From Liberal Values to Democratic Transition: Essays in Honor of Janos Kis

The Occupation of Iraq and the Difficult Transition from Dictatorship

The Occupation of Iraq and the Difficult Transition from Dictatorship ANDREW ARATO Regime Change at the End of the War? In spite of the great international mobilization for peace, and the subsequent failure to secure Security Council authorization or even a “moral” majority of council members, the United States launched and easily won its war against Iraq. It was an illegal aggressive war, an international crime against the peace.1 Its supposed legitimacy was however linked to finding and destroying weapon’s of mass destruction and creating the framework for democratic regime change in Iraq.2 As of the moment of writing (early May) the process of post festum justification along the first of these lines has not been going very well. Admittedly, it is surprising, given the reports and suspicions of the Blix team that there seem to be no weapons of mass destruction to be found by the Americans, who are capable of the most aggressive forms of interrogation of suspects. Thus the project of democratic “regime change,” already important not only for the Pentagon neo-conservatives, but also for the so-called reluctant hawks has become even more important to those seeking justification for what is otherwise unjustifiable: the outright violation of a provision of international law the United States did so much to establish at Nuremberg. The idea of democratic regime change gained its salience in the late 1980s and early 1990s when, beyond all revolution and reform a new fundamental method for the radical change of political systems emerged as the key path of the transformation of East Central European countries. Along with anticipations in Spain and Latin America and a dramatic application in South Africa, what János Kis called “regime change” or “coordinated transition,” meaning centrally negotiated transformation coupled with legal continuity, was established as a dramatic, new path from dictatorship to constitutional democ- 168 Andrew Arato racy. Kis was not only the main leader in Hungary of the democratic opposition, that was a key actor in one such “regime change,” but was perhaps the most sophisticated theorist anywhere of the new model of change.3 Since the early 1990s the prestige of the transitions to new democracies has been tremendous. Countless books and dissertations have been written on the topic, and subtopics like civil society in the transitions, constitution making, retroactive justice, and the relationship of economic and political transitions. At the same time it became clear that there were whole regions of the world, and in particular the Islamic world, where the new democratic wave did not manage to get a secure foothold. These regions indeed became important breeding areas for new, aggressive anti-liberal democratic trends. It was in this context that the neo-conservative project of linking a benevolent imperialism with democratization was born. While intellectually shallow, this project found ready support among elements of the American right that found difficult to imagine an international order with the end of the Cold War where U.S. leadership was justified in terms of a crusade against an evil regime, and was based on military might and pre-eminence. After the events of September 11, 2001 it was possible to link the new ideology to a national strategy of establishing the security of the United States through preventive (misnamed as preemptive) acts of force against countries capable or inclined to sponsor attacks on the United States. Even as the conception was greatly expanded, its normative core remained that of democratization (occasionally linked to or replaced by human rights), and after the first of the anticipated preventive war how this model of justification fares remains a very important matter to all political actors concerned. At present, a pseudo-democratic government relying on external force or a theocratic authoritarian regime or even the fragmentation of the now stateless country seem much more likely than representative government and the rule of law for a unified Iraq. Yet it is hard to gloat over the probable failure of the project of democratic regime change. As far as the long-suffering Iraqis are concerned, it would be immoral to celebrate the probable failure of accountable government and the rule of law. This outcome is however not inevitable, and the uncertainty puts staunch opponents of the war and all remnants of the peace movement in a difficult position as to their hopes, and The Occupation of Iraq and the Difficult Transition from Dictatorship 169 perhaps...