The last thing Iraq needs is a US election campaign

[T_i_B]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uselections2004/comment/story/0,14259,1167836,00.html

As the presidential campaign sharpened in America, it was to be expected that the Bush administration's Middle East policies, already misguided in critical ways, would be further distorted. There is the race towards an arbitrarily chosen date this summer on which sovereignty will be handed to the Iraqis, a change that may prove either cosmetic or convulsive, perhaps both. There is the push to subsume Ariel Sharon's plans for unilateral withdrawal from Gaza and a unilateral division of the West Bank into a supposed resumption of the peace process. And, thirdly, there is the effort to create a grand scheme under which the industrialised countries are to aid in the democratisation of the whole Middle East.

What the three have in common is that they are designed to suggest to the American electorate that American policies are proceeding effectively, that other countries are willingly sharing the burden, and that the United Nations is on board. What they also have in common, beyond the intention of spiking John Kerry's guns, is their limited substance, their intention of involving America's allies in a show of alleged progress, and the fact that they could prove counterproductive.

This is dubious ground, on which the EU, Russia and the UN should tread with care. It is not that stability and democracy in Iraq are not goals worth pursuing. It might even be argued that a determined America could bolt on to Sharon's idea of bolting from Gaza a peace plan worthy of the name. And it is true that there are manifestations of democracy in the region. A tougher attitude by western countries toward the authoritarian regimes they have supported, and more aid for grassroots organisations, might help.

But this is subject to important provisions - that things be done at the proper time, in the proper sequence, and in the proper way - unlikely to be observed in practice. To be in too much of a rush in Iraq, to be in no hurry to tackle the real issues in Israel and Palestine, and to want to see a kind of instant celestial choir-singing democracy over the region suggests at best a dangerous lack of seriousness: the first needs to be done more slowly and surely; the second both more quickly and differently; and the third more discreetly.