Fact or Fiction?

As you'd assume from its title, Foreign Policy magazine does not normally publish fiction. And they haven't started to do so. But, an article, "The Mayor of Ar Rutbah", in the current issue certainly sounds fictional when one considers what is going on in Iraq today.

The teaser for the article is "How One Soldier Brought Democracy to Iraq". The "soldier" is the author of the article, Major James A. Gavrilis, who has spent his Army career as a Special Forces officer. Although he had no training or guidance in rebuilding a country, he performed admirably. In two weeks he did, in fact, bring a better life to the people of Ar Rutbah. The problem is that it was only two weeks and the two weeks were April 9 - 23, 2003, before the results of little post-war planning started to show and before Garner and Bremer began solving problems.

Some of the steps Gavrilis took were rather basic and flowed from his belief that "We treated them not as a defeated people, but as allies. Our success became their success." He acted quickly; by the end of the first day in the city he had established an administration led by Iraqis who lived in the city (of course, Gavrilis retained veto rights). Security was his top priority, as it should have been; he banned all weapons, established checkpoints, took advantage of the local police officers' knowledge of the people in town. Next was restoring things to normal: electricity, water, fuel and the daily market. Communication was vital; the mosques became the main vehicle of communication. Most importantly, Gavrilis was convinced that "good governance had to precede the form or type of democracy."

It's a very uplifting article. I'd like to think that it is factual overall. Had we operated similarly throughout Iraq, it would be quite a different world today.