Shock Doctrine Series

The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein, 2007, Edited Excerpts

In the summer after Iraq’s invasion, there was so much pent-up hunger for political participation that Baghdad, for all its daily hardships, displayed an almost carnival-like atmosphere. There was anger at Bremer’s layoffs, and frustration with the blackouts and the foreign contractors, but for months that anger was primarily expressed through outbursts or unregulated, exuberant free speech.

Most exciting of all, there were spontaneous elections breaking out in cities, towns and provinces across the country. Finally free of Saddam’s iron grip, neighbors were convening town hall meetings and electing leaders to represent them in this new era. In many cases, U.S. forces, believing their president when he said the army had been sent to Iraq to spread democracy, played a facilitating role, helping to organize the elections, even building ballot boxes.

The democratic enthusiasm, combined with the clear rejection of Bremer’s economic program, put the Bush administration in an extremely difficult position. It had made bold promises to hand over power to an elected Iraqi government in a matter of months and to include Iraqi in decision making right away. But that first summer left no doubt that any relinquishing of power would mean abandoning the dream of turning Iraq into a model privatized economy dotted with sprawling U.S. military bases; economic nationalism was far too deeply ingrained in the populace, particularly when it came to the national oil reserves, the greatest prize of all.

If Iraqis were allowed to freely elect the next government, and if the government had real power, Washington would have to give up on two of the war’s main goals: access to Iraq for U.S. military bases and full access to Iraq for U.S. multinationals. So Washington abandoned its democratic promises and instead ordered increases in the shock levels in the hope that a higher dosage would finally do the trick.

At that point, Iraqis were still expecting Washington to make good on its promise to organize national election and hand over power directly to a government elected by the majority of citizens. In November 2003, Bremer canceled local elections. When he returned to Baghdad, he announced that general elections were off the table. Iraq’s first “sovereign” government would be appointed, not elected. Bremer sent word that all local leaders were to be appointed by the occupation.

Bremer’s canceling of national elections was a bitter betrayal for Iraq’s Shia. As the largest ethnic group, they were certain to dominate an elected government after decades of subjugation. At first, Shia resistance took form of massive peaceful demonstrations: 100,000 protesters in Baghdad, 30,000 in Basra. Their unified chant was “Yes, yes, election. No, no selections.”

Had the Bush administration kept its promise to hand over power quickly to an elected Iraqi government, there is every chance that the resistance would have remained small and containable, rather than becoming a countrywide rebellion. But keeping that promise would have meant sacrificing the economic agenda behind the war, something that was never going to happen.