In the days leading up to the war in Iraq, the U.S. focused on the short-term consequences of a possible armed conflict. Unlike the first Gulf War in 1991, this would not be an easy win for the U.S., military leaders warned. The families of those potentially in harm's way fretted about their loved ones overseas. Humanitarian groups worried that thousands of civilians would be killed in combat. What seemed to be on very few people's mind was what might happen after the war.
But at that time, officials at the State Department and the Pentagon were in fact drawing up a blueprint to govern post-war Iraq. The game plan appeared straightforward enough: re-establish order in the country, set up a functional interim government, hold free and democratic elections, then go home.
The planning wasn't exactly clandestine; Bush administration officials publicly briefed — and were criticized by — members of Congress. But with the immediate threat of war looming, the matter got comparatively little attention in the media.
It now seems clear that the administration's plan underestimated the level of mayhem that would result in Iraq once Saddam Hussein was ousted from power. A military that assiduously avoided bombing certain targets deemed vital to Iraq's infrastructure did not appropriately plan to protect them from civilian looters and vandals at war's end.
By now, the U.S. and Britain had hoped to establish a basic sense of order and an interim government consisting partly of Iraqis, according to a report in The New York Times. That goal has yet to be achieved, and the U.S. has found that the more pressing need is more troops to maintain order in Baghdad and throughout Iraq. An additional 20,000 are on their way to the Iraqi capital. And under new guidelines, American forces can use deadly force to prevent looting.
Jay Garner, the former general who was the Bush administration point man overseeing reconstruction, has been dismissed. L. Paul Bremer III, a longtime diplomat believed to possess superior political skills, replaced him on May 7.
Critics of the administration say it failed to grasp the difficulty of building a democracy from scratch in Iraq. It was naive to think that after fighting two wars against the U.S. and suffering through years of U.S.-backed economic sanctions, the Iraqi people would welcome American occupation or American ideas about government with open arms.
To be sure, many Iraqis do appear to be grateful to the U.S. for ridding their country of Saddam Hussein. But many others are distrustful of the American presence and are anxious to re-establish control of their own country.
Likely to slow the creation of democracy in Iraq is the country's rival religious and ethnic factions with their longstanding disputes. By definition, democracy requires that those with differing viewpoints work them out peacefully and that the majority ultimately rules. Given the violent history of Iraq, many of the country's citizens may not yet be willing to find ways to forgive and forget.
Roughly two-thirds of the Iraqi population belongs to the Shiite sect of Islam. Most of the rest is Sunni Muslim. Yet Saddam and most of his government were predominantly Sunni and they brutally put down several Shiite revolts, killing thousands.
Many Shiites now believe it is their turn to sit at the head of the table in Iraq. On Monday, 10,000 of them marched through the streets of Baghdad chanting, "No, no, no U.S.A.," and "We will not sell this country," according to a Reuters report. Many have also expressed an unwillingness to allow Sunnis to take positions of power in any new Iraqi government.
Then there are the longstanding differences between the Kurds and the Arabs. Roughly 15 percent of Iraq is Kurdish. The rest, including Saddam Hussein and his now defunct government, is Arab. The Kurds have long sought to create a nation of their own in northern Iraq. Like the Shiites, they revolted on several occasions against the Saddam regime and were brutally put down each time.
Since the end of the war, Arabs and Kurds in the North have skirmished several times. On Saturday, at least nine people were killed in the city of Kirkuk as fighting raged between the two groups. They share a long and bitter dispute, which is unlikely to be resolved anytime soon.
Finally, there is the fundamental question of whether democracy, a Western construct, is compatible with Iraqi culture. Good, bad or otherwise, it is a system that came to prominence outside the Arab world. And it is a system that the U.S. will be imposing on Iraqis, whether they like it or not.
For that reason alone, democracy may be a tougher sell than the Bush administration had anticipated.
For the very latest developments on Iraq, check out CBSNews.com.
