Klurfeld: Invasion is just prelude to long-term goals

As we all hope and pray that the war to rid Iraq of Saddam Hussein is going to be short and successful, it is also critical that the second part of the equation, the rebuilding of Iraq, be long and successful.

That is, if the turn to war is going to be worthwhile, the Bush administration must be prepared for the difficult, expensive and long-term effort needed to rebuild a stable and democratic Iraq. If the administration believes that it can get away with a quick, practical effort such as was the case with Afghanistan, the result could too easily become a civil war that destabilizes the entire Persian Gulf region and leads to the emergence of another dictator who might or might not be friendly to the United States.

Kenneth Pollack, who wrote the book that convinced many people that it was necessary to remove Hussein from power ("The Threatening Storm: The Case for Invading Iraq"), argues that only a willingness to build a new Iraq will ensure that the United States does not trade one threat for another. But that is going to take years and billions of dollars. At first Pollack says it will take a force almost as large as the one now about to invade Iraq, 250,000. And while that number can be drawn down after a few years, it is also going to take in the range of $10 billion in American aid - and that assumes considerable help from the allies.

While there are many reasons to believe that rebuilding Iraq into a stable, democratic state is nothing but a desert mirage, there are Mideast experts such as Pollack, Fouad Ajami of the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman who have consistently argued that it is the key to transforming the Mideast.

Of course, the obstacles confronting such an effort are daunting. Iraq, a British creation after World War I, is a conglomeration of warring ethnic groups and tribes that without a brutal central authority has always tended to degenerate into its component parts. There are the majority Shiites in the south, the long-time ruling Sunnis in the middle of the country and the Kurds in the north. And just to make it that much harder, Iraq's neighbors have big stakes in who runs the country. Turkey fears a runaway Kurdish movement that would spread to its country, and Iran not only has ties to the Shiites in the south but historical claims to some of the land.

Pollack acknowledges all this, but argues that there are strong factors in favor of transforming Iraq. One is the obvious fact that Iraq is a wealthy country, especially once its oil wells are fully repaired from the 1991 war and this one. (A big and expensive job that could take five to seven years, especially if Hussein does great damage to the fields on his way out). Iraq is also a nation that has the best agricultural conditions in the Mideast, a critical factor when trying to transform a nation from a feudal past to a modern future. And Iraq also has a relatively well-educated, secular-oriented population.

Democracy in a country that could be torn apart by ethnic and religious differences and with no tradition of self-rule? Pollack says that Iraq must be allowed to develop an "Arab-style democracy," although he does not describe what that means. But there are nations in Asia such as South Korea and Taiwan that started as authoritarian regimes and have now transformed themselves into functioning democracies. It is a process that took nearly 40 years. But it happened.

The Bush administration came into power disparaging the concept of nation building. Then President George W. Bush delivered one speech in which he indicated that building a democratic state in Iraq would be his goal. But is he ready for a long-term commitment in terms of troops and money? From every indication, planning for Iraq's rebuilding is lagging well behind planning for Hussein's destruction. That's troubling. So is the break with allies whom Bush will need for the reconstruction effort.

The invasion of Iraq is only the first step in the battle for Iraq's future.