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The Failure of Democracy Promotion in Iraq [1]

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Date: 2025-03

The United States did not go to war in Iraq in order to promote democracy. The reasons for the war, which I will not examine here, were more complicated and less noble, such as the desire of some former officials in the George H.W. Bush administration to finally march on Baghdad after being prevented from doing so in aftermath of the Gulf war. Nevertheless, promoting democracy became a way to justify the war and one of its consequences. Having deposed Saddam Hussein, the United States had to prop up a new government. Inevitably, it tried to make that government a democratic one. Two decades after the invasion, it is clear the effort to bring democracy to Iraq, let alone the region, has failed.

When the United States occupied Iraq in 2003, it was still euphoric about its perceived victory in the Cold War and was convinced that democracies would now triumph everywhere. Countries that had not become democratic could be helped by well-designed assistance programs. These were initially implemented in Eastern Europe and parts of the former Soviet Union during the 1990s. Iraq appeared to be the perfect canvas on which to draw a new democracy.

Washington controlled it entirely with the blessing of the United Nations. The US had defeated and then disbanded the Iraqi military. It captured Saddam Hussein along with all his top associates and abolished the Baath Party. To fill the vacuum, the United States hastily organized elections for a constituent assembly and set up a transitional government. By the end of 2005, Iraq had its new democratic constitution, heavily influenced by US experts, but it lacked the support of the major political forces. Thus, the constitution was not an agreement among major political forces, as successful constitutions are, but just a piece of paper.

As a result, the constitution never regulated Iraqi politics. Elections were held regularly, as prescribed, but elections did not determine who would exercise power: that issue was settled by armed militias who battled within and outside the new military, by the maneuvering of politicians whose strength depended less on the votes they received than by alliances with tribal and sectarian forces or with Iran. The United States managed to transplant in Iraq the outward facade of democratic politics without any of the substance. The gap between the voters’ choice at the ballot box and the formation of a new government was considerable, in substance and it time. Twice, in 2010 and in 2021, forming a government took almost a year, and by the time the process was over the political situation had changed considerably. Iraqi politicians quickly learned to game the formal rules and obtain what they wanted, but much power also remained in the hands of armed militias and other groups that did not abide by election results.

Iraq: an imitation democracy?

The formally democratic framework imposed by the United States proved to be both inefficient and ineffectual. The forming of a government should not monopolize the attention of politicians and institutions for months on end. The intensity of the political game also served to insulate politics — that is the competition for control of the governing institutions, from any discussion of policies — that is what the government should be doing. The result of this divorce between politics and policies is that successive Iraqi governments have failed miserably since 2003 to tackle even the most basic and straightforward problems.

For example, when the US invaded in 2003, it found that the country’s infrastructure for the production and distribution of electricity was severely degraded by the sanctions imposed on the country in the 1990s. Iraq was plagued with constant blackouts. In 2022, Iraq was the fifth largest oil exporter in the world, with over $ 40 billion in export revenue, but it was still plagued by major shortages of electricity. A country with large energy sources, growing revenue from oil exports, and access to technical support from the outside should have been able to solve this problem. Another example of a chronic, essentially technical problem is the continuing failure of Iraq to capture and use the gas that is a byproduct of oil extraction. The gas is simply flared, as any visitor to oil-producing regions readily witnesses. Not only is this a poor environmental practice, but it also makes Iraq dependent on gas imports from Iran for the production of electricity. Iraqi politicians constantly promise to stop flaring gas, but nothing has changed in practice.

The election-based, so-called democratic system the United States has put in place in Iraq has failed. It has not led to political stability. It has not reduced the influence of sectarianism. It has not decreased the influence of armed militias. It has not even brought about solutions to fundamental problems that affect the population and could be solved without restructuring the entire economy or changing the nature of the society. It has not decreased the influence of Iran on Iraqi domestic policy. It has not even made Iraq into a reliable ally of the United States. Washington has nothing to show after two decades of democracy promotion.

The prospects for change appear unlikely at best. Iraqi politicians, regardless of which faction they belong too, have become addicted to the game of power the system allows them to play. There is discontent in the country, manifested, like elsewhere in Arab world, by street protest, particularly made up by the young. But the experience of Arab countries since 2011 suggests that protest movements do not succeed in bringing about change in the face of strong entrenched interests. Iraq is likely to be saddled with the present dysfunctional system for a long time to come.

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[1] Url: https://www.ispionline.it/en/publication/the-failure-of-democracy-promotion-in-iraq-121489

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