Zoo

I arrived in the office very early this morning after taking my good old time getting chow. I read another chapter in Uncharted Journey: Promoting Democracy in the Middle East, a compilation of academic articles. Today’s reading involved the need for a growing middle class to effectively foster democratic growth; neither an active intelligentsia nor populist agitation have translated into lasting change across regimes in the Arab world. After my leisurely arrival I realized that I was an hour early. Iraqi daylight savings time ended last night. I forgot to fall back. Of course I told the ops sergeant that I meant to get a head start on work. She told me there was a report of a lion running loose in the Green Zone. I listened to the radio chatter in the ops room. They gave a GPS grid for the last sighting of the beast. Once a week I write a political commentary piece. I started an article on how the upcoming election cycle is actually strengthening local government. Not the elections themselves, but the associated processes. Lately we’ve seen a lot of local politicians ‘on the stump’- out visiting various councils and talking to constituents. Having an election in the air continually raises questions about ‘what has government done for me lately?’- and forces these council members to prove that they’ve actually been able to achieve anything in office. And in trying to explain that, they actually inform their citizens about what has been going on in government, reinforcing the legitimacy of these councils that are institutionally very young and conceptually foreign to most citizens here. Also, there’s been a big drive in recruitment to political parties. A lot of guys ran on the SCIRI list last time, but only because it was one of the more organized parties. [SCIRI- the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq- predominantly Shia party with its backbone made up of former exiles to Iran and supported by Iranian backers] Many of the independents are bolting, either to sign on with Allawi or Chalabi or some of the growing smaller parties. Some changes in the election rules will make it easier for independents and these smaller parties to win office. Dissatisfaction with the current Jaafari government has weakened Da’wa support. A veterinarian was headed out to tranquilize the lion, who was still roaming about. I sent my interpreter and my deputy John (a reservist sergeant called up like myself) out to cover a meeting with some of the local Sunni political party leadership. I was headed out to a meeting with some IECI officials from the north Baghdad town of Tarmiya to discuss their polling site locations but we got cancelled at the last minute. Tarmiya has been a headache. A couple of weeks ago we made significant headway by hosting a meeting between local leaders and the IECI and there were agreements made to cooperate over the placement of polling sites. The relationship has grown problematic. Problematic. That’s another word I use a lot now. It’s problematic when people receive death threats. The lion was cornered by a team trying to return him to his cage in the zoo, but he escaped. I finally got the news that the Mayor situation has been resolved. Mayor Saber has taken office. I’ll meet him later this week. We got a strange FRAGO (a type of mission order) from higher saying that the entire boundary for the province of Baghdad has changed. It would seem to be the kind of thing that would have enormous consequences- for government services, the elections, etc- but I have yet to find anybody all that interested. It’s in that pile: ‘needs clarification’. I’ll check with State Dept tomorrow. The last I heard: the lion is still on the loose.