Stanford University

Energy

This image is having trouble loading!FSI researchers examine the role of energy sources from regulatory, economic and societal angles. The Program on Energy and Sustainable Development (PESD) investigates how the production and consumption of energy affect human welfare and environmental quality. Professors assess natural gas and coal markets, as well as the smart energy grid and how to create effective climate policy in an imperfect world. This includes how state-owned enterprises – like oil companies – affect energy markets around the world. Regulatory barriers are examined for understanding obstacles to lowering carbon in energy services. Realistic cap and trade policies in California are studied, as is the creation of a giant coal market in China.

Stanford expert says Iraq spinning our of control

Authors
Larry Diamond
News Type
Commentary
Date
Paragraphs

When Larry Diamond left for Baghdad in January as an adviser to the U.S. occupation authority, he took all the equipment he believed he needed to help construct a hopeful new nation out of the ashes of dictatorship: the academic models he had crafted over the years as an authority on building democracies, and confidence those models would work.

But the jarring reality of Iraq, with its escalating violence and collapsing civic order, forced Diamond to look for a few new tools beyond those listed in the textbooks. When he speaks now of the models for building democratic countries, he stresses a different set of equipment, which he found in short supply: body armor, armor-plated cars, a huge military presence.

The story of Iraq, this onetime optimist believes, is a tale of missed opportunities.

"We just bungled this so badly," said Diamond, a 52-year-old senior fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution. "We just weren't honest with ourselves or with the American people about what was going to be needed to secure the country."

Diamond was a senior adviser to the Coalition Provisional Authority and spent several initially hopeful months in Iraq -- lecturing on democracy, even in mosques, encouraging people to participate and helping shape laws that embodied his vision. He returned to Palo Alto in early April for a short break, then ran into an emotional brick wall, he said, when he contemplated the mess he had left behind.

Last Thursday, when it came time for Diamond to return, he did not get on the plane.

Instead, he was in his office at the Hoover Tower, disillusioned over the desperate turn of events he had witnessed and what he feels was a country allowed to spin out of control, in large part, he says, because of the Bush administration's unwillingness to commit a big enough force to protect Iraqis from militias and insurgents.

"You can't develop democracy without security," he said. "In Iraq, it's really a security nightmare that did not have to be. If you don't get that right, nothing else is possible. Everything else is connected to that."

Few people would seem better prepared for the job in Iraq than Diamond. He is coordinator of the Democracy Program at Stanford's Center for Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law, and he has been co-editor since 1990 of the Journal of Democracy. He has done extensive fieldwork in Taiwan and Nigeria.

He said he had initially opposed the war in Iraq because he felt the United States needed broader international support before attacking, but after the main ground fighting ended last April, he was ready to help.

"Once the war was over, I felt we had a moral and political obligation to the Iraqis to try and help build something better," he said. "That was clear in my mind. I didn't agonize over that. I really had something to contribute."

So late last year, after the Bush administration and the provisional authority outlined their plans for writing an interim constitution and handing over sovereignty on June 30, Diamond said he began to speak with officials about playing a role and implementing some of the ideas he had spent his career developing.

Arriving in Baghdad in early January, he said, he was sober-minded about the challenges but encouraged by much of what he found.

"When I got there on the ground, I was actually hopeful as I met some of the young people, women, civic groups, and their eagerness for change," he said.

"It was mind-blowing, really,'' he added. "There were people who wanted to know how to make democracy work. There were so many positive signs. Civil society was very weak, as you'd expect, but it was beginning to reconstitute itself. There was a lot of energy, a lot of passion, a lot of creativity and a lot of desire to learn. I even had a good experience with some mullahs who supported us."

Diamond said that he had some successes. He said he sought to provide female representatives a guaranteed number of seats in the provisional parliament and helped secure for them a 25 percent stake.

He helped strengthen some of the provisions in the interim constitution supporting the development of civic groups to organize people at a grassroots level, and worked to make the new government structure somewhat decentralized as a way of giving minority groups more of a voice and providing opportunities for grassroots participation. And he instructed, while learning.

