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Iraq: The Long Haul

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Larry Diamond
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Larry Diamond - Out of the ruins of one of the world's worst tyrannies, in an ancient land that has rarely known any form of decent or constitutional governance, a democracy is struggling to be born. Iraq is one of the world's least likely sites for a transition to democracy. Virtually all the classic preconditions for liberal government are lacking. And yet, with its decades-long despotism shattered, Iraq is now better positioned than any of its 15 Arab neighbors to become a democracy in the next few years. That achievement, however tentative and imperfect, would ignite mounting aspirations for democratization throughout the region - from Iran to Morocco - and renew the momentum of freedom worldwide.
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Eyewitness to the Iraq Botch

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Larry Diamond
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Larry Diamond - While I was there, the CPA repeatedly misjudged and underestimated the most important Shiite leader, Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, and finalized in early March an interim constitution that most Iraqis (including Sistani) felt gave too sweeping a veto to minorities and too little participation to the people. When I traveled the country speaking about this new document, I was stunned by the anger and frustration of Iraqis who felt excluded from the process. But by then, the CPA was interested only in "selling" the document (for which we hired an expensive advertising agency). Too often, our engagement with ordinary Iraqis was a one-way conversation from above.

While I was there, the CPA repeatedly misjudged and underestimated the most important Shiite leader, Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, and finalized in early March an interim constitution that most Iraqis (including Sistani) felt gave too sweeping a veto to minorities and too little participation to the people. When I traveled the country speaking about this new document, I was stunned by the anger and frustration of Iraqis who felt excluded from the process. But by then, the CPA was interested only in "selling" the document (for which we hired an expensive advertising agency). Too often, our engagement with ordinary Iraqis was a one-way conversation from above.

Today, as the U.S. continues to battle the radical Shiite insurgency led by cleric Muqtada Sadr while trying to sell Iraqis on its post-occupation plans, the challenges are as tough as ever. The new interim government includes a number of politically shrewd Iraqis, some with roots in Iraq's crucially important tribes, who may yet prove capable of mobilizing support for the political transition. But the new government will not be viable and the elections for a transitional parliament will drown in bloodshed and fraud unless the new Iraqi state can defeat the former regime loyalists, the terrorists, the organized criminals and the militias. To do that, a recommitment from the United States -- and a smarter American strategy -- will be needed.

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The New War for Iraq

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Larry Diamond
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HILLA, IRAQ - On a rough, woven mat, under a huge tented mudheef (a traditional reed-frame guesthouse), atop the roof of one of Iraq's most beautiful mosques, a giant bear of a man implores his American visitors to act against the religious fanatics who have vowed to kill him and destroy his movement for democracy. The black-turbaned man with outsized feet, hands, girth, and ambition is a Sayyid, a direct descendant of the Prophet Mohammed. With his unruly black beard, flowing clerical garb, and retinue of religious followers, he could easily be mistaken for just another radical Shiite mullah.

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Report from Baghdad

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Larry Diamond
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With the transfer of power to a new interim Iraqi government on June 28, the political phase of the U.S. occupation came to an abrupt end. The transfer marked an urgently needed, and in some ways hopeful, new departure for Iraq. But it did not erase, or even much ease at first, the most pressing problems confronting that beleaguered country: endemic violence, a shattered state, a nonfunctioning economy, and a decimated society. Some of these problems may have been inevitable consequences of the war to topple Saddam Hussein. But Iraq today falls far short of what the Bush administration promised. As a result of a long chain of U.S. miscalculations, the coalition occupation has left Iraq in far worse shape than it need have and has diminished the long-term prospects of democracy there. Iraqis, Americans, and other foreigners continue to be killed. What went wrong?

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Between Democracy and Stability: The Middle East

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Larry Diamond
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How do we balance two conflicting imperatives for U.S. foreign policy: preserving the short-term stability of Arab regimes that have been friendly-or at least not explicitly and intractably hostile-to the United States and promoting a deeper, more organic stability in the region through democratic reform?

