Ricciardone's Return

"In the Arab world there are many forms of government that in one way or another reflect the wishes of the people. We would take a very broad view of what democracy in Iraq should be, and Iraqis themselves would decide what that is." That's what Foggy Bottom's newest Iraq policy adviser, Francis Ricciardone, said in 1999 to the Egyptian newspaper, Al-Ahram, when asked whether America would replace Saddam Hussein with another dictator. He made these remarks in 1999, after being named President Clinton's special coordinator for the transition of Iraq.

At the time, these words were meant to allay the region's fears that Washington was actually going to follow through on the Iraq Liberation Act. But as many soon learned, Mr. Ricciardone and the Clinton administration were no threat to Saddam or any of the other despots that blot the region's political landscape. Mr. Ricciardone's tenure with the Iraqi opposition was marked by bitter feuds with Ahmad Chalabi and other pro-American rebels. He tried to expand the opposition the CIA helped create after the first Gulf War by attempting to recruit Nizar al-Khazraji, the chief of staff of Saddam's army during the 1988 campaign against the Kurds. Today, General Khazraji is wanted for war crimes by a Danish court.

While Congress promised them rifles and Pentagon training, Mr. Ricciardone saw to it that the opposition kept busy in conferences. At one point in his tenure, the State Department approved a grant for the Iraqi National Congress to attend a conflict-resolution seminar. But that was then. President Bush turned out to be serious enough about Iraqi democracy that he instructed his Army to topple and then capture the main obstacle to it, Saddam. Today, the Iraqis are preparing to take their first steps toward sovereignty and, one would hope, democracy.

On the basis of past performance, the appointment of Mr. Ricciardone to an oversight perch on Iraqi policy can only dampen the hopes of those invested in the idea of a postwar democracy. He will oversee the status of forces agreement between an independent Iraq and America. He will likely draw up the arrangements for America's Embassy in Baghdad, and he will also be a senior adviser to the secretary of state on the conditions Iraq must meet before forming a free government. It's not, as we say, encouraging, but we wouldn't rule out the possibility that Mr. Ricciardone, like a lot of people in the Middle East, has come to see the possibilities in the wake of President Bush's display of American resolve.