In January, he outlined the four basic principles of democracy in a speech at Hilla University, discussing such issues as checks and balances and the rule of law. In February, at a conference in Baghdad on decentralization, he presented a 12-point description of how civil society helps build a stronger democracy.

In another address to Iraqis in late March, Diamond called the transitional law, as the interim constitution is called, the right path to "a true democracy," praised the spirit of compromise he found and promised the Iraqis that their nascent democracy would lead the Arab world.

But Diamond said it was around that time that the insurgency grew bolder, that more Americans and Iraqis began to die and that security appeared to be collapsing. He said he shuddered as he began to see other advisers getting killed on the same roads he traveled.

And then he had what he describes as a painful, transforming experience.

"I had one of those moments when you cut through all the bull," he said. "I was speaking to this women's group, and one woman got up and asked, 'If we do all these things, who's going to protect us?' " Diamond recalled. "That was the moment when I said to myself, 'Oh my God, some of these women are going to be assassinated because they are here listening to me.' It just struck me between the eyes."

As the violence spread, Diamond said, he felt ever more painfully the mistake the United States had made by not sending in more troops to keep the insurgents at bay.

The American policies basically encouraged Iraqis to stand up -- only to face the threat of being mowed down for doing so, he said.

"It was totally hypocritical of us to do one and not the other," Diamond said of the lack of security.

As a result, he said, democratization suffered potentially fatal setbacks. He was angry, he added, not just because optimistic Iraqis were being killed, but because the downward spiral was preventable.

His recommendations for rescuing the situation run counter to some of the policies that the Bush administration insists it will not alter. Diamond said that, in his view, the United States must more than double its current military force of about 135,000 and confront the violent Iraqi militias consistently, while offering political benefits to those who lay down their arms and accept democratic institutions.

The best he can say about the prospects in Iraq now is that, as he puts it, "civil war is not inevitable."

Diamond said that, realistically, he never expected a flawless democracy to emerge in just months. It was more likely, he said, that the legacies of traditional Arab society and dictatorship would have produced some rigged elections, corruption and sporadic violence. But with greater security, there would have been, at the least, a constitution and a more flexible and responsive government.

None of that is likely to happen now, he said, without significantly more American troops and a more assertive military stance.

"The literature stresses the overwhelming need to get the security under control," Diamond said. "Nothing that happened could not have been anticipated. I don't think we were applying the lessons of the past as systematically as they should have been, to put it as politely as possible."

All News button
1

Beijing tries to read mixed U.S. signals in Korea diplomacy

Authors
News Type
Commentary
Date
Paragraphs

For the past year China has led the quest for a negotiated solution to the Korean nuclear crisis. It facilitated and hosted three-way talks with the United States and North Korea a year ago this week and two sessions of the six-party talks (adding South Korea, Japan and Russia) in August and February. Its officials crisscrossed the globe to explore potential areas of common interest and compromise and this week hosted North Korean leader Kim Jong Il to explore options for the beleaguered Korean Peninsula. Yet, in each of the formal talks, the Chinese have been discouraged by the minimal results. They are now questioning U.S. intentions toward Korea and, in the longer term, toward China.

Beijing considers the unchecked expansion of North Korea's nuclear weapons to be a real possibility, and its reasoning starts with the record of U.S. policies toward nuclear proliferation. That record, the Chinese argue, is mixed and often contradictory. As a result, China worries that Washington might continue to tolerate the program so long as Pyongyang did not cross key red lines, such as the transfer of nuclear materials to terrorists.

Whatever Beijing's past position on nuclear matters, many senior Chinese now regard nuclear weapons on their border to be a direct threat to their national security and suspect Washington of downplaying that danger. For them, it is no great leap to the conclusion that the unfettered growth of the Korean program might embolden others in Asia, including Taiwan, to acquire nuclear weapons despite verbal opposition from Washington. Beijing's leaders can easily imagine how that nightmarish turn of events would undermine the nation's drive toward modernization and end strategic cooperation with the United States.

