The false hope of benchmarks
IN THE $100 billion war funding bill that Congress recently approved , one element won praise from lawmakers and President Bush alike: the bill's benchmarks. These are meant to be measurable indications of progress by Iraq's government toward such goals as security, reconciliation among religious and ethnic factions, economic reforms (particularly in the oil sector), and honest, effective governance. Setting benchmarks for a troubled enterprise might make sense to American business consultants. But the benchmarks in the war funding bill will not prompt the Iraqi government to do things it does not want to do, or cannot do.
The most obvious deficiency of the benchmarks is that Congress provided no penalties for failing to meet them. Bush opposed such penalties; the absence of any explains why he felt free to praise the bill as reflecting "a consensus that the Iraqi government needs to show real progress in return for American's continued support and sacrifice."
Even if Congress had persuaded Bush to agree to punishments for unmet benchmarks, however, the belief in benchmarks as instant therapy for Iraq would still be obtuse.
To many Iraqis, and some Americans, one benchmark seems particularly fishy: the one calling on Iraq's Parliament to pass quickly a contentious oil law first drafted in February. Democrats as well as Republicans have emphasized the importance of meeting this benchmark. They describe the draft oil law as a prescription for sharing the revenue from Iraq's huge petroleum reserves among the population. But almost alone among American politicians, Democratic presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich has properly warned that the bill resembles more a formula for privatizing Iraq's oil wealth than a guarantee of spreading it equally among the Sunni Arabs, Shi'ites, and Kurds of Iraq.
Indeed, under the draft law, foreign oil companies could obtain so-called production-sharing agreements with terms far more favorable than the contracts the firms have signed with Saudi Arabia, Kuwait or Iran. The firms' rights could extend for as long as 30 years, and Iraq might receive few or no profits until the companies recoup their initial investments.
Meanwhile, a fundamental dispute has yet to be resolved: How much control of the oil sector will reside with the central government in Baghdad, and how much in the regions? This is a crucial matter for Kurds in their autonomous, oil-rich area of northern Iraq. No amount of hectoring or threatening from Washington will hasten the process by which Kurdish, Shi'ite, and Sunni Arab leaders decide a matter that can determine the destiny of their communities.
Getting swift action will be no easier on other key benchmarks, such as those demanding provincial elections, changes to the Iraqi constitution's rules on regional autonomy, and a modification of de-Ba'athification laws. All these benchmarks are predicated on dubious assumptions. One is that greater inclusion of Sunni Arab elites in government will cause the jihadist and Ba'athist leaders of the Sunni insurgency to desist. Another shaky premise is that a threat of US withdrawal would motivate the Shi'ite religious parties in the government to take steps to share power rather than gear up for all-out sectarian war.
Sooner or later, the United States will have to begin withdrawing troops. The great danger is that they will leave behind a country torn apart by sectarian massacres, terrorist infestations, and intervening neighbors. To keep Iraq from becoming a failed state, Bush and Congress ought to be consulting with Iraqis and their neighbors -- instead of pretending that the threat of US troop reductions can force Iraqi politicians to meet the wistful expectations of American politicians.
