Only one muted cheer for Iraqi democracy

The first democratic elections in Iraq's history ought to be an occasion for celebration, arousing the same emotions as the first such in South Africa. Like the poor of Soweto, the poor of Baghdad and Basra, with so little else in life, surely deserve the chance to exercise some power, however limited, through the ballot box; and the thugs who try to stop them surely deserve to fail. As Stephen Grey, who has reported on Iraq extensively for the NS, writes on page 16, the invasion has left the Iraqis worse off for schools, hospitals, water, electricity, fuel, roads, jobs, wages and personal security. If they get a measure of democracy, at least something will have been salvaged. Why begrudge them that?

Alas, there is a very good reason why, as Mr Grey puts it, many Britons indulge "a sneaking desire to see everything in Iraq go wrong". (Not so sneaking, in some cases.) This is not through any wish deliberately to add to the Iraqi people's misery. Nor is it through any wish for vindication among the invasion's opponents, who have been amply justified many times over. It is through fear that George W Bush and Tony Blair will use any success in creating a democratic Iraq to give new life to their "freedom" crusade, bringing death, mutilation and chaos to more countries. Their opponents might stop regarding disaster in Iraq as their vindication if Messrs Blair and Bush would stop regarding a successfully completed ballot as theirs. Mr Blair implores us to "move on". But President Bush shows no sign of so doing, and the PM shows little contrition for what many Britons regard as a crime, committed in their name. Ministers may say that British support for an invasion of Iran is "inconceivable" (keep a note, with names and dates), but President Bush looks set on extending his aggression.

We might nevertheless still muster enthusiasm for Iraqi democracy if we had confidence that it could do what it says on the tin. But even the most advanced western democracies are now constrained by big corporations, the money markets and international institutions such as the World Bank. Their grip is all the stronger in poor countries. The forgiveness of Iraq's enormous debts will depend on it following programmes laid down by the IMF. Astonishingly, the country is still paying reparations for Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait, with millions of dollars going to multinationals such as Halliburton, Shell and Pepsi. Most of the reconstruction work has also gone to foreign companies, with the materials imported, even though they could be supplied more cheaply in Iraq. If the Americans had had their way - they originally planned to privatise 200 state companies - Iraq would be almost entirely sold to foreign capital already. They failed, partly because the insurgents made the country so dangerous, partly because some Iraqi leaders established that it was illegal for an occupying power to dispose of a country's assets; foreign buyers, therefore, were risking not just bombs but also expropriation without compensation by a future Iraqi government. What President Bush means by freedom and democracy does not include ordinary people deciding their own future except in very narrow senses. It is hard to believe, for example, that the US would tolerate an Iraqi government that became a close ally of Iran.

The democracy the Iraqis are about to get will be infinitely preferable to Saddam's odious tyranny. Whether it is worth ruined homes and lives is another matter entirely. For now, it deserves one muted cheer. Three cheers for the time when Britain and the US promise never again to go bombing and shooting in its name.

Another deprivation of liberty

House arrest is naturally preferable to prison and even sounds quite cosy, conjuring up images of people lounging in armchairs watching old films all day, while others do the shopping. That no doubt is why South African apartheid regimes used it, and Burmese juntas still do, against writers and other public figures, particularly women, whose detention in conventional jails might cause an international stink. It is still a gross deprivation of liberty and Charles Clarke, the Home Secretary, is mistaken if he thinks he can pass it off as anything else.

The House of Lords ruled just before Christmas that the detention without trial of 12 terrorist suspects in Belmarsh Prison was in breach of EU human rights laws - which Labour itself had made part of British legislation. What Mr Clarke has done is to use house arrest as an alternative form of detention, which seems no less unlawful but will have to be tested afresh, perhaps (Mr Clarke will hope) before a different and more sympathetic panel of law lords. To meet arguments that it is wrong to discriminate against foreign nationals, Mr Clarke wants to make British subjects equally liable to arbitrary detention. We must assume (though you can never be sure of these things) that he will not offer them the alternative of deportation.

He has not addressed the main question. A British home secretary is supposed to adopt the powers of a Burmese general, denying the usual presumptions of innocence, only in an emergency. An emergency should be generally recognised as such by reasonable, well-informed people. Yet the law lords, like most of us, could not see a "public emergency threatening the life of the nation". An emergency, as Ian Macdonald QC, who has resigned in protest from the barristers' panel representing the detainees, puts it, is supposed to be "of short duration". This one seems to go on for ever and it is hard to imagine ministers ever voluntarily giving up their powers.

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