Response to CMR2

On Raed's blog I had a discussion with CMR2, in which he referred to a response on his blog.

My response to this is:

"I disagree that Germany was a puppet regime. Was the public influenced in its voting and priorities by having another nation devote so many resources its protection? Probably. But that just means Germans were voting with their own security in mind."

I think that a main misunderstanding is a different view of the connotations of 'puppet regime'. I would still argue that to a degree the German foreign, but most importantly the defence policies were not really made in Germany. Does this mean they were not in the German interest? No.
Puppet, to me, means that if you want to understand a certain behaviour of an actor on the international stage, you have to look somewhere else to find the explanation, namely where the decisions are made - in matters of German defence policy during the Cold-war it was NATO (practically the US), and in matters of the security situation in the current Iraq the coalition authority (practically the US).
As for how independent Allawi is in other areas of politics is hard to establish at the moment as you don't get a lot of information about anything else, but the security situation. Has Allawi backed Bremer's privatisation of everything but the Oil-industry? What are his plans towards economics? What sort of justice system (set of laws, other than the leader does what he wants - as it was under Saddam) will get installed?
To discuss how much of a 'puppet' he really is, I would need answers to questions like this, but they aren't that easy to find. So I guess my judgement will have to rest on 'how' or more precisely 'who' makes the policies - and pays the price militarily and financially - in terms of establishing security. And I'm sorry but I can't come to any else conclusion than that they are made in Washington rather than Baghdad. Is this necessarily bad? No, but it remains a fact, and therefore Washington, at the moment, carries the responsibility and if they do succeed they will also earn the praise.
Where I do think I significantly disagree with you is your optimism. I simply don't see this democratic, pseudo-western (as in similar state and society structure) capitalistic, (as the underlying economic principle, which despite my name is something I think is a good thing as long it is not the only means of shaping politics) and most importantly secular Iraq arise anywhen in the nearer future.
You wrote,
"The problem is that we can't get enough Iraqis (especially the Sunni Arabs) to take the initiative in reporting, let alone crushing, terrorist cells in their own neighbourhoods and mosques."
As much as I do agree with you over this, I simply don't see a plausible solution to change it. You are an outsider and as such you will find it incredibly difficult to explain to the general people why their some of their own people (the trouble makers, or however you want to call them) are more of a threat to them than you are. Riverbend is a very good example. She is by no means a militant and even comparatively educated, but you get the same nationalistic phrases and explanations. 'We' versus 'Them'. To break this is very hard, if possible in the short term at all.
But Riverbend & Co are your least problem. The real problems will be the millions of poor and very poorly educated people, to whom it is not so much a question of politics (negotiation, conversation and compromise) but of religion (ultimate believes, ideas of heretics, infidels and so on - unfortunately very little space for discussion and negotiation).
I don't think the elections will solve these problems, on the contrary I fear they will clearly bring them to the forefront, with people such as Al-Sadr and the like quite possibly winning or at least gaining huge influence. You mentioned the Imams, another group of people who would loose power in your future version of Iraq. At the moment, they have massive influence over the ordinary poor people, and I don't think they are going to give this up towards a 'civil society' without a fight.
T cut short a long argument,
I think that your (America's) attempt to transform Iraq out of a society that could be roughly equated with Europe of the Renaissance into a society of western modernism is at best not very easy at worst an impossible attempt that can go very wrong - An Iraq somewhere along the Iranian lines. Armed missionaries irrelevant of what they actually preached have a tendency to fail, at least in a historical context.

But, and you are very right about that,
"Europe has a lot at stake in seeing Iraq succeed as well".
And clearly it would be in the interest of Europe to see your future vision of Iraq come true - even if somehow my intellectual ego, wants to be right and therefore somehow feels justified by all the horror that is going on in Iraq. This is unfortunate, I hate it about myself, but I guess this is the price for being a political realist/pessimist (I'm not equating the two, but the concept of political realism is very pessimistic). Yet once I swallowed this, I clearly share your hopes for Iraq, and I do admit that Europe could have taken an, a bit more constructive path in Iraq, although I hope with the last summit this is still going to happen.
Yet I can try to explain it at least in parts.
A) Your administration has not behaved very diplomatically before the war, and to a certain extend European reluctance to help is the very direct result of this. If you boast around that you don't need multilateralism, and the point of view of others is irrelevant because you are the hegemon, then I'm sorry but it isn't very surprising, that if you do get into trouble, none is particularly keen to help you - this is very much disregarding the people of Iraq, I know, but this is politics not a charity shop.
B) That we didn't support the war in Iraq, had little to do with Kyoto - although the very hostile dismissal of it didn't make you a lot of friends in Europe - but that we didn't, and I personally still don't, see your future version of Iraq after taking out Saddam. To go into a country and taking out the power structure is easy - as long you have the military superiority. Replacing it with a new one, along the lines of what you think would be best, is a different and a very difficult operation (And Europe knows that first hand because we tried - and to a certain level succeeded - over two centuries). And quite frankly we did not share the same level of fear of Saddam. Yes he was little pathetic dictator who had killed a huge number of people. Many other dictators did and still do - often with the blessing of the west (Musharaf?) - the same. He started two wars. One with the explicit blessing of the west (Iran), and one where he clearly miscalculated (Kuwait). Was it particularly difficult to put him back in his place? Not really.
Yet he did clearly hold the power within Iraq and therefore as much as we might despise what he did, he was the person to deal with. I do share the view that a halfway controllable dictator is better than uncontrollable anarchy. This is not moral, but pragmatic. And even if Saddam was such a desperate inconvenience - and he never was a real 'threat' - at least just execute him, instead of invading the country with all the possible backlashes. (It's against international law, ok, but clearly it should have been able to get an assasin into Iraq?)
Yes I admit, I - and I think a good deal of continental politicians - were prepared to deal with Saddam, try to influence him somehow - and I think he was very influencable as long as he saw some possible gain for himself - lift the sanctions and hope that the economic development of Iraq would lead to a societal development that might eventually, presumably only after his death, lead to a somehow more democratic or at least less dictatorial Iraq. Just as Syria has improved (even if apparently unnoticed by Washington) under Assad junior a lot more than under Assad senior in terms of human rights and so on.
C) Now provided that we were right and you won't succeed in Iraq in establishing a democratic society (And for a moment just try to imagine the possibility) - maybe because imposing democracy from the outside doesn't work, or maybe simply because the Iraqi society wasn't quite ready for democracy - we will have to deal with the final outcome. Whether it might turn out to be a western friendly dictator or more distressingly a religious influenced class (the mullahs) or most distressingly a civil war.
This might to a certain extent explain European reluctance to be too closely associated with American Middle East policies in general and Iraq in particular. Because, as much as I hope for the Iraqi people that America does succeed in establishing a 'better' Iraq, if you don't, it might very well be in the interest of the west to have some force that is prepared to deal with, and might get accepted by an alternative outcome.
I hope I could clarify some of the 'Kerryite' views of Europe and you can better understand just why the world is not embracing America for something that is, and I don't question that, well intended. But good intention does not always lead to a good outcome.