Dear Friends,

Debates about the proper role of democracy in US Middle East policy are important, and we at POMED look forward to being actively involved in advancing those discussions in the months and years ahead. But at the end of the day, budgets are where the rubber meets the road. And the time to start paying attention to budgets is now.

US democracy support in the Middle East has come under fire of late from multiple directions. Some continue to trot out the old line that the Arab world is culturally deficient, and unable to support the emergence of genuine democracy. Others have called for a retreat from America’s moral commitments overseas, posing a false choice between supporting the spread of democratic values overseas and dealing with “bread and butter” issues here at home. Still others have used democracy as their political target of choice, playing along with the Bush Administration’s conflation of democracy promotion and the invasion of Iraq and criticizing all concern for human rights and political reform as signs of naïve utopianism or neoconservative agendas.

To a certain extent, these attacks have carried on at the level of pundits and academia over the past few years, without seriously undermining funding levels - but that could all be changing.

Why? As the Bush administration winds to a close and Congress prepares to work with a new president, major questions - and programs - will be on the table in a way they haven’t in the past.  There will be pressures on the one hand to consolidate the legacy of the Bush Administration’s “Freedom Agenda” - including such institutions as MEPI and the MCC.  Others, however, will favor postponing such decisions until the arrival of the next president and the 111th Congress in January, both of which will likely be elected with a mandate for change in US Middle East policy.  How those dynamics work themselves out, and the manner in which the next Congress and President interpret those calls for change, will critically determine the course of US democracy support for years to come.  Congress may ultimately defer passing appropriations legislation this year, but that will only make next year’s deliberations all the more important.

The Project on Middle East Democracy has two basic goals that work closely in tandem: 1) to spark a reexamination of the ways in which genuine democracies can emerge in the Middle East and how the US can best support that process, and 2) to strengthen the constituency for robust, peaceful US support for democracy in the Middle East.  Over the next 18 months and beyond, as these funding debates continue to unfold, we will be working hard to be your eyes and ears on the ground. We will bring you the best analysis and the most timely updates. If you have specific questions, or need to connect with others who work on these issues, we can help you with those requests. Working together, we can have a major impact on the future of US democracy support in the region.

All the best,

Andrew

P.S. - For a sneak peak at our budget analysis, check out next week’s Arab Reform Bulletin from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Also, if you haven’t seen it yet, be sure to check out this important new report by Steven E. Finkel, Aníbal Pérez-Liñán, Mitchell A. Seligson. (A different version is available here.)

–
Andrew P. Albertson
Executive Director
Project on Middle East Democracy
andrew.albertson@pomed.org 
202-422-6804

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POMED Updates

Welcome to Mohammed Loraoui

POMED welcomes Mohammed Loraoui as our new Associate Director of Dialogue Programs.  Mohammed is a 2006 graduate of the University of Colorado at Boulder, where he majored in international affairs with a focus on the Middle East.  He studied abroad at the American University of Cairo in 2004, and has traveled widely in the Middle East, as well as North and West Africa.  Mohammed is also a consultant for the National Endowment for Democracy, where he works on NED’s Arabic website al-Nafitha, helps to administer NED grants, and translates, analyzes, and summarizes grant proposals for consideration by NED’s board.

POMED Receives MEPI Grant for Middle East Conferences

POMED is proud to announce the receipt of a grant from the U.S. State Department’s Middle East Partnership Initiative to conduct its “Young Global Leaders Forum” in Jordan, Egypt and Morocco this spring.  The series of conferences and follow-up activities, conducted with Americans for Informed Democracy (AID) and our regional partners, is dedicated to fostering political reform in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) and exploring how the U.S. can best support this process. The participants, a diverse group of American and MENA university students and young professionals, will develop and ratify policy recommendations at the conferences. The conferences will lay the foundation for a lasting network of reform-oriented young people by using social networking websites for political activism, fostering people-powered journalism and commentary, and providing training for participants to act as “voices” for the conference recommendations.

More details, including applications to participate in each of the three conferences, are now available on POMED’s website.

POMED in the News

In a recent Washington Post op-ed, POMED Research Director Shadi Hamid draws parallels between lingering anger in the  African American community, as described in Barack Obama’s recent speech on race, and anger toward the West and the United States within the Arab and Muslim world.  He argues that “the conversation Obama tried to initiate - contextualizing radicalism and seeking its source rather than merely denouncing it - is the sort of conversation that could also lay the groundwork for a long-overdue reassessment of our approach to the Middle East.”

