How monarchy could fill the breach in Baghdad

Testimonies to its failures are on every atlas. A country with the word "democratic" in its title is normally a one-party state which learned how close majority rule can be to tyranny. Applied in its pure form to warring communities, democracy can be murderous.

Having fought a war in Iraq in the name of democracy, the next steps made by the UK and US are crucial. The biggest mistakes in history can normally be traced back to victorious generals taking a pen to a map, or applying textbook political ideals to an unstable country.

The problem with Iraq and democracy was brilliantly illustrated on Tuesday, when the tamer Iraqi opposition leaders met inside a US aircraft hangar and produced a 13-point plan designed to appeal to their Pentagon supervisors: seats for women, the dissolution of Saddam’s Baathite party ...

Meanwhile, another group was gathering. Some 5,000 Muslim Shiites filled the streets of An Nasiriyah with a rather more menacing chant: "Saddam no, America no." These Arabs had no unified agenda - but when questioned, there was a recurring theme. It was not power-sharing with the Kurds and a minimum wage for public-sector workers. Their idea was passing power to the Ayatollahs - and delivering the theocracy which so many longed for while under the years of repression by Saddam Hussein’s atheist regime.

The Shiite Muslims are now in the majority in Iraq - 60 per cent of the population. So pure democracy means power for them. It is unlikely to be welcomed by the Kurds or the Sunni Muslims, who fear revenge for their many decades in power. An Islamic Shiite theocracy is the grim prospect which led the Pentagon to support Saddam in the old days - and stopped it supporting the 1991 rebellion in Basra. The US was then, as now, petrified of the Iranian revolution spreading to Iraq.

As Iran and Afghanistan have shown, the mullahs generally have a poor track record in power-sharing, gender equality and economic liberalisation. Yet theocratic rule is the nightmare which pure democracy threatens to bring.

They could divide Iraq up. This idea has a seductive logic, as the three main groups are conveniently grouped around three areas - the Kurds in the north, the Sunni in the middle and the Shiia in the south. But creating three federal fiefdoms would only entrench current division, and even lend itself to ethnic cleansing as Sunnis flee the south and those who remain become the target of revenge attacks. Better to keep the 18 constituencies Saddam made - avoiding emphasis on sectarian fiefdoms. Adapting old boundaries is much easier than laying down new ones.

There is another option, which dare not speak its name (at least, not in London). But given the options, and the perils of applying pure democracy, there is an increasing case to be made for a king of Iraq. To the West, the word sounds medieval. Progress has been defined by monarchies ceding power to democracies. Inherited status is anathema and the enemy of progress. But there is a case for the role of the Hashemite monarchy to return to Baghdad. Not a full monarchy, like the failed government of King Faisal II - which remained in thrall to Britain, its old colonial master, and was an obvious target for the republican coup which eventually came with his assassination in 1958.

What may be needed in Iraq this time is a constitutional monarchy, where the king is largely a figurehead with strictly-limited powers but remains head of state and exists on a level above that of political parties. The Hashemites who survived the revolution are, by religion, Sunni Muslims - but have been out of Iraq so long that they share no political affiliation and have made common cause with exiles from all parts of the country. Their return would, in itself, act as comfort to the Sunni minority that they would not be institutionally repressed when the pendulum of power inevitably swings to the majority Shiia.

There are two Hashemite candidates: Prince Hassan bin Talal of Jordan and Sherif Ali bin al-Hussein of Iraq. Both are expatriates, cousins of Faisal II and proponents of democracy who have studiously remained above political divisions in Iraq. Both propose a referendum, asking Iraqis to return them to power in a figurehead position to become guardians of national unity. Neither wants more power than the titular duties performed by the monarchs of the UK and Sweden.

Splitting the top job would make it less of a prize for a power-hungry dictator - which has traditionally been the downfall of new democracies. A head of state could keep check on a prime minister, and ensure the constitution cannot be rewritten by party politicians.

The idea will cause less outrage in Iraq than it would in Britain, where monarchies are considered to be relics from a pre-democratic era. In the transition from dictatorship, monarchies have helped to safeguard democracy - and this is the task required now. When Spain finally freed itself from four decades of Franco’s rule, it restored its monarchy - as a symbolic head of state able to act as a bulwark against factions now able to do democratic war with each other. Embryonic democracies, set up without regal or military supervisors, have too often perished. From Weimar Germany to Robert Mugabe’s Zimbabwe, the results have been calamitous for their people and their neighbours.

In addition, it is the monarchies of the Middle East - Bahrain, Kuwait and Jordan - which are making the most progress towards democratic reform. At the same time, the dangers of a full monarchy are undeniably demonstrated by Saudi Arabia, whose weak royal family has created a power vacuum now filled by the religious police.

The task in Iraq is to split the top job: have a person or system strong enough to withstand a coup from a future prime minister. If the democracy is strong enough, this could be done by a democratically-elected president as well as by a monarch.

The level of permanence and power-splitting is needed to stop Iraq returning to the system it knows best: the one-party state. Pure democracy leaves a very clear and depressingly well-trodden path back to authoritarianism.

So for democracy to work in Iraq, it needs to be used selectively. That is, the election rules need to be manipulated to ensure stability. And Scots aghast at this idea may like to ask what they’ll be doing in a fortnight’s time. The Scottish Parliament election was designed to deliver limited devolution in a way which sapped demand for independence. The result: a "list" system which ensures that no one party (ie, the Nationalists) can win a clear majority. The Holyrood system was agreed between Labour and the Liberal Democrats - happy to approve a system that ensured that the most pliable small party (ie them) are effectively guaranteed a share in power.

Whoever sets the democratic questions can effectively define the democratic answers. What was true for Holyrood is now true for Iraq. Which is why so much depends on limits to democracy in the new voting system.

With the Kurds asking for independence and many Shiites asking for the mullahs, striking any degree of stability will be the devil’s own job. So, strange as it may sound, this may well be a job only fit for a king.