"Iraq: Implementing a Way Forward" on improving social, political, and economic conditions in Iraq.

[6ly410]

https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/Iraq-Implementing-a-way-forward.pdf

 

by C. Anthony Pfaff, Ben Connable,
and Masoud MostajabiPROACTIVELY COUNTERING NORTH KOREA’S ADVANCING NUCLEAR THREATS
2 ATLANTIC COUNCIL
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This report is written and published in accordance with the Atlantic Council Policy
on Intellectual Independence. The authors are solely responsible for its analysis and
recommendations. The Atlantic Council and its donors do not determine, nor do they
necessarily endorse or advocate for, any of this report’s conclusions. This report is made
possible by general support to the Atlantic Council’s Middle East Programs.
ISBN-13: 978-1-61977-227-4
Cover: A demonstrator holds an Iraqi flag as he sits on a building during an anti-government
protests in Baghdad, Iraq October 30, 2019. REUTERS/Thaier Al-Sudani
April 2022
© 2022 The Atlantic Council of the United States. All rights reserved. No part of this
publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without
permission in writing from the Atlantic Council, except in the case of brief quotations in news
articles, critical articles, or reviews. Please direct inquiries to:
Atlantic Council, 1030 15th Street NW, 12th Floor, Washington, DC 20005IRAQ:
Implementing
a Way Forward
by C. Anthony Pfaff, Ben Connable,
and Masoud Mostajabi
Atlantic CouncilThe Atlantic Council’s Iraq Initiative provides transatlantic and regional policy makers with unique per-
spectives and analysis on the ongoing challenges and opportunities facing Iraq as the country tries to
build an inclusive political system, attract economic investment, and encourage a vibrant civil society.IRAQ: IMPLEMENTING A WAY FORWARD2ATLANTIC COUNCIL
ABOUT THE DIALOGUE
Work on the US-Europe-Iraq Track II Dialogue began in Berlin
in March 2020 and continued in remote venues through
December 2020. The dialogue brought together experts
from the United States, Europe, and Iraq for a series of
workshops to identify policies to help address Iraq’s political,
socioeconomic, and security challenges. The attendees
included a mix of former and current high-level officials and
experts, all of whom are committed to a better future for Iraq.
Previous sessions identified specific interventions by
Iraqi government, nongovernmental, and external actors
that could improve the delivery of public services, reduce
corruption, and improve security in Iraq. These prospective
interventions focused on addressing an entrenched civil
service, widespread corruption, and destabilizing militia
activity, all of which combined to impose critical barriers
to Iraq’s recovery. Based on their long-standing expertise,
dialogue participants recommended pursuing measures
to improve civil-service competence, mobilize youth,
decentralize government services, implement e-governance
capabilities, and facilitate militia integration in a manner that
strengthens and legitimizes state institutions.
Building upon these early sessions, the Track II Dialogue’s
experts took up ways to design these proposed interventions
in a second round of meetings. The first of these four
meetings centered on identifying and prioritizing measures
to address Iraq’s major challenges. The second and third
meetings focused on refining recommendations into
actionable policies and identifying the actors, acts, and
conditions necessary for their implementation. The fourth
meeting refined the implementation plan and developed
a roadmap that accounts for how the measures and other
interventions, in combination, will help take Iraq from its
current state to one of relative stability and prosperity.
This report represents the variety of opinions expressed by
participants over the course of the five months during which
this round of the dialogue took place. Participants represent
different nationalities, backgrounds, experiences, and
professional opinions. While they have reached a great deal
of agreement on the best path forward for Iraq, individual
participants may or may not agree with all of this report’s
concepts and recommendations. Moreover, the views of
individual participants do not necessarily represent those of
the organizations with which they are affiliated.
INTRODUCTION
This report presents findings and recommendations intended
to assist the government of Iraq and its international partners in
improving political, social, economic, and security conditions in
order to enhance national stability, stabilize Iraq’s democratic
processes, and promote broad-based, Iraqi-generated
economic growth. These findings and recommendations are
drawn from two years of engagement with the dialogue’s
community of experts on Iraq, and responses from more than
two dozen Iraqi political, economic, and security leaders to
surveys conducted in mid-2021.
The overarching theme that came out of these recent
discussions is that Iraqis—individually, as groups, and, perhaps
more importantly, as members of social networks—are locked
in a situation where there is no obvious way to facilitate the