Despite the fact that all parties at the six-party meeting in February endorsed the dismantling of the North's nuclear weapons program, the Chinese fear that the talks may be dead in the water. Following that meeting, they began to debate other ways to resolve the crisis. They had already reorganized the leadership team responsible for North Korean affairs, and that team had begun acting to prevent the worst case, including offering further inducements to Kim Jong Il this week. Whereas last fall the talk of deepening U.S.-China cooperation on Korea pervaded the news, now, especially after Vice President Dick Cheney's uncompromising stand on Korea and Taiwan last week, the reverse is occurring.

What China can do in these circumstances is quite limited. Its influence on North Korea is largely determined by what the United States does or doesn't do. By refusing to negotiate on a staged process leading to the eventual dismantlement of Pyongyang's nuclear weapons, Washington has tacitly allowed the North's program to proceed. It has rejected proposals for a temporary freeze, technical talks and any interim steps short of the unconditional and complete ending of the program. The result is virtual paralysis.

Beijing has been able to work with North Korea only when it could find areas of potential compromise between Washington and Pyongyang. It cannot or will not act alone to exert pressure because this would jeopardize its influence on the North. Contrary to a widely circulated story, Beijing did not cut off energy shipments to North Korea for three days in 2003. Beijing would not take such a counterproductive action when its main influence with the North lies in the kind of quiet diplomacy being practiced this week with Kim Jong Il.

Many in Beijing are beginning to question whether there might be a more promising approach with Pyongyang. Should the Chinese, South Koreans and Russians conclude that making progress toward the common goal of the North's complete nuclear disarmament is out of reach, for example, they reluctantly might translate their joint offer of aid in February into a quid pro quo for a partial agreement, such as a limited freeze, that would allow the situation to stabilize. China could worry that such an independent action could endanger the common front with Washington. At the same time, it could calculate that the United States would be sufficiently pleased with any solution that halted the North Korean nuclear program.

None of these developments may come to pass, of course, but who could have imagined a year ago that Washington would have permitted the situation to deteriorate to the present point?

JOHN W. LEWIS is professor emeritus of Chinese politics at Stanford University's Center for International Security and Cooperation and a frequent visitor to China and North Korea.
All News button
1

