No better way

Here is the dilemma:  either the man I enjoyed talking with when he sat in Baghdad as vice president of Iraq is a murderer, or nine Iraqi judges have reached an unjust conclusion under political pressure.  And condemned him to death.

Tariq al Hashemi is a good political conversationalist.  A single open-ended question like “how are things going in Iraqi politics?” would open a floodgate of interesting information on who was doing what to whom, who was up and who was down, his party priorities and his view of other party priorities.

After 45 minutes or so of this one day I noted he had not mentioned the hydrocarbons law, which everyone in Washington thought was uppermost on his mind because he would want to ensure the Sunnis their fair share of oil revenue.  No, he responded, that is an American priority.  The oil revenue was in fact being shared according to population.  His priority was to ensure the bulk of it went to the central government in Baghdad.  He feared passing the law too soon (we were talking I think in 2007 or 2008) would put the bulk of the revenue in regional and provincial pockets.  He was anxious to avoid a premature hydrocarbons law that would weaken the national government.

This was all very reasonable and logical, stated with occasional laughter and constant good humor.  His staff had called an hour before the meeting asking that we arrive early.  That is an unusual request–vice presidents are late a good deal more often then early–so I asked his assistant why.  He replied that the vice president wanted to get rid of the prior guest.  “Who was that?” I asked.  The American ambassador as it turned out.

Of course the issues at stake are bigger than personalities and diplomatic chit-chat.  The question is whether we have left in Iraq a system that can evolve in a democratic direction, protected by the rule of law.  Or, have we left an increasingly autocratic system now capable of condemning an innocent man to death for political reasons?  Friends in government tell me I shouldn’t assume the charges against Tariq al Hashemi are false.  I once went to the wrong building to meet him and found myself among his drivers and body guards, who did not give me a warm and fuzzy feeling. They are the alleged physical perpetrators of the crimes he is accused of, or so I understand from the press reporting.

I’ve met a number of people later convicted–in courts more reliably fair than an Iraqi one–of war crimes and crimes against humanity.  I know that you really can’t tell who is capable of such crimes.  Some war criminals wear the ugliness of their crimes on their faces, but many do not.  Almost all of them think their crimes are necessary ways of protecting themselves, their friends and their sectarian or ethnic group.  Few people really embody evil.  Almost everyone thinks such crimes are committed for good purposes.

I don’t want to choose yet what I think of Tariq al Hashemi, who has denied the accusations.  There are allegations that witnesses against him were tortured.  It seems to me he still deserves the benefit of doubt.  There will be an appeal.  If the verdict was unjust, there is no real reason to expect the appeal to be any better.  But there is no better way to decide these things.