From Bucharest to Baghdad

(Washington, D.C.): Last December, the people of Romania elected a new president, as opposition leader Traian Basecu claimed victory over outgoing Prime Minister Adrian Nastase, who graciously conceded defeat. The election and orderly transition of power, though it received little attention from the Western media, was a tribute democracy and the champions of freedom. Only 15 years ago, after all, Romania was ruled by one of the most corrupt and brutal dictatorships in the world. The police state of Nicolae Ceasescu terrorized its own citizens and plundered the economy. That Romania emerged from this darkness in such a short period is truly remarkable.

The Romanian success story provides us a guide as we move forward in Iraq – a case forcefully made in the January 13 edition of the Wall Street Journal by U.S. Ambassador to Romania, J.D. Crouch II. “Like the Securitate,” Crouch explains, “the Fedayeen Saddam terrorized the people of Iraq. Like the communist nomenklatura, the Baath Party appropriated resources of the nation for its benefit and exploited sectarian and ethnic tensions.”

Today, Iraqis are beginning to recover from this nightmare, much as Romanians did a decade and a half ago. In a rebuke to those who suggest the current turmoil is evidence that Iraq’s liberation was a fool’s errand, Crouch counsels that “patience exercised by the world’s free nations 15 years ago in Romania needs to be applied to Iraq.”

“Democracy will succeed in Iraq,” the author concludes, “but only if the free nations of the West stand with the Iraqi people, support and help them the way we did the people of Romania.” In Crouch, a long-time member of the Center for Security Policy’s Board of Advisors and distinguished former Assistant Secretary of Defense, liberty has found a sensible and powerful voice.

The people of Romania went to the polls last month and elected a new president. Once the votes had been counted, outgoing Prime Minister Adrian Nastase graciously conceded and opposition leader Traian Basescu claimed victory. The parties formed a new government, a process that will effect an orderly transition of power.

All this has garnered little press coverage in the West because, 15 years after the democratic revolutions of 1989, the once-remarkable spectacle of a peaceful democratic transfer of power in Central and Eastern Europe has become something quite commonplace. Some countries in the former East Bloc are further along in their democratic transitions than others (as we are seeing today in Ukraine) and Romania’s young democracy is still a work in progress. But today Romania is a NATO ally, heading into the European Union, and making important contributions to security and stability in Europe – as well as in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Just 15 years ago this December, the situation in Romania was quite different. Romanians lived under one of the most brutal dictatorships in the world. Millions were terrorized by the regime’s secret police, the Securitate, while many others were compromised by collaboration with it. The regime exercised pervasive control over every aspect of people’s lives, and suppressed deep ethnic and religious tensions between Romanians, Hungarians, Germans, Roma, and Serbs to maintain communist orthodoxy. The Romanian economy was plundered by the Soviet-style nomenklatura, and by the corrupt family of Romania’s cruel, idiosyncratic dictator, Nicolae Ceausescu.

The effects of the one-party system Ceausescu built are still being felt today. But the mentality of Romanians is on the mend. Younger Romanians, who have grown up in a free society and studied and worked in the West, are beginning to return to the land of their birth, bustling with entrepreneurial energy and new ideas. Corruption, still a problem, was once accepted as the “grease of commerce” here. It is now criticized across the political spectrum and was the issue that proved decisive in the election of the new president.

Looking at Romania’s remarkable transformation up close, I am stunned by the rampant pessimism today over the democratic future of Iraq. Iraq in 2003 had much in common with the Romania of 1989. Like the people of Romania, the Iraqi people are emerging from a police state. The Hussein family exploited the human and natural resources of Iraq for their own purposes, and their cruelty is burned into the consciousness of two generations of Iraqis. Iraq was once among the richest, most educated, and sophisticated of Arab societies.

Like the Securitate, the Fedayeen Saddam terrorized the people of Iraq. Like the Romanian communist nomenklatura, the Baath Party appropriated the resources of the nation for its benefit and exploited sectarian and ethnic tensions among Sunni, Shia, Kurd and Turkomen. Like the Ceausescu family, Saddam Hussein and his sons plundered the wealth of the Iraqi people to build for themselves vast, extravagant “palaces,” many of which were used only one day a year.

Today, Iraqis are emerging from this brutality. Despite the brutal campaign of intimidation being waged, Iraqis are taking hold of their country. Sovereignty has been transferred to an interim government. Iraq has a transitional administrative law that serves as an interim constitution, with a bill of rights guaranteeing freedoms to Iraqis unheard of 18 months ago. A free press is operating with more than 200 newspapers. Schools are open, even in remote villages, and enrollment for girls is increasing. A new currency is in circulation without Saddam’s face on it and is being administered by an independent central bank. After three decades of a state-run economy, there is an operating stock market, and the beginnings of a free market, with thousands of new businesses opened since liberation.

Iraq is, in many ways, where Romania was years ago. True, Romania did not have to deal with an armed resistance and foreign terrorists, but it had its challenges. The revolution of December 1989 was followed in 1990 by many setbacks, including the infamous and bloody miner’s assault on the peaceful, democratic demonstrations organized in Bucharest in June.

The patience exercised by the world’s free nations 15 years ago in Romania needs to be applied to Iraq. Three American presidents nurtured Romanian democracy. President Clinton and President Bush paid historic visits here, instilling confidence in the Romanian people to stay the course. NATO, through the Partnership for Peace program, brought Romania successfully to full membership. EU countries and the Commission itself have worked assiduously to keep Romania on the path to EU accession. This commitment was not just to Romania, but also to all of the East European states that have dedicated themselves to a democratic future.

Iraq is now just 18 months free of its despot, and on the verge of holding the first free elections in Iraqi history. Over 7,000 candidates and 400 candidate lists have applied to run in 20 separate elections. By the time of the election, thousands of Iraqis will have been trained to man polling centers. A recent survey shows that more than 80% of the Iraqi people intend to vote on Jan. 30, even though three-quarters expect violence will increase in the election run-up.

Some critics say the Iraqi people are not capable of democracy. Many said the same of Romanians in the early 1990s. On the contrary, Democracy will succeed in Iraq — but only if the free nations of the West stand with the Iraqi people, support and help them the way we did the people of Romania, Bulgaria, East Germany, Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, the Baltics, and now Ukraine.

The people of Romania know that the road to a free society is long and it is tough. But as they will tell you on the streets of Bucharest today, democracy is the only way to go. If the world’s free nations show the same steadfastness in Iraq that we showed in Central Europe 15 years ago, the people on the streets of Baghdad today will have the same opportunity to start their journey.

Mr. Crouch is U.S. ambassador to Romania