In one scene from W, the latest film by American director Oliver Stone, which delves into the life story of the former US president, George W Bush responds to Dick Cheney, Colin Powell, and of course, the one and only Condoleezza Rice on the question of how to implement democracy and a free-market economy ahead of the Iraq war. He says: ‘Listen, comrades, it’s all about freedom. A free nation is a peaceful nation, and any country will do as long as it’s democratic.’ Everyone then replies in unison, with dramatic emphasis: ‘Absolutely.’
At their theoretical core, these words might well represent the main line of thinking that most prominent intellectuals, whether from the right or even the left, agree upon in their writings. They are indeed words that every patriot dreaming of freedom for their country, followed by prosperity for its people, would cherish. Yet, in reality, they amount to little more than superficial sophistry, parroted by intellectuals of all stripes, until Mr Bush spat them out—perhaps after hearing them from one of his old drinking buddies during his days as an alcoholic in rural Texas. Did the Iraqi nature accept ‘Bush-style’ freedom or his democracy? Did the Iraqi economy flourish under his leadership? And finally, did Iraq truly become peaceful, as he prophesied? Of course, the answer to all these questions is a resounding no.
Bush was repeating, with parrot-like mimicry—apologies to all parrots for the comparison—what had been echoed time and again by major global organisations, driven by powerful nations and short-sighted economists, pushing blindly and hastily towards economic liberalisation. They always framed it as decentralisation in governance and economics, of course, as a strategic driver for change. This was the ‘trendy’ development model, especially after the fall of the Soviet Union, which was constantly held up as a cautionary tale and a practical example by them to illustrate the failure of centralisation. Did decentralisation succeed? Again, the answer is no.
Decentralisation, of course, has succeeded in some Western societies, leading to economic prosperity and political peace by the nature of those societies. However, the world is not entirely the West, and it seems the sun still rises from the East at times, highlighting the diversity of peoples and their cultures. There is no room for the foolish assumption that successful economic or political experiments can be replicated wholesale. Successful experiments throughout history have been born of their own societies and were never ‘combo meals’ delivered to people’s doors. Perhaps the Iraqi tragedy is far too complex to blame decentralisation alone for its occurrence, but we can certainly assert that it is one of the main protagonists of this farce. We may not be able to praise Saddam, or before him, al-Hajjaj and al-Mansur, for their success in managing Iraq and achieving its prosperity, as they all embodied dictatorship in its ugliest forms. Yet, the current decentralised Iraqi model, post-American invasion, is nothing more than a state without a state, or a nation that once had a people.
Decentralisation in a country like Iraq, or others like it—and there are many—is like a dish of fish covered in chocolate with a cherry on top. At the very least, it causes severe digestive distress, despite its attractive appearance, much like decentralisation in the absence of social substance for any people. It seems that the leaders of these nations, importing the intellectual experiments of others, have no qualms about implementation, as the condition is always one and the same: staying in power. And of course, the major players have the experience, cunning, and motivation to offer both the costly and the cheap to keep these recipient regimes in place. Interest always trumps any moral or human consideration, even if it means the people suffer from a pre-diagnosed case of food poisoning labelled as ‘decentralisation’, for which a cure has perhaps already been manufactured and is ready for export.
This article is originally published by AlBorsa in Arabic and later AI-translated by South Push.