collective Iraqi interest without sacrificing their interests. Put
another way, progress in Iraq generally means someone loses,
and those who lose have interest in undermining the progress
that comes at their expense. Sometimes they resort to violence.
For this reason, efforts to directly confront corruption and
instability, and to promote economic development, typically
fail. The best way forward is to gain a better understanding of
those interests and how they interact, and then set conditions
so that individual and group interests are preserved while
advancing larger, national interests.IRAQ: IMPLEMENTING A WAY FORWARD3ATLANTIC COUNCIL
ASSESSMENT OF THE CURRENT SITUATION.
Iraqis have made extraordinary progress toward legitimate
democracy since the overthrow of Saddam Hussein’s regime
in 2003. As of early 2022, Iraq stands out as one of the few
countries in the Middle East to hold internationally recognized
free and fair elections. Iraqi political leaders are held
accountable by the Iraqi people at the polls, and post-Hussein
transitions of power have, thus far, been peaceful and orderly.
Extraordinary international investments in Iraq’s government,
economy, and security forces have accelerated Iraq’s progress
away from dictatorship and toward democracy.
Despite this progress, efforts toward full recovery have
stagnated. Much-needed political, economic, social, and
security reforms in Iraq have stalled due, in great part, to
political impasses and endemic corruption in both the public
and private sectors. These conditions have strengthened
political parties, many of them militia backed, that seek to
impose an alternate political order in competition with the Iraqi
government institutions and, arguably, external to the Iraqi
constitution. Moving forward will require a broad consensus
among Iraqis regarding how to address these issues.
Today, many Iraqis suffer from high unemployment, low pay,
and poor education and training. Shaky security, erratic oil
prices, the COVID-19 pandemic, and continuing dependence
on international support exacerbate these conditions, and
continue to limit both domestic and foreign investment. Climate
change has exacerbated these economic concerns by reducing
annual rainfall, leading to drought and population displacement.
Many Iraqis find they cannot effectively participate in the formal
economy and their exclusion often creates space for criminal
activity. Improving this situation will not be easy.
These conditions are further exacerbated by a shared sense
of inequitable distribution of resources between political
parties, between Iraqi social groups, and even between
government institutions. Perceptions of inequity reinforce
general dissatisfaction with the government, encouraging
large-scale antigovernment protests and weakening
conditions for political compromise and economic investment.
Informal service provision has emerged in the absence of
government capacity, further weakening perceptions of
state legitimacy. While there is a genuine interest among
international partners in providing assistance, security
concerns continue to limit their ability to effectively engage
Iraqis where they live and operate. This failure creates space
that malign actors and opportunists often fill, at the expense
of democratic legitimacy.
Escaping this impasse requires incentivizing key civic actors
to accept a number of short-term risks to their immediate
interests in exchange for longer-term stability and efforts
toward democratization. However, efforts that view Iraq’s
situation simply through a sectarian lens and discrete political,
economic, and security “solutions” often miss the connectivity
between problems, solutions, and the actors who have the
power to change things.
This paper’s proposed recommendations for the government
of Iraq are organized along lines of effort that support the
conditions necessary to set Iraq’s development away from
Saddam Hussein’s tyranny and toward national recovery.
These lines of effort are: fostering legitimacy; equitably
distributing reconstruction and recovery assistance;
strengthening a shared national identity; mobilizing youth;
establishing a monopoly on the use of force; and optimizing
international assistance.
It may appear that this analysis and subsequent
recommendations deemphasize what are generally
recognized as key pillars of Iraq’s recovery, such as
anticorruption measures and constitutional reform. Progress
toward these stalled objectives should still be pursued.
However, after almost twenty years with little progress and no
clear way forward, it is time to consider what other measures
are required.
Brief descriptions of these lines of effort and specific
recommendations for the Iraqi government and its partners
follow. These recommendations are intended to be applied in
concert to help resolve the current dislocation and build the
political will necessary to build a prosperous, inclusive, and
democratic Iraq.
Iraqis celebrate preliminary
results of Iraq's parliamentary
election in Baghdad, Iraq
October 11, 2021. REUTERS/
Thaier Al-SudaniIRAQ: IMPLEMENTING A WAY FORWARD4ATLANTIC COUNCIL