Provincial Powers in Iraq

By Lydia Khalil, POMED Policy Associate

On February 13th, 2008, the Iraqi parliament passed the Provincial Powers Act.  In an unprecedented manoeuvre, after an article by article vote, the Council of Representatives passed the act along with the so-called amnesty law and the 2008 budget, as part of a bundle in a straight up or down vote.  Inside Iraq, the Provincial Powers Act is considered to be the most significant law to be passed by the country’s fragile democratic government.  However, within the United States, this landmark piece of legislation has received surprisingly little attention.

A Benchmark of Progress

By the standard of the eighteen benchmarks set forward by the U.S. Congress in the Iraq Accountability Act of May 2007, it would not appear that the Iraqi government has achieved sufficient political progress to accompany the decreased levels of violence over the past year.  However, the Provincial Powers Act is hardly factored into most evaluations of Iraqi political progress. The U.S. government, and the Iraq policy community as a whole, continue to look to the full set of benchmark criteria as the standard measure of progress in Iraq.  Though it is only one benchmark, this legislation has the potential to encourage more progress in Iraq than arguably any of the other seventeen benchmarks enumerated by Congress.

For one thing, the law was not passed along sectarian lines as had been the practice in the past, but rather, according to hard-nosed ideological and political considerations. In particular, the Shi’a groups within parliament were deeply divided over the law, with Sadrists and independents siding with Sunni Arab lawmakers in wanting strong central control, and the Islamic Supreme Council for Iraq (ISCI) and their Kurdish allies arguing for greater decentralization.  The law’s passage can be viewed as the potential beginning of a critical transition from identity politics towards political-ideological configurations in Iraq.

In addition, the law passed despite the threat of a Presidency Council veto, a possibility due to Vice President Adel Abdul Mahdi’s concern that provisions of the law violated certain constitutional principles.  The Presidency Council objected to a provision allowing the Prime Minister to dismiss provincial governors or governorate councils (inserted by the more nationalist bloc in parliament who fear excessive decentralization at the expense of national unity).

While Vice President Mahdi raised an important and relevant objection, the fact that it was withdrawn in order to preserve the greater good is significant- not least of which because the vice president’s party, ISCI, gained the least from the legislation.  The door remains open for future amendments.

Election ‘08

Another key component of the act established October 2008 as the date for the next provincial elections.  This becomes a controversial but vitally important date.  Provincial elections have the potential to reshape the political landscape of Iraqi local politics, which will in turn influence national parliamentary politics.  These local elections promise to introduce a new set of political actors that have previously been shut out of governance.

The Sunni Arab boycott of 2005 left many Sunnis underrepresented by groups they do not trust.  With the emergence of the Sunni Arab awakening councils, many groups who were previously left out of the political process are clamoring to get in, arguing they have more local legitimacy than those currently in power.

The ISCI-Sadrist rivalry will also come to a head in key provinces like the oil rich province of Basra.  Though the elections are likely to be extremely contentious, they may sort out ambiguities regarding bases of support.  Unbalanced representation in government has been a driver of both inter- and intrasectarian violence, which could be dampened by a clearer delineation of who has support and who does not.

But the timeline for provincial elections embedded within the act is troubling to some analysts and political groups like ISCI.  They worry that the infrastructure for holding provincial elections will not be ready by October and that holding provincial elections will in fact inflame, not quell, violence in key provinces. However, some of that concern is disingenuous, especially from ISCI.  Since they hold many powerful positions in key Southern provinces that are likely to be contested, they do not exactly have an incentive to usher in early elections.

To Federalize or Not to Federalize - No Longer the Question

The Provisional Powers Act passage comes just ahead of another critical date, April 2008.  This is when the Law for Implementing Federalism comes into effect and provinces can begin to form “federal regions” of two or more provinces.

Federal regions (the Kurdistan Regional Government is as of yet the only one) have considerably more powers than standalone provinces.  Federal regions have the power to constitute independent security forces and form regional parliaments, among other things.  These are powers that non-federated provinces lack.

On one hand, the Provincial Powers Act may encourage the formation of federal regions because of the relatively limited powers of stand alone provinces as outlined in the law.  On the other hand, the law also offers a form of decentralization other than federalism, which remains deeply controversial inside Iraq.  Because the threshold for forming a federal region is so high, and because provincial powers have been outlined in a manner that is satisfactory to centralists, those provinces not wishing to form federal regions now have an alternative recourse.

This legislation offers a middle ground to drive arguments away from the polarized extremes - like the advocacy of a nine-province Shi’a mega-region by ISCI or the reflexive position of Sunni Arabs in favor of strong central control.  Though the debate will become more complicated, that is not necessarily a bad thing given the myriad interests in Iraq.  Better nuance than polarized, extreme positions alone.