Oil and War

-

Reuben W. Hills Conference Room, 2nd floor, Encina Hall East

Amos Nur, Stanford University Earth Sciences Department
Seminars

Sino-Japanese tensions obscure growing cooperation

Authors
News Type
Commentary
Date
Paragraphs

ECONOMIC, POLITICAL TIES DISPLACING RIVALRY China's government has sentenced two of its citizens to life in prison for their role in securing prostitutes for hundreds of male Japanese visitors in the southern city of Zhuhai last autumn. The Chinese government is also pressuring Tokyo to turn over the Japanese businessmen who allegedly requested the prostitutes. This story made headlines around the world, and fits well with how the world press typically covers Sino-Japanese relations. Regrettably, such incidents recur with enough regularity to feed the media machine that continues to stir a nationalism rooted in conflicting historical memories. Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's annual visits to the Yasukuni Shrine -- which is widely viewed as a symbol of Japan's former militarism -- is a conspicuous example of this. The publicity that the press gives to these visits has helped impede an invitation to Koizumi from China's leaders for a state visit. Recently, the discovery of mustard gas canisters left behind by Japanese forces during World War II has also served to keep memories of the Imperial Japanese Army's wartime conduct alive among older Chinese. Moreover, rival Sino-Japanese claims to the Senkaku (or Diao Yutai) Islands resurfaced last year when the Japanese government leased three islets in the chain from private parties. The action, purportedly undertaken to reduce the prospect of landings and demonstrations by Japanese right-wingers, set off a brief, though frenzied, reaction in China, as well as in Hong Kong and Taiwan. Meanwhile, differences over Taiwan also foster tensions periodically, such as when former Taiwanese President Lee Teng-hui sought to visit Japan for medical treatment. But this is not the whole story. Although such incidents reveal a troubling level of mistrust between the Chinese and Japanese that is not merely a product of media coverage, it is noteworthy that both governments have worked consistently, diligently, and with considerable success to resolve such problems and contain their political fallout. Of course, official relations between the two countries are marked by much political and economic competition -- some of it healthy, some of it a possible harbinger of future strategic rivalry. The competitive strain in Sino-Japanese relations is especially visible in energy politics. Demand for oil in Asia is growing rapidly, and with China and Japan increasingly dependent upon imports, each has naturally sought to improve its energy security by diversifying sources of supply. Both countries covet access to Russian reserves, especially those located in the Angarsk fields of Siberia. Last spring, China appeared to have locked up a Russian commitment to build a pipeline to service the China market at Daqing. Japan, however, raised the ante with new offers of financial incentives. Its bid for an alternative pipeline to Nakhodka to serve Japanese, Korean and other markets remains alive, creating another point of competitive friction. In their rivalry for leadership in promoting Asian regional cooperation, meanwhile, China has taken an early lead. Nearly two years ago, China trumped Japan by offering a Free Trade Agreement to the members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, while front-loading its own tariff concessions. But this backdrop of contention and competition masks emerging collaborative aspects of Sino-Japanese relations that are profoundly important. For example, trade and investment flows continue to expand rapidly. Bilateral trade topped $100 billion in 2003, as Japan's exports to China increased by more than 10 percent, fueled by semiconductors, electrical equipment and automobiles. Meanwhile, China replaced the United States as Japan's biggest source of imports, and is now one of the few non-members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries with which Japan runs a trade deficit. Similarly, direct investment by Japanese firms is increasing as they relocate production facilities to China to capitalize on lower labor costs and high-quality engineering talent. Of course, there is no assurance that today's expanded commerce will preclude eventual strategic rivalry, or succeed in erasing lingering wartime animosity. But both countries now place a premium on extending their economic interdependence. Ultimately, the historical wounds that have long divided China and Japan, and the more current diplomatic flash points that the global media inevitably trumpet, tell only part of the Sino-Japanese story. There are economic and geopolitical rivalries between China and Japan that dwarf in importance the high-profile insults to national pride that make headlines. But there are also compelling economic and political inducements toward cooperation that prevent these rivalries from developing into full-blown crises. MICHAEL ARMACOST is a former U.S. ambassador to Japan and is a distinguished fellow at the Asia/Pacific Research Center of Stanford University. He wrote this article for Project Syndicate.

All News button
1

United States Nuclear Weapons & Nuclear Explosion Testing

-

Drell Lecture Recording: NA

 

Drell Lecture Transcript: 

 

Speaker's Biography: Richard Garwin is IBM Fellow Emeritus at the Thomas J. Watson Research Center, Yorktown Heights, New York. After three years on the faculty of the University of Chicago, he joined IBM Corporation in 1952, and was until June 1993 IBM Fellow at the Thomas J. Watson Research Center, Yorktown Heights, New York; Adjunct Research Fellow in the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University; and Adjunct Professor of Physics at Columbia University. In addition, he is a consultant to the U.S. government on matters of military technology, arms control, etc. He has been Director of the IBM Watson Laboratory, Director of Applied Research at the IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center, and a member of the IBM Corporate Technical Committee. He has also been Professor of Public Policy in the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. From 1994 to 2004 he was Philip D. Reed Senior Fellow for Science and Technology at the Council on Foreign Relations, New York.

He has made contributions in the design of nuclear weapons, in instruments and electronics for research in nuclear and low-temperature physics, in the establishment of the nonconservation of parity and the demonstration of some of its striking consequences, in computer elements and systems, including superconducting devices, in communication systems, in the behavior of solid helium, in the detection of gravitational radiation, and in military technology. He has published more than 500 papers and been granted 45 U.S. patents. He has testified to many Congressional committees on matters involving national security, transportation, energy policy and technology, and the like. He is coauthor of many books, among them Nuclear Weapons and World Politics (1977), Nuclear Power Issues and Choices (1977), Energy: The Next Twenty Years (1979), Science Advice to the President (1980), Managing the Plutonium Surplus: Applications and Technical Options (1994), Feux Follets et Champignons Nucleaires (1997) (in French with Georges Charpak), and Megawatts and Megatons: A Turning Point in the Nuclear Age? (2001) (with Georges Charpak).