Legitimacy depends on intercommunal belief and faith in
fair and effective governmental and civic systems. This
includes the government’s ability to provide services,
proportional access to shared funds, available jobs, and
other resources fundamental to quality of life. However, in Iraq,
governance is too often practiced as a zero-sum, winner-take-
all competition that undermines its legitimacy. Self-serving
competition permeates nearly every aspect of civil society to
the detriment of all Iraqis, including those represented by the
most dominant political groups. It is too simple, of course, to
attribute these conditions to a failure of leadership. Rather,
current conditions in Iraq make this zero-sum game the most
rational course of action for Iraqi leaders and the people they
represent. Changing those conditions is the most promising
way forward.
The successful October 2021 elections illustrate both the
opportunities and challenges associated with fostering belief
in Iraq’s systems and achieving real political reform. These
elections were held ahead of schedule to appease protestors
demanding improved governance. Yet, many protestors who
called for the elections doubted their legitimacy and abstained
from voting. Despite this low turnout, reform candidates
significantly increased their representation, suggesting that
an opportunity for a broader national consensus may exist.
Election reform continues to be a common refrain. Too
often, however, reactive reform and change risk doing
more harm than good. For example, the current single non-
transferable vote (SNTV) election law that allowed voters to
select individuals rather than party lists reduces the number
of seats that each party can win, making coalition building
more difficult. While the SNTV system helped break the grip
that larger parties have on the parliament, it may have no
appreciable, positive effect on government formation and
processes that distribute positions along party lines, and in
a manner that is less than transparent.1 Many Iraqis who lost
representation due to confusion over the new system viewed
this change as a trick, not a reform. Moreover, changing the
election laws every four years undermines already weakened
public trust, as it can make these changes appear to be an
effort to manipulate the elections.
Building legitimacy also depends on Iraqis believing the
government is effectively functioning and providing citizens
with basic needs. Because the Iraqi government has too
often failed to provide basic services, like consistent
1 Victoria Stewart-Jolley, “Iraq’s Electoral System,” Chatham House, October 6, 2021, https://www.chathamhouse.org/2021/10/iraqs-electoral-system.
electricity and access to fresh water, many have called for the
decentralization of federal authorities and funds to regions
or provinces. However, decentralization of federal authority
and service delivery is not a panacea for faltering legitimacy.
Provincial governments are arguably no more capable of
managing budgets or delivering services than the central
government, and they are at least equally vulnerable to
divisive politics and corruption.
Previous small steps toward decentralization, such as the
2008 Provincial Powers Act, have not noticeably improved
legitimacy because even modest decentralization has
relocated, rather than lessened, inefficiency and corruption.
As long as decentralization is enacted gradually through
an experimental learning process—special economic zones
are useful experiments—it can help to empower local
governments to improve countrywide service delivery.
There are Iraqi communities in which adequate trust and
cohesion moderate corrupt influences. It makes sense
to identify those communities and find ways to support
their development.
L1: Ensure successful future elections. Building from the
relative success of the October 2021 elections, take firm steps
to guarantee free and fair elections going forward.
• L1.a: Build public trust in elections. To the greatest
extent possible, stick to the present election model until
comprehensive government reforms are undertaken.
Make improvements only when necessary to alleviate
effects of the muhasasa system that promote
sectarianism. Ensure any modifications are clearly and
effectively communicated to the Iraqi public well before
the date of elections. Ensure post-election certification
and government formation are transparent. Otherwise,
government formation in Iraq will continue to be detached
from the public vote, promoting party insiders rather than
competent technocrats.
• L1.b: Finalize the structure of the Independent High
Elections Committee (IHEC). The structure of the
committee, which selects board commissioners according
to a quota, is currently apportioned along party lines.
This facilitates ethnosectarian influence. One option
considered is for a neutral party like the United Nations
to nominate committee members, who would then be
approved by an Iraqi process.
FOSTERING LEGITIMACYIRAQ: IMPLEMENTING A WAY FORWARD5ATLANTIC COUNCIL
• L1.c: Continue election monitoring. International election
monitoring performed well in the October 2021 elections.
