FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: November 13, 2006

Robin Wright and Anthony Shadid, reporting in today’s Washington Post, describe Bush administration plans for accelerating Iraq’s political transition. In it, they describe a key option that would establish an interim constitution by next summer, followed by the establishment of a sovereign executive to rule – allowing for sovereignty but giving time for a more successful process for writing a constitution and holding democratic elections. These ideas were first proposed in early October, in The Right Road to Sovereignty in Iraq, a policy brief by Carnegie Endowment experts Marina Ottaway and Thomas Carothers.

In the brief, they warn that early elections in postconflict situations are often dangerous. Hurried elections often do more damage than good, producing results that are rejected by some political factions or that favor radical groups over still-emergent moderate forces.

Yet because the United States decided that elections were a prerequisite for the restoration of sovereignty in Iraq, delay of the elections has not been a viable option. Ottaway and Carothers write that there is only one way to reconcile the need for a quick transfer of power with the reality that forging a new political system requires time: limit the first phase of the constitution process to writing a basic interim constitution and hold elections next year only for an interim government of national unity and for a constituent assembly.

This approach would allow the United States to quickly transfer sovereignty to an elected Iraqi government, while creating a framework for the longer-term process of political consensus-building which is necessary to establish permanent democratic institutions. The policy brief also provides comparative examples of the dangers of premature elections and outlines the specific difficulties involved in crafting a new Iraqi political system.

To contact the authors, call Cara Santos Pianesi at 202-939-2211 or Carmen MacDougall, 202-939-2319. The policy brief, along with a range of other materials on political reform in the Middle East, is available online at www.carnegieendowment.org/democracy.

Marina Ottaway is a senior associate and Thomas Carothers is senior associate and director of Carnegie’s Democracy and Rule of Law Project.