Afghanistan, Iraqistan: Answerstan, Electionsstan Gregory Fossedal March 31, 2004 Copyright © United Press International Statesmen around the world stare grimly at a series of election deadlines, and gradual transfer of sovereignty, for both Iraq and Afghanistan. Neither country appears ready to hold viable nationwide voting near term. Yet failure to do so risks U.N. (in Afghanistan) and U.S. (in Iraq) credibility, as well as the possibility of a long-term quagmire operating what critics will call, accurately after a time, client regimes. Like a pair of nervous parents who must teach their child to ride a bicycle, these men and women watch fretfully as the 4-year-old teeters and totters. They dash along, never ungripping the bars, agreeing all the way that, "whatever else happens, we musn't let little Pat fall down." The result, of course, is that the child doesn't learn how to ride. Yet the date by which he must ride inches forward, inexorably and menacingly. The answer to this problem, paradoxically, is not to grunt and puzzle and struggle over how to hold a perfect, indellible, everlasting election, singular -- but rather, to constantly be holding frequent votes, referenda, and consultations, all imperfect and messy, but in any case, elections, plural. There should be some kind of voting every 2-3 weeks in each of those: a local election here, an issue referendum there. Guns and ballots: The quickest way to relieve violence aimed at political ends is to make it possible to achieve political ends peacefully -- with regular, ongoing elections. And the answer to looming deadlines months off, by which time perfection must be achieved, is to start holding messy, crumby, even dirty elections right now. All right, not today. But darn soon. Start by having a series of local ballots in each local district in Iraq and Afghanistan on the question of, what level of the population must be registered in any given district for that district to be ready for voting? In short: Hang aroud, let the child skin a knee or two, but for heaven's sake, get her or him riding that bicycle as often as possible. Democracy loathers and skeptical aristocrats, from Sam Huntington to Fareed Zakaria, are fond of pointing out that countries such as Iraq and Afghanistan do not have 200 years of rule-of-law, parliamentary tradition. This is true. Neither did Russia in 1993, Germany in 1947, or France and Switzerland in 1848. It is all the more reason -- if the U.S.-U.N. enterprise is to avoid dismal failure -- why they must start practicing. All that is needed to break down the massive, monolithic problem is a chopping knife, to divide and conquer the task of polity-building into as many chads -- and a letter "s," to move from election problem to elections solution. This approach would carry five advantages: 1. Immediate start, immediate progress Either country could begin holding votes in certain districts that are peaceful and fully registered within a matter of weeks. Part of the country would start learning democracy, part would lag. Perhaps voters, individually, would be allowed to register in any such district they can, until voting becomes available in their home town -- maximizing personal input, especially for those most zealous about exercising it. Isn't that unfair to some people or places? Well, highly developed democracies hold different votes in different places all the time. As a matter of fact, the world's most advanced democracy, Switzerland, holds balloting on national, regional, and local issues on an average of several times a year. It is more fair to allow any state, region, or person to practice democracy as soon as it or she or he can -- and, more practical. The growth of democracy in one part of the country, or of the whole country over some particular issue, speeds up the development of the rest. Surely, Afghanistan and Iraq would be better off if say, one-third of the country had managed to hold some votes by April, with another one-third planning them for May or June, and others struggling on for fall -- learning, meanwhile, from their countrymen's example. The demand of elitists and anti-democrat cavillers that these countries be beamed directly to 100 percent, or remain at 0 percent, guarantees they will never leave ground zero. 2. Guns and ballots "If a people cannot engage in peaceful acts of sovereignty, it will eventually engage in violent ones." This sounds like something Alexis de Tocqueville said, but it's mine, actually. Iraq and Afghanistan both have a large population of well-armed, Moslem males. Thanks to some policy errors, such as the complete (rather than selective) firing of the Iraqi and Afghan armies and large swaths of the governments, many of these men are unemployed. They need to be occupied in some meaningful peaceful pursuit -- economically, politically, or both -- or they will be involved in non-peaceful pursuits. Economic growth will take time to build. Writing letters to the editor of their now-free newspapers, or to their U.S.