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Beat the Insurgents by Talking to Them

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Larry Diamond
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In his speech last week, President [Bush] correctly said that the United States had a vital interest in remaining in Iraq until a viable, secure and hopefully democratic state emerged. He also appropriately noted evidence of democratic progress in Iraq -- an elected government in Baghdad and a more representative constitution drafting committee set to begin its work. But if the United States is to avoid defeat in Iraq, Bush must recognize what our military leaders have repeated for more than a year: There is no purely military solution to the insurgency. It will only be extinguished by a combination of military might, good intelligence, reliable policing and -- crucially -- effective politics.

If Bush's assurance is to be credible, it must be coupled to a fourth strategic element. Bush is right to reject a fixed timetable for withdrawal, which would only embolden the terrorists. But Iraqi insurgents must be able to envision a time when foreign troops will be gone.

To this end, the administration should set a time -- not a deadline, but a goal -- when it hopes to be militarily out of Iraq, provided insurgents opted for peaceful politics instead of violence. This would shift the burden to the Sunni-based insurgents to demonstrate their nationalist credentials by altering their strategies and methods so order can return to Iraq, the new Iraqi armed forces can gain strength and the United States can make good on its withdrawal pledge.

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Has America Failed in Iraq?

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Larry Diamond
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In a number of specific respects, the United States has failed in Iraq. We failed to plan effectively for the postwar era. We did not put in nearly enough troops to secure Iraq once Baghdad fell. Despite numerous warnings, we failed to anticipate the rise of an insurgency mobilizing both secular nationalist and religious fundamentalist sentiments, with extensive funding and support by surviving Baathist diehards. We left the borders wide open to infiltration by foreign jihadists who have come to offer themselves up for suicidal terror in Iraq, or - as we have learned recently from a leaked CIA report - to be trained for terrorist attacks on Europe and the United States. We didn't secure the weapons depots.
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It Only Looks Dead: Don't Write the Obituary for Iraq's Constitution Just Yet

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Larry Diamond
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Iraqi's failure to complete a constitution by August 15 is a blow to the country's prospects for political stability and democracy--and to the credibility of the Bush administration, which staked so much on this deadline. But there could have been a worse development: a bad constitution--unworkable, illiberal, or unacceptable to a section of the country. At least that disaster has been averted for now....

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Consensus and Iraq's Constitution

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Larry Diamond
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For weeks, the constitutional referendum has been shaping up as a polarizing replay of the Jan. 30 parliamentary elections, when almost all Kurds voted for the Kurdish coalition, most Shiites voted for the United Iraqi Alliance (a coalition of Shiite Islamist parties) and most Sunnis boycotted. In this case, the Kurds and Shiites overwhelmingly support a constitution mainly drafted by their parties, while most Sunni political, tribal and religious groups have been campaigning against the document. The constitution's Sunni opponents will likely fail. Until recently, it seemed they could muster the two-thirds "no" vote in three provinces required to defeat it. But just three days ago, last- minute negotiations among Kurdish and Shiite representatives and the most prominent Sunni party (among a badly fragmented array of them) brought what was hailed as a "breakthrough" compromise. The Bush administration, and particularly its skillful ambassador in Baghdad, Zalmay Khalilzad, deserve credit for bringing the Sunnis into the constitutional deliberations earlier this summer, after their electoral boycott had largely shut them out of parliament. Khalilzad tried to facilitate a broad constitutional bargain, and then, when the constitution was finally adopted by parliament without Sunni support in August, he fought until this final moment for wider constitutional consensus.
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Implementing UN Security Council Resolution 1540

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On April 28, 2004, the United Nations Security Council, acting under Chapter VII of the UN Charter, unanimously passed UNSC 1540. The resolution "decided that all States shall refrain from providing any form of support to non-state actors" attempting to obtain or use weapons of mass destruction, "adopt and enforce appropriate effective laws" to that effect, and "take and enforce effective measures to "prevent the proliferation of" WMD. To carry out its part of this mandate, the UNSC established and renewed a Committee, which has mainly and usefully assisted States in adopting "appropriate effective laws." This study, in collaboration with Committee members, has focused on implementation mechanisms and indicators of performance in border and exports controls, securing materiel and facilities, and adapting controls to State needs. We conclude that the most meaningful measures of implementation need to be more broadly adopted and that the 1540 Committee needs a more extensive staff in order to extend its role to disseminate States' experience with those measures. We also conclude that mechanisms need to be developed to facilitate information sharing between the Committee and the private sector.