He was a member of the President's Science Advisory Committee 1962-65 and 1969-72, and of the Defense Science Board 1966-69. He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society, of the IEEE, and of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences; and a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the Institute of Medicine, the National Academy of Engineering, the Council on Foreign Relations, and the American Philosophical Society. In 2002 he was elected again to the Council of the National Academy of Sciences.

His work for the government has included studies on antisubmarine warfare, new technologies in health care, sensor systems, military and civil aircraft, and satellite and strategic systems, from the point of view of improving such systems as well as assessing existing capabilities. For example, he contributed to the first U.S. photographic reconnaissance satellite program, CORONA, that returned 3 million feet of film from almost 100 successful flights 1960-1972.

He has been a member of the Scientific Advisory Group to the Joint Strategic Target Planning Staff and was in 1998 a Commissioner on the 9-person "Rumsfeld" Commission to Assess the Ballistic Missile Threat to the United States. From 1993 to August 2001, he chaired the Arms Control and Nonproliferation Advisory Board of the Department of State. On the 40th anniversary of the founding of the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) he was recognized as one of the ten Founders of National Reconnaissance. In June, 2002, he was awarded la Grande Medaille de l'Academie des Sciences (France)-2002.

Cubberly Auditorium, Stanford University

Dr. Richard L. Garwin Senior Fellow Science and Technology Council on Foreign Relations, NY
Lectures
Preventing Nuclear Proliferation and Terrorism
Drell Lecture

The Oil Trap Petroleum Dependence, Poverty and the Violation of Rights

-

Encina Hall East Wing, ground floor E008

Terry L. Karl

Department of Political Science
Encina Hall
Stanford University
Stanford, CA 94305-6044

(650) 724-4166 (650) 724-2996
0
Professor of Political Science
Gildred Professor of Latin American Studies
William and Gretchen Kimball University Fellow
Senior Research Scholar (by courtesty) of FSI/CDDRL
terrykarl.png MA, PhD

Professor Karl has published widely on comparative politics and international relations, with special emphasis on the politics of oil-exporting countries, transitions to democracy, problems of inequality, the global politics of human rights, and the resolution of civil wars. Her works on oil, human rights and democracy include The Paradox of Plenty: Oil Booms and Petro-States (University of California Press, 1998), honored as one of the two best books on Latin America by the Latin American Studies Association, the Bottom of the Barrel: Africa's Oil Boom and the Poor (2004 with Ian Gary), the forthcoming New and Old Oil Wars (with Mary Kaldor and Yahia Said), and the forthcoming Overcoming the Resource Curse (with Joseph Stiglitz, Jeffrey Sachs et al). She has also co-authored Limits of Competition (MIT Press, 1996), winner of the Twelve Stars Environmental Prize from the European Community. Karl has published extensively on comparative democratization, ending civil wars in Central America, and political economy. She has conducted field research throughout Latin America, West Africa and Eastern Europe. Her work has been translated into 15 languages.

Karl has a strong interest in U.S. foreign policy and has prepared expert testimony for the U.S. Congress, the Supreme Court, and the United Nations. She served as an advisor to chief U.N. peace negotiators in El Salvador and Guatemala and monitored elections for the United Nations. She accompanied numerous congressional delegations to Central America, lectured frequently before officials of the Department of State, Defense, and the Agency for International Development, and served as an adviser to the Chairman of the House Sub-Committee on Western Hemisphere Affairs of the United States Congress. Karl appears frequently in national and local media. Her most recent opinion piece was published in 25 countries.