-chosen leaders, has kept people occupied for a while, but is wearing thin. In any case, these are not acts of sovereignty -- of controlling the policies and destiny of one's society. Even many Americans are tired of an elite political and media-chatter class that doesn't listen. Why should Iraqis and Afghanis regard these as useful pursuits when they haven't even been allowed to vote once? Some peaceful political activity won't go the way the U.N. or U.S. would like. But nearly all violent political activity works against our aims. It makes sense to shift as much human energy from the latter to the former. Starting as soon as each individual, district, and issue are ready to be voted on. 3. Outsourcing the puppets One of the biggest problems in both Afghanistan and Iraq has been the perception and reality that outside forces have appointed people they like to key posts, and are reluctant to allow democratic events that might mean unacceptable people taking their place. There is, in the long run, no answer to this dilemma. A democracy where you can't throw the rascals out, and even make the mistake of bringing worse rascals in, is no democracy. There is, though, an incremental way to start the de-puppetization process in a way that maximizes chances for success. The communist Chinese, ironically, seem to grasp this in Hong Kong, which is slated to gradually elect more of its own leaders in the coming years. (Whether China carries this out remains to be seen; but it is a wise model whether it does or not.) U.S. and U.N. planners in Iraq and Afghanistan should imitate this approach, but at a much-less-oriental pace. Open a quarter of the seats on the Iraqi Governing Counsel next month. Permit Afghanis to set their own date or standards for a presidential election in June. And so on. The joint U.S.-British mantra has been, "we will stay as long as we're needed, and not one day longer." A good way to extend on the Rumsfeldian wisdom of this formulation is, to say, "and this applies not only to the country as one, macro blob, but to each area of life, each city and region, and each policy debate that we can get out of." Transferring power to the people means America's intelligence services, which have ample reason for humility, don't have to worry about which elites are reliable, which are untrustworty. Let millions of Afghans and Iraqis decide that. 4. Why they call it a dead-line Implicit in the vague sense of dread felt by Paul Bremer and others is a cycle of demand-perfection by a date certain, struggle to meet it; when things move the opposite way, clinch your teeth harder and promise to stick with it; and eventually, after failure, set a new deadline. When people face matters in such an all-or-nothing way, it's natural that a sense of impending doom emerges. As well, you provide all the wrong incentives to all the key actors. Well-meaning would-be democrats wonder if they'll ever have a peaceful road to power. Terrorists hope that by derailing a train here, bombing a hotel there, they can undo the whole fragile process -- and they're right, if in fact we set a too-high standard. The answer is lots of little votes that don't have to be perfect. For this, one can make every deadline, and even improve one's ability to monitor which districts and issues are ready. 5. Yes, nation-building "Who is sovereign? (He) Who commits acts of sovereignty." This one Tocqueville actually did say, in a report to the French parliament on nation-building in Switzerland. Tocqueville's concern was that there would never be such a thing as a Swiss citizen, or a Swiss nation -- even today, some Swiss ask, "does Switzerland exist?" -- if there were not Swiss acts of sovereignty. His observation applies doubly to countries like Afghanistan and Iraq. Not to mention Cyprus, Saudi Arabia, and the whole Middle East. You want citizens? Allow men and women to behave like citizens. What are citizens? In a democracy, they are the sovereign. This means acts of sovereignty -- in short, letting the child practice on the bike, on his own, including the possibility of a scrape. The Swiss answer then, in 1848, should be the answer in Middle East Democracy-stan in the 21st Century: lots of elections, lots of referenda, lots of practice. Better ride-fall-down, ride-wobble, ride-stand-up -- than never-ride, never-ride, fall-down-anyway. Gregory Fossedal is a senior fellow at the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution and the author of "Direct Democracy in Switzerland" and "The Democratic Imperative." His opinions are entirely his own and not necessarily those of UPI or AdTI.