Michael May is a professor emeritus (research) in the Stanford University School of Engineering and a senior fellow with the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University. He is the former co-director of Stanford University's Center for International Security and Cooperation, having served seven years in that capacity through January 2000. May is a director emeritus of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, where he worked from 1952 to 1988, with some brief periods away from the Laboratory. While there, he held a variety of research and development positions, serving as director of the Laboratory from 1965 to 1971. May was a technical adviser to the Threshold Test Ban Treaty negotiating team; a member of the U.S. delegation to the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks; and at various times has been a member of the Defense Science Board, the General Advisory Committee to the AEC, the Secretary of Energy Advisory Board, the RAND Corporation Board of Trustees, and the Committee on International Security and Arms Control of the National Academy of Sciences. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Pacific Council on International Policy, and a Fellow of the American Physical Society and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. May received the Distinguished Public Service and Distinguished Civilian Service Medals from the Department of Defense, and the Ernest Orlando Lawrence Award from the Atomic Energy Commission, as well as other awards. His current research interests are in the area of nuclear and terrorism, energy, security and environment, and the relation of nuclear weapons and foreign policy.

Chaim Braun is a vice president of Altos Management Partners, Inc., and a CISAC science fellow and affiliate. He is a member of the Near-Term Deployment and the Economic Cross-Cut Working Groups of the Department of Energy (DOE) Generation IV Roadmap study. He conducted several nuclear economics-related studies for the DOE Nuclear Energy Office, the Energy Information Administration, the Electric Power Research Institute, the Nuclear Energy Institute, Non-Proliferation Trust International, and others. Braun has worked as a member of Bechtel Power Corporation's Nuclear Management Group, and led studies on power plant performance and economics used to support maintenance services. Braun has worked on a study of safeguarding the Agreed Framework in North Korea, he was the co-leader of a NATO Study of Terrorist Threats to Nuclear Power Plants, led CISAC's Summer Study on Terrorist Threats to Research Reactors, and most recently co-authored an article with CISAC Co-Director Chris Chyba on nuclear proliferation rings. His research project this year is entitled "The Energy Security Initiative and a Nuclear Fuel Cycle Center: Two Enhancement Options for the Current Non-Proliferation Regime."

Allen Weiner is an associate professor of law (teaching) at the Stanford Law School, as well as the inaugural Warren Christopher Professor of the Practice of International Law and Diplomacy, a chair held jointly by FSI and the Stanford Law School. He is also an affiliated faculty member at CISAC. His expertise is in the field of public international law and the foreign relations law of the United States. His work focuses on the effect of positive international law rules on the conduct of foreign relations and other implications for the behavior of states, courts (both national and international), and other international actors. Current research interests focus on international law and the response to the contemporary security threats of international terrorism and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. He teaches courses in public international law and international criminal law at Stanford Law School. Before coming to Stanford, Weiner served for 12 years as a career attorney in the U.S. Department of State. He served in the Office of the Legal Adviser in Washington, D.C. (1990-1996) and at the U.S. Embassy in The Hague (1996-2001), most recently as legal counselor, in which capacity he served as the U.S. Government's principal day-to-day interlocutor with the international legal institutions in The Hague, including the International Court of Justice, the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, and the Iran-United States Claims Tribunal. He received a BA from Harvard College and a JD from Stanford Law School.

Roger Speed is a physicist formerly with the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and now an affiliate of CISAC. He has also worked at the National Academy of Sciences, at R&D Associates, and, as a Peace Fellow, at the Hoover Institution, where he wrote a book on strategic nuclear policy. He has served on a number of defense-related committees, including ones for the Office of Undersecretary of Defense for Policy, the American Physical Society, the U.S. Navy (Non-Acoustic ASW Panel), the National Academy of Sciences, and the Air Force Space and Missile Systems Organization. He has conducted a broad range of national security studies for the Department of Defense, Department of Energy, and Central Intelligence Agency in such areas as arms control, strategic deterrence, nuclear war, ballistic missile defense, nuclear weapons safety, and the survivability of strategic systems.

Reuben W. Hills Conference Room

Michael M. May Speaker
Chaim Braun Speaker
Allen S. Weiner Speaker
Roger Speed CISAC Affiliate Speaker Stanford University
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