Anarchy in the Iraq

Graeme Wood argues in a Current that it probably takes a little lawlessness and anarchy to make an imperial outpost like the Green Zone and its associated supply lines and protective networks function. I'm not at all certain that Graeme would agree, but this has long been part of the traditional case that empire abroad will undermine the idea of a democratic republic at home. The corruption and sexual violence that's the subject of his piece is part of that, and the emergence of an active duty theater commander as one of the top GOP surrogates in an election year should probably be seen as another part.

All this is, further, related to things like the Bush administration's funny-business with the looming status of forces agreement with Iraq. The administration claims that it's not customary to submit a SOFA for congressional approval, so they're free to conclude it as an executive agreement. That seems plausible, perhaps, until you consider that this is hardly the same as a peacetime SOFA -- following the expiration of the controlling U.N. resolution at the end of the year, the SOFA will be the only legal basis for the continued presence of American forces in the middle of a war zone. And while lots of folks on the Hill are complaining about this, everybody thinks that he will, in practice, be able to get away with it. After all, it's become an entrenched precept of U.S. politico-media culture that any failure of congress to pony up the funds necessary for the president to do whatever he wants constitutes an abandonment of "the troops." This turns the constitutional scheme on its head, but it's where we've come to, and the trend certainly didn't start with George W. Bush.

Comments

Umm, is there any actual evidence that empire abroad undermines democracy at home? It seems that liberal democracy was basically established in imperialist countries during their imperialist periods, and has never existed much of anyplace else, except maybe very recently.

More specifically, it would seem that the U.S. has become steadily and rather monotonically more democratic over the years since Mexican War, which might be taken as the start of U.S. imperial ventures.

Posted by y81 | April 11, 2008 4:40 PM

everybody thinks that he will, in practice, be able to get away with it.

A little simplistic...as I understand it, Congress may succeed in getting this thing written in a way that is effectively not binding on future administrations.

Posted by mq | April 11, 2008 5:09 PM

Yes, unless the reconstruction personnel are permitted free reign to break the law, rape and hold harems of man-whores, they will become inefficient, listless bureaucrats!!

Posted by Paper Mac | April 11, 2008 5:19 PM

Submitting a SOFA to today's congress would be a useless exercise in futility. The Democrat controlled House and Senate are determined to ensure the defeat of the US in Iraq so that the evil ways of Bush and the neocons are exposed. The questions posed by Democrats to Petreaus and Crocker were unworthy of the legislative body of a responsible superpower.

Posted by danceswithgoats | April 11, 2008 6:03 PM

Custom vs the Constitution

You know, you could say that it's become customary for relatives of former presidents to succeed to the presidency, therefore one of Bush's brothers or daughters should be declared the next president. The electorate needn't be consulted. It's not customary.

Break out your dusty old copies of the Lex Visigothorum. We're going to be referring to it for guidance more than that obsolete old Constitution.

Posted by Glen Tomkins | April 11, 2008 9:17 PM

Coincidentally, a few of my classmates from a pre-revolutionary American school in Iran were recently noting small instances of the sort of lawlessness and anarchy Wood writes of. For whatever reason, the thousands of American military contractors *and* their families in our host city were under the same SOFA as the military advisory group that preceded us.

As a result, within the expat community, grown (US) men dated (US) girls as young as 13, and being caught with large quantities of narcotics resulted in a quick ticket home, rather than prison or execution.

Posted by cmholm | April 11, 2008 9:37 PM