Ideas
Insurmountable Dilemmas The prospects of state-building in Iraq and Afghanistan Kevork Oskanian Domestic pressures and local requirements are putting the Western powers in front of increasingly complex and apparently insurmountable dilemmas. The complications associated with statebuilding in both Afghanistan and Iraq may lead to these powers altogether abandoning statebuilding as a policy tool, leading to dramatic consequences both for the states involved, and their surrounding regions.
I
n both Iraq and Afghanistan, the holding of free and fair elections has remained a crucial standard of success for the Western powers throughout both interventions. Accordingly, every few years, politicians in North America and Western Europe cross their fingers while the world’s media ogle two of the world’s most fragile states with eagle eyes. 20 November, 2009
This crossing of fingers will have to be repeated quite often until Bagdad and Kabul are finally ruled by administrations that are both stable and representative of their societies – if that is at all possible. For in coming months and years, instituting democratic processes that are both stable and self-sufficient will challenge the already-thin patience of both Western leaders and their
electorates, and put policymakers before possibly irresolvable dilemmas - leading to potentially disastrous miscalculations in both AfPak and the Middle East. If anything, events over the past months have severely weakened the statebuilding project in Afghanistan. A highly flawed election, a humiliating climb-down and an eventual selection40