Karl has been an expert witness in major human rights and war crimes trials in the United States that have set important legal precedents, most notably the first jury verdict in U.S. history against military commanders for murder and torture under the doctrine of command responsibility and the first jury verdict in U.S. history finding commanders responsible for "crimes against humanity" under the doctrine of command responsibility. In January 2006, her testimony formed the basis for a landmark victory for human rights on the statute of limitations issue. Her testimonies regarding political asylum have been presented to the U.S. Supreme Court and U.S. Circuit courts. She has written over 250 affidavits for political asylum, and she has prepared testimony for the U.S. Attorney General on the extension of temporary protected status for Salvadorans in the United States and the conditions of unaccompanied minors in U.S. custody. As a result of her human rights work, she received the Doctor of Humane Letters, honoris causa from the University of San Francisco in 2005.

Professor Karl has been recognized for "exceptional teaching throughout her career," resulting in her appointment as the William R. and Gretchen Kimball University Fellowship. She has also won the Dean's Award for Excellence in Teaching (1989), the Allan V. Cox Medal for Faculty Excellence Fostering Undergraduate Research (1994), and the Walter J. Gores Award for Excellence in Graduate and Undergraduate Teaching (1997), the University's highest academic prize. Karl served as director of Stanford's Center for Latin American Studies from 1990-2001, was praised by the president of Stanford for elevating the Center for Latin American Studies to "unprecedented levels of intelligent, dynamic, cross-disciplinary activity and public service in literature, arts, social sciences, and professions." In 1997 she was awarded the Rio Branco Prize by the President of Brazil, Fernando Henrique Cardoso, in recognition for her service in fostering academic relations between the United States and Latin America.

CV
Terry Karl Professor Political Science, Stanford University
Seminars

Iraq's Democratic Revolution

Authors
Larry Diamond
News Type
Commentary
Date
Paragraphs

Iraq is one of the world's least likely sites for a transition to democracy. Virtually all of the classic preconditions for liberal government are lacking. And yet, with its decades-long despotism shattered, Iraq is now better positioned than any of its Arab neighbors to become a democracy in the next few years. That achievement, however tentative and imperfect, would ignite mounting aspirations for democratization from Iran to Morocco.

On the ground in Iraq, the picture is quite different from the news we see at home. Yes, there are bloody acts of terrorism every few days. But it is not Iraqis who are staging the suicide bombings. Increasingly, Iraqis are fed up with this violence and turning in the criminals who are waging it. The dwindling ranks of saboteurs and dead-enders, in cahoots with al Qaeda and other jihadists, can blow up buildings and kill people. But they cannot rally Iraqis to any alternative political vision. They can only win if we walk away and hand them victory. Fortunately (for now), the administration, Congress, the American people, and key elements of the international community are not wavering. They are supporting an ambitious agenda for democratic transformation and reconstruction.

Led by liberal-minded Iraqi drafters designated by the Iraqi Governing Council, work is nearing completion on a Transitional Administrative Law that will structure government and guarantee rights from the transfer of sovereignty on June 30 to the seating of a democratically elected government under a new constitution. With its provisions for civil liberties, due process, separation of powers, devolution of power and other checks and balances, this will be the most liberal basic governance document anywhere in the Arab world.

Civil society is springing up. Associations of women, students, professionals,journalists, human-rights activists and civic educators, along with independent think-tanks, are building organizations, holding conferences and crafting the grant proposals that will enable them to work for democracy on a larger scale. In one university, a team of eight translators is at work full time translating works on democracy into Arabic.

Iraqi women -- organized in part into an Iraqi Higher Women's Council -- have come together rapidly across ethnic, regional and ideological lines to craft an impressive agenda for political inclusion and empowerment of women. Some new civic associations -- including a gifted group of democratically minded young people with skills in the visual arts -- are helping the Coalition Provisional Authority to produce an ambitious civic education campaign. Once each week, for the next several months, this campaign will distribute throughout Iraq a million leaflets, each batch explaining in simple terms a different concept of democracy: human rights, the rule of law, free and fair elections, participation, accountability, transparency, minority rights and so on. These will be reinforced with similar messages on radio and television.

Iraqi democrats of all ages believe passionately in the need to educate for democracy, from both secular and religious perspectives. They stress that democracy cannot be secure until "we get rid of the little Saddam in each of our minds." Hundreds of Iraqis are now being trained to facilitate "democracy dialogues" that will bring Iraqis together to talk about (and practice) these concepts of democracy. During the next year and a half, these town hall meetings will also provide a forum for Iraqis to participate in the drafting of their permanent constitution.

