coming years -- just enormous," he told me. "And if you don't have the proper institutions in place, that's a recipe for huge corruption."

Davis said his work on a forthcoming book, "Taking Democracy Seriously in Iraq," had made him bullish about the Iraqi parliament. "While it hasn't been great in terms of laws that have been published, it has been an incredible place for developing trust" among ethnic groups, he said. "They have the opportunity to negotiate rather than to kill each other." He also found hopeful signs in this month's elections: "cross-ethnic alliances," like Islamic conservatives trying to win votes of women who wear makeup, and voters more interested in services than sectarianism. Gen. Ray Odierno, looking further into the future, talks of a long-term partnership with a democratic Iraq.

Others have more limited hopes. Matt Bennett, who studies military issues at Third Way, a centrist Democratic think tank, predicts our "staggering" investment will bring us "a half baked democracy that probably will slip toward some kind of strongman government eventually ... There isn't a single functioning Arab democracy and there never has been." Simon, who is co-writing a book about Muslims in Europe, said Iraq likely will stabilize "under an illiberal Shia majority government. As the shooting dies down, people are going to be better off... But violence will be pretty pervasive" given how many weapons are floating around.

In the near term, we haven't closed the book yet on these elections. Fraud allegations, slow returns and deep divisions are testing Iraq's fragile institutions, and there are anxious memories of post-election violence that broke out in 2005.

Among the many things I can't get past – the lives, the money, the distraction from Afghanistan and Pakistan, the regional instability we've fueled, the uncertainties of the future -- is the oxymoronic nature of what we've done. Democracy by its very definition should be organic, nurtured and fought for by people who want it -- not imposed by sometimes stunningly incompetent Americans.

Two-thirds of Iraqis are under the age of 25. The country is in a churning state of renewal. "It's not going to be long before the bulk of the population has no memory of Saddam or the war," Simon said. That may help Iraq recover from decades of trauma. For us, one hopes there will be no forgetting. Elections, as encouraging as they are, cannot justify the mistakes we made or diminish their magnitude.