For the time being, international entities, especially the
European Union and the United Nations, should plan to
participate in this important role.
• L1.d: Improve federal oversight. Improve federal
oversight of all aspects of elections, including the IHEC
and local election authorities, as well as security for polling
stations. Employ both digital and manual counting systems
to improve efficiency and resiliency against cyber or other
electronic manipulation. The international community can
offer capacity-building measures, such as training local
election observers.
• L1.e: Extend effective electoral monitoring to
local elections. Improve checks and balances at the
local level by allowing for the direct election of local
authorities, including governors, mayors, and provincial
council members.
L2: Improve checks and balances. Iraqi leaders have a
number of opportunities to improve the government’s system
of checks and balances, including the balance of authorities
between the central and provincial governments.
• L2.a: Establish fiscal-accountability procedures, so
both national and local governments can identify
and mitigate corrupt practices. Assess, test, and apply
information technology to better track central, provincial,
and municipal spending and hold government agencies
publicly accountable.
• L2.b: Push service delivery down, along with funding.
Given central-government struggles with service delivery,
empower provincial and municipal authorities to improve
infrastructure, healthcare, and housing. Social-welfare
programs should remain with the national and local
governments. Both national and local governments should
consider increasing reliance on (primarily Iraqi) nonprofits
and nongovernmental organizations to provide services,
where appropriate.
• L2.c: Empower provincial tax assessment and
collection. Empower provincial governors and line-
ministry representatives to propose and collect taxes
that could be used to address specific provincial needs.
Fiscal-accountability technology (L2.a, above) can be used
to monitor provincial tax activities. Ministry of Finance
line officers should then be empowered to monitor and
enforce tax laws.
• L2.d: Rethink “local” by conducting focused
empowerment experiments in selected municipalities.
Rather than define “local” in provincial terms, identify
communities where adequate trust and cohesion exists,
and empower them to exercise limited, but practical,
control over distributed government resources to
promote reconstruction and recovery.
• L2.e: Give the public more voice in national issues.
There is little incentive in parliament to carry out reform
that would redistribute power outside key parties. Iraq’s
anemic constitutional checks-and-balances system
seems destined to ensure the status quo. One way
around present limitations is to mobilize popular activism
and implement a polling or referendum system in which
Iraqis get to voice opinions, or even vote, on key reforms
as well as other measures of national interest. Doing so
could lower the risk of cooperation with rival parties as—
ideally, at least—approved measures would reflect the
will of these parties’ constituents. Moreover, it could give
the public an outlet for frustrations other than resorting
to violent protests. While implementing such a measure
will be complicated, and will require broad support from
the government, it is worth undertaking a study to assess
its feasibility.
• L2.f. Reform Iraq’s constitution. Establish a process
and timeline to conduct internationally supported
constitutional reform. Comprehensive reform activities
should include external assessments and advice,
but center on Iraqi interpretations of democracy and
legitimacy. While the current constitution is intended
to recognize Iraq’s diversity, its provisions have proven
divisive in practice. Revising the constitution, however, has
proven equally divisive because of entrenched interests
that benefit from the constitution as written, as well as
fears that a new constitution could result in an unequal
distribution of political power. The way forward is to find
a compromise formula that would allow for an effective
central government, while giving provincial governments,
as well as minority populations, adequate protections and
authorities to secure their interests.

[HowieC]

It's sad....but the GOI can't implement what color socks to wear until they take Iran out of the equation.

[southbeach]

Exactly.  That’s why I think the Saudis are trying to convince Iran to play nice so they can add them to the GCC currency addition, but they’re so far just too stubborn.  They want nukes plus the money.

[horsesoldier]

I can't take any of this seriously, not after 19 years.

It takes years of arguing, then still longer to ACT !

No small wonder this part of the world is in a social/mental quagmire. They can't shake thousands of years of doing the same things.

Talking won't get it done. Bless us for our intentions because we woefully lack the initiative to the commitment.

19 years down the road and just look at them.

In the words of Comatose Joe ... C'mon Man !!!!