Iraq

Lessons in rebuilding

Past attempts to stabilize a country after war - from Germany to Afghanistan - offer some models but no clear guide.

[Photo by Fred Ramage/Keystone Features/Getty Images]

In March 1946, workmen assemble a scale model of Dresden, Germany, as it should look after reconstruction. The city had been leveled by an Allied bombing in February 1945.

In postwar Germany, former Nazis helped rebuild their nation. Iraq's new government might consider that before barring all members of Saddam Hussein's Baath Party from key government positions.

From Afghanistan, Iraq could take another lesson: It helps to have the support of your neighbors.

And from Haiti comes this caveat: A quick withdrawal of U.S. troops can spell disaster.

As it assumes power from the United States on Wednesday, Iraq's interim government has plenty of models to choose from in the difficult process of nation building. But no single country provides a perfect guide, and Iraq may be a unique situation, some experts say.

"No one knows whether Iraq can make it to democracy or whether it will slide back into authoritarianism or descend into civil war," says Michael Ignatieff, a professor at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government.

"One way or the other, it's not in the U.S. control to determine the outcomes here. We can help, we can nudge but even a nudge can be dangerous because anyone we support gets tarred with the brush of being a traitor to Iraq. So it's not like any other nation-building exercise we've ever seen."

The United States' success in Japan and Germany is often touted as evidence that Iraq too can be transformed into a peaceful, prosperous democracy. But on closer look, experts say, there are few similarities.

Unlike Iraq with its many ethnic factions, Germany and Japan had homogeneous populations. And unlike Iraq, both countries were exhausted from years of war. They surrendered unconditionally and offered little violent resistance to the American occupation: Not a single U.S. soldier died in postwar combat in Japan or Germany, compared with more than 800 in Iraq so far.

"Clearly we've lost the consent of the Iraqi people," says James Dobbins, head of the International Security and Defense Policy Center at the RAND Corp. "We've disgraced ourselves to the point where we've become part of the problem rather than part of the solution."

For that reason, Dobbins finds it encouraging that Iraq's interim leaders are discussing ways to improve the chaotic security situation. Among the possible steps are martial law and beefing up the Iraqi police and army even though U.S. troops will remain in the country indefinitely.

"While it's premature to talk about reducing our presence because the Iraqi government is not yet capable of controlling the country, I do think we need to allow them to assume more responsibility for security and differ with us when they need to," Dobbins says.

"It's an appropriate step on their part and I think the (Bush) administration has been reasonably flexible in accommodating them."

Among the few lessons Germany might provide is that association with a previous regime should not necessarily preclude involvement in a new one. While purging Germany of its Nazi past was a priority immediately after surrender, the process of determining which Nazis should be punished was so ineffective and inconsistent the Allies eventually abandoned it. As the Soviet threat loomed greater, many former party members moved back into government.

"After '46, '47, the Cold War emerged and all of a sudden de-Nazification began to take a second seat to getting people in positions that could be used to build up the industrial base and the police force," says Jack Janes, an expert on Germany at Johns Hopkins University.

For Iraq, "the lesson might be finding people who have the experience to help rebuild the country, fully aware that they might have shady pasts."

In recent years, Somalia and Haiti are primers in what not to do. In both cases, the United States pulled its troops out too quickly and failed to provide enough economic assistance, analysts say. The two countries remain among the world's most troubled - Somalia still doesn't have a working government and Haiti arguably is the most politically volatile nation in the Western hemisphere.

Better models are Bosnia and Kosovo, where strong international support - both military and economic - has kept things relatively stable despite deep ethnic divisions.

Kosovo in particular shows the advantages of the United States working closely with other countries in nation building. The European Union, under U.N. oversight, took responsibility for economic reconstruction. As a result, U.S. assistance was only 16 percent of the $2-billion spent on Kosovo in the first two years after the 1999 war, according to a RAND study.

In Iraq, by comparison, the United States is shouldering much of the reconstruction burden.

But Kosovo also shows what might happen if Iraq doesn't resolve the issue of its 5-million Kurds, who threaten to secede if not given substantial autonomy. Four years after their war with Serbia ended, Kosovo's ethnic Albanians are still pressing for independence despite opposition from the Serbian government and most neighboring countries.

"Continued uncertainty over Kosovo's future status has only hardened its ethnic divisions and retarded its democratic development," the study says.

Meanwhile, Bosnia, where Croats, Muslims and Serbs waged a vicious civil war, shows the drawbacks of holding quick elections when a country remains ethnically divided.

"Early elections in Bosnia probably were counterproductive because they legitimated the nationalist governments responsible for civil war in the first place," the RAND study says.

As Iraq could find when it holds elections in January, voters in dangerous countries are more apt to choose candidates they think can guarantee their security rather than those who offer the most enlightened policies, the study warns.

Apart from Iraq, the most ambitious attempt at nation building this century is in Afghanistan, a country with more people (28-million compared with 25-million) but fewer resources. Still, Afghanistan had several advantages at the start.

Like the Germans and Japanese, Afghans were sick of war and desperately wanted stability. As in Germany and the Balkans, the United States had broad international support when it went into the country.

Moreover, American forces were joined by local fighters who quickly stepped into positions of authority when the Taliban fell. That put an Afghan "face" on the new government, unlike the case in Iraq where the interim government is made up primarily of former exiles with little popular backing.

Another major difference is that all of Afghanistan's neighbors have supported efforts at turning it into a modern, peaceful nation. As a result, the United States has been able to bring more stability to Afghanistan than to Iraq while expending far less money and manpower, says Dobbins. a former U.S. envoy to Afghanistan.

There are 20,000 American troops in Afghanistan compared to 138,000 in Iraq. The United States has spent $61-billion on Afghan operations, just half the amount as in Iraq.

The Afghan "countryside is still run by bandits and warlords, and drug trafficking is the principal source of reconstruction," Dobbin says. "But at the same time we're not facing challenges at the intense level as in Iraq."

Dobbins says there is "absolutely no chance of stabilizing Iraq" without the cooperation of neighboring countries, especially Syria and Iran.

"Both the Iraqi government and the United States need to engage Iraq's neighbors more constructively - I don't think it's something where we can say, "We don't like those countries so we're not going to talk to them.' "

In general, studies have found that the single most important factor in successful nation building is the level of effort, as measured in time, money and manpower. Despite the current tension between Iraqis and Americans, the United States may have little choice but to stay involved for years if it wants to see the country become stable and relatively democratic.

"Records suggest that while staying long does not guarantee success," the RAND study says, "leaving early ensures failure."

- Susan Taylor Martin can be contacted at susan@sptimes.com

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