The New York Times published a story on Monday, Sept. 25, detailing the Iraqi custom of the "generator man," a term for the men who run makeshift power grids from home generators to provide energy during the daily power outages in Iraq. Since nationally subsidized power only runs an average of six hours per day, poorer Iraqis run cables across town to their local generator man, who, for a monthly fee, provides power during frequent governmental outages. The generator men, who collect their fees in advance, have a sort of impromptu authority over their customers. Iraqis complain of generator men who, in an effort to save time and money, will purposely start their generators late, shut down generators early, falsify breakdowns and fiddle with the connections of those who complain, all the while never compensating their customers for lost hours.
In a nation that takes energy for granted, we can't comprehend the mental taxation the uncertainty of power creates, particularly in a country where desert summer temperatures soar above 100 degrees. The article says that, "The generator man, perhaps because of his visibility and accessibility, becomes the embodiment of all that is wrong in Iraq — or at least, all that is not working as it is supposed to work, which to most people is just about everything."
The generator men, then, provide a microcosm of the larger problem we face in Iraq. The generator men are capitalists — they defend their cutthroat tactics by emphasizing that Iraq is now a free-market society; disgruntled Iraqis can take their cables elsewhere to get power. At a certain point, though, power becomes a basic human necessity, and the democratic, capitalist process alone is not sufficiently providing it. A major flaw of the Bush Doctrine is the belief that the spread of democracy alone engenders wellbeing, that somehow by nature of being "free" (in a democratic sense), people's lives are changed for the better.
Of course, this is Bush Doctrine 2.0 (or 3.0, or what have you). We were originally told the justification for the war in Iraq was because Saddam had Weapons of Mass Destruction, because Saddam was an Evil Dictator Who Oppressed His People (notwithstanding the fact that we have yet to make war on any other EDWOHP) or because Saddam violated U.N. sanctions. But as each of the equally banal reasons for war was spun into the ground or proven false, the Bush crew settled on the paternalistic, Spread of Democracy platform.
"You see, the best way to defeat a society that is — doesn't have hope, a society where people become so angry they're willing to become suiciders, is to spread freedom, is to spread democracy," opined Bush in June 2005. At his second inaugural, he declared, "The concerted effort of free nations to promote democracy is a prelude to our enemies' defeat." In an interview with Fox News in January 2005: "And when a democracy emerges ... the dynamics in the world will change. Think about the influence a free society in Iraq will have on Iran."
Regardless of the broader inanity of the policy in general — it is hard to find in any of the Federalist Papers a mention of the Duty to Spread Democracy that Bush so ardently sees as the prerogative of America — it is becoming more and more evident that democracy does not solve the Middle East question. Hezbollah was given power by a democratic congress in Lebanon, a democratic congress in Iraq is threatening to dissolve amid sectarian squabbles, and capitalist generator men hold infinite and degrading power over hapless "free" citizens of Iraq. If anything, all that has been demonstrated by the Spread of Democracy platform is that the ingredients of democracy, the intangible qualities of a republican people, are ineffable and inefficacious in a country such as Iraq. It points back to the basic hubris of the Bush administration, the conflated notion that what is right for America is right for all countries, and that which was produced in America through five centuries of democratic thought can be reproduced in Iraq in a matter of a few years.
The policy in Iraq needs an overhaul. Instead of spouting unspecific sermons about the promotion of democracy, the administration should gather intelligent and informed people to consider whether congressional democracy is the best solution for a state split into three warring factions. Until the Middle East is primed for democracy, we will continue to see the results of perverted democracy and capitalism run amok — in the shape of a broken power grid and a people shackled to the capricious authority of the local generator man. Rob Madole is a freshman from Dallas, Texas. He may be reached at madole@princeton.edu.
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