Over the next few months, Iraq will witness the most intensive flow of economic reconstruction and democracy-building assistance of any country since the immediate aftermath of World War II. New construction alone will dramatically reduce unemployment. Before long, a new Iraqi electoral administration will begin preparing the country for its first free and fair elections. And Iraqi political parties will receive training in democratic organization,recruitment, communication and campaigning.

The quest for a decent and democratic political order could founder on the shoals of intolerant, exclusivist identities. But recent developments generate cause for hope. In the negotiations on the transitional law, contending groups are working hard with one another (and with the CPA) to find formulae that will manage their differences and give each section of Iraq a stake in the new system. Public opinion polls show that almost half of Iraq's Muslims identify themselves not as "Sunni" or "Shia" but as "just Muslim." Fewer than one in five favor a party ideology that is "hardline Muslim."

Political leaders are beginning to reach out across traditional divides. A leading moderate Shiite Islamist on the Governing Council, Mowaffak al-Rubaie, recently delivered an eloquent public endorsement of a federal system for Iraq. Denouncing the long history of oppression of the Kurds, as well as other peoples, he declared, "Centralization is the source of our division. Either we engage in a bitter conflict over power or we devolve power to the fringes of society."

One of the most serious problems has been the deadlock over the Nov. 15 plan for indirect elections (caucuses) to choose a Transitional National Assembly(TNA). Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani and most of his devoted Shiite followers have instead demanded direct elections before the handover of power on June 30. However, with the recent U.N. fact-finding mission to Iraq, led by Special Representative Lakhdar Brahimi, a compromise resolution now seems imminent: direct elections for a TNA, but only by a timetable that would enable the country to attain the minimum administrative, security, technical and political conditions necessary for free and fair elections. Most experts think it will take at least nine to 12 months to prepare elections that will not be perfect but at least, in Mr. Brahimi's words, "reasonably credible."

It is going to take a lot longer than a year to build democracy in Iraq. Even after a new government is elected under a permanent constitution, the country will need extensive international assistance for many years to come to strengthen central and local government capacity, support civil society, and help fight crime, corruption, and terrorism.

Americans are not generally a patient people. We stayed the course to victory for four decades during the Cold War, but when it comes to nation-building, our impulse is to get in and get out quickly. That will not work in Iraq.

A democracy can be built in Iraq. No one who engages the new panoply of associations and parties can fail to recognize the democratic pulse and possibilities. But these new institutions and ways of thinking will only take root slowly. In the early years, they will be highly vulnerable to sabotage from within and without. The overriding question confronting the U.S. -- as the inevitable leader of a supporting coalition for democracy -- is whether we have the vision and the backbone to see this through.

A failed transition in Iraq will not see the country slip back into any kind of "ordinary" Arab dictatorship. The power vacuum in the country is too thorough, and the well of accumulated grievances too deep, to allow for that.If we withdraw prematurely and this experiment fails, religious militants, political extremists, external terrorists, party militias, criminal thugs, diehard Baathists and neighboring autocracies will all rush in to fill the void. Iraq could then become a new base for international terrorism -- Afghanistan with oil -- or fall victim to a regionally driven civil war, a hellish combination of Lebanon and the Congo. Any such scenario would suck the hope for democratic progress in the Middle East into its destabilizing vortex.

The thugs and terrorists are betting that if they generate enough terror and kill enough Americans, we will cut and run, as in Lebanon and Somalia. This is the one thing that Iraqi democrats fear more than anything else. I have repeatedly assured them, from my own conviction, that we will not abandon them. I hope I will not be proven wrong. Nothing in this decade will so test ourpurpose and fiber as a nation, and our ability to change the world for the better, as our willingness to stand with the people of Iraq over the long haul as they build a free country.

Mr. Diamond, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and co-editor of the Journal of Democracy, is an adviser to the Coalition Provisional Authority in Baghdad.
All News button
1
Subscribe to Energy