Cato Daily Dispatch for November 15, 2004
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Iraqi Deputy PM Indicates Possible Election DelayIran Pledges to Suspend Uranium Enrichment
More Aggressive Counternarcotics Plan Devised for Afghanistan
Iraqi Deputy PM Indicates Possible Election Delay
"Iraq's deputy prime minister has indicated for the first time that the much-heralded elections due in January could be derailed by the country's violent insurgency," the Guardian reports.
"Barham Salih said the authorities were determined to hold the vote, but admitted they would have to assess the security situation nearer the time."
In "Can Iraq Be Democratic?" Cato senior fellow Patrick Basham writes: "All other considerations aside, a national election in Iraq in the near term is a logistical impossibility. After all, there has not been a reliable census taken in decades, there is no workable election law, there are no constituency boundaries in place, there are no voter registration lists, and no procedural safeguards exist to prevent widespread corruption of the electoral process."
He goes on to say: "A free society is a complicated social artifact. It is one thing for a country to adopt formal democracy but quite another for it to attain stable democracy. Unfortunately, simply adopting the right laws will not create liberal democracy."
Iran Pledges to Suspend Uranium Enrichment
"The governments of France, Germany and Britain are studying a letter delivered Sunday by Iran in which it pledged to suspend uranium enrichment activities temporarily in exchange for economic and political incentives," the New York Times reports.
"The officials said it was unclear whether Iran had agreed to all the conditions set out in marathon talks in Paris last weekend with senior officials from France, Britain, Germany and the European Union or had inserted new conditions that could not be accepted."
In "Iran: Isolation or Engagement?" Charles Peña, Cato's director of defense policy studies, writes: "Ultimately, the United States is left with having to choose from a menu of less than savory options in response to Iran's nuclear weapons program. Efforts to convince the Iranians to give up their quest for nuclear weapons should not be abandoned, but success in that long-shot strategy cannot be the only acceptable outcome. Other options must be explored, such as how to limit the size and scope of Iran's nuclear weapons program and arsenal so that it is not a direct threat to the United States, and ensuring that weapons, materials, and technology are not transferred to terrorists."
More Aggressive Counternarcotics Plan Devised for Afghanistan
"Worried about a vast and still growing heroin industry in Afghanistan, the Bush administration has devised a more aggressive counternarcotics strategy aimed at greater eradication of poppy fields, promotion of alternative crops and prosecution of traffickers," the Washington Post reports.
"The plan, a mix of stronger carrots and sticks, attempts to bring more coordination, more money and more muscle to Afghan and international programs launched over the past three years that have not made much of a dent in the lucrative drug business."
In "How the Drug War in Afghanistan Undermines America's War on Terror," Ted Galen Carpenter, vice president for defense and foreign policy studies, argues that U.S. efforts to eradicate Afghanistan's opium crops threaten to undermine the anti-terrorism campaign and could drive Afghan farmers, who have assisted in the war on terror, into the arms of anti-American terrorists.
"If zealous American drug warriors alienate hundreds of thousands of Afghan farmers, the Karzai government's hold on power, which is none too secure now, could become even more precarious," Carpenter writes. "Washington would then face the unpalatable choice of letting radical Islamists regain power or sending more U.S. troops to suppress the insurgency."
Jonathan Block, editor, jblock@cato.org
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