Conclusions

The passage  of the Provincial Powers Act is an important and overlooked example of meaningful action taken by the Iraqi parliament. However, the passage of this law does also highlight some constitutional inconsistencies, including the Vice President’s valid objection to parliamentary removal of provincial governors.  However, given the vagueness and internal contradictions within the 2005 Iraqi constitution, this law could in fact help clarify some of these inconsistencies - particularly since proposed constitutional amendments have stalled in parliament. Of course, the security situation in Iraq remians quite difficult, and the legal reforms instituted by The Provincial Powers Act should by no means be considered part of an unobstructed path towards progress, but rather an important step which, if followed by a number of other key measures, could form the foundation for the political reforms needed in Iraq.

Legislative Roundup

Congress was only in session for the first half of March, adjourning on March 14 for the two-week Easter recess.  But the two weeks in which they were in session were busy ones.  This month was marked by the passage of budget resolutions for fiscal year 2009 in the House and the Senate, debated throughout the week of March 10-14.  Both the House and the Senate passed budget bills just before departing for the Easter recess.  Differences in the two bills will need to resolved by a conference committee when Congress returns from recess.  Debate on Iraq also intensified this month, with numerous bills regarding the U.S. military presence and policy toward Iraq proposed and debated, ahead of General Petraeus’ return to Capitol Hill on April 8 and 9 to give his latest assessment of conditions in Iraq.

Fiscal Year 2009 Budget Resolutions

Just before adjourning for recess on March 14, the Senate debated and voted on scores of amendments to its budget resolution for fiscal year 2009 (S.Con.Res.70).  This concluded on Thursday, March 13, with a marathon 15 hour session running well past midnight, ending with passage of the bill in a 51 to 44 vote.  Most relevant to international programs was the Biden-Lugar Amendment (S.Amdt.4245), which passed in a vote of 73 to 23. This key amendment increased the international affairs allocation by more than $4 billion to $39.5 billion, matching the amount requested by President Bush last month.  In a 212-207 vote, the House also passed its budget resolution (H.Con.Res.312), allocating $37.9 billion for international affairs.  Due to such differences in the two versions, a conference committee will be convened in April to reconcile the two bills. 

Iraq

A couple of different bills were proposed this month calling for the rapid withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq. On March 4, Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA), introduced  H.RES.1019, which declares that the current economic slowdown in the United States is directly related to the enormous costs of the ongoing occupation of Iraq, and calls for a rapid withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq, accompanied by greater focus on domestic economic issues.  On March 14, Rep. Robert Wexler (D-FL) introduced H.CON.RES.319, recognizing the fifth anniversary of the Iraq war and urging President George W. Bush to begin an immediate and safe redeployment of United States Armed Forces from Iraq.

On March 11, Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC) introduced H.CON.RES.315, which asserts that coalition victory in Iraq is possible. On March 13, Rep. William Delahunt (D-MA) introduced H.R.5626, the Protect Our Troops and Our Constitution Act of 2008. The bill declares that no funds appropriated by Congress shall be used “to establish or maintain any permanent or long-term United States military base or facility in Iraq,” and that “long-term relations between the United States and Iraq should be determined by the United States Administration taking office on January 20, 2009.”

Pakistan

On March 12, H.RES.1044, sponsored by Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA), condemning the dismissal of the Supreme Court in Pakistan and calling for their reinstatement by the Government of Pakistan, was introduced and referred to the House Committee on Foreign Affairs. The bill “calls on the Government of Pakistan … to restore to their positions Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry and all Supreme Court and high court justices and other members of the legal profession in Pakistan who were removed from office since the imposition of emergency rule, and to respect the independence of the Pakistani judiciary.”  Chaudhry and nine of his colleagues were subsequently released from five months of house arrest on Monday, March 24, but as of now there are no plans for his reinstatement.

Civilian Reconstruction Agency Development

On Tuesday, March 4, H.R.1084, sponsored by Rep. Sam Farr (D-CA), the Reconstruction and Stabilization Civilian Management Act of 2008, was reported by the House Committee on Foreign Affairs and passed by a voice vote in the House on Wednesday, March 5.  The bill was read in the Senate and placed on the Senate Legislative Calendar under General Orders on the following day.  The bill would amend the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961, the State Department Basic Authorities Act of 1956, and the Foreign Service Act of 1980 to build operational readiness in civilian agencies.  It authorizes funds to be spent by the Secretary of State for the Office of the Coordinator for Reconstruction and Stabilization, the Civilian Reserve Corps, and the Response Readiness Corps for “assistance in support of reconstruction and stabilization operations in countries or regions that are at risk of, in, or are in transition from, conflict or civil strife.”  Its goal is to provide capacity for post-conflict reconstruction within the State Department, rather than continuing to rely on the Department of Defense for such tasks.