Posted on 08/04/2007 5:49:55 AM PDT by Kaslin
SITKA, Alaska - It's a small paradox of the war in Iraq. As support for the war inches up (according to a New York Times poll that so shocked the editors they demanded it be retaken), as the surge proves ever more encouraging and as Gen. David Petraeus's confidence grows, enthusiasm for the democracy project in Iraq wanes.
If you canvass conservative supporters of the war, you'll find a level of creeping sobriety when it comes to the possibilities for Iraq. There's no more talk about "draining the swamp" and bringing freedom to the Middle East.
On a recent panel hosted by National Review on a cruise to Alaska (yes, I'm writing this column from said cruise; what're ya gonna do?), the near total consensus among the invited foreign policy intellectuals was that Western-style democracy in Iraq is a pipe dream. "We could do it," one panelist said. "It would take about 100 years, but we could do it."
Instead, explained a former administration official, America needs to set its sights lower. We need to keep Iraq from becoming a terror sponsor or safe haven for al-Qaida. The best we can hope for, the consensus seemed to be, is a "Jordan-style" Iraq with a moderate, somewhat reliably pro-American regime that will, on occasion, vote with us in the United Nations. What we need in Iraq is a "strong state" that can assert its will domestically. A Jeffersonian democracy on the Euphrates isn't in the cards, most agreed.
In one sense, the idea that the Bush administration ever promised a Jeffersonian democracy is a straw man. For those who cared to listen, the White House always said that its vision for Iraq would have Muslim and Iraqi characteristics. On the other hand, even if you give the administration the benefit of the doubt, its hopes for Iraqi democracy were severely unrealistic. As I've argued before, the administration put the cart before the horse by pushing for democracy first, and law and order second. So I'm sympathetic to a more realistic vision. And, let's be clear, even this toned-down nation-building project is wildly optimistic. The surge could fail or the Democrats could dismantle it.
But there's another problem. If all we need in Iraq is a strong state with a moderately pro-American government, we should all be delighted with the behavior of, say, Saudi Arabia over the last few decades. Saudi Arabia has one of the most pro-American regimes in the region. It largely controls its borders and society, and at least technically, it is not a safe haven for terrorists. Indeed, al-Qaida is chomping at the bit to behead the royal family.
And yet, you'd have to be crazier than a Jewish deli owner in Riyadh to think what America needs most is another Saudi Arabia. If you recall, the 9/11 hijackers were overwhelmingly Saudi. Osama bin Laden is a Saudi. Al-Qaida's bankrollers are often Saudi. The Saudi government funds the exportation of Saudi-style Wahhabism, which is serving to radicalize Muslims around the world, particularly in places like Pakistan.
Of course, Iraqi culture is very different from Saudi culture, and a pious Sunni theocracy isn't in the offing in Iraq. But that misses the point. Even Jordan - which is a far cry better than Saudi Arabia in virtually every respect - suffers from high levels of anti-Americanism and support for terrorism. The man who ran al-Qaida in Iraq, Abu Masab al-Zarqawi, was famously a Jordanian militant.
American "realists" tend to speak fondly of Saudi Arabia in part because they think the internal nature of regimes doesn't matter. All that matters is how states operate on the international stage. Unfortunately, this isn't true.
Liberals are right when they say "root causes" are a problem. Where they're wrong is where they emphasize poverty. Princeton's Alan Krueger and countless others have shown that the relationship between poverty and terrorism - at least among actual terrorists - is mythological.
The real root causes lie in the nature of the regimes themselves. Poor countries do not create terrorists, bad societies do. And while government alone can't make a good society out of a bad one, a bad government is unlikely to create a good society. Indeed, the denial of civil liberties within the context of a free political system is a bigger problem than poverty when it comes to terrorism. "When nonviolent means of protest are curtailed," Krueger told the Wall Street Journal, "malcontents appear to be more likely to turn to terrorist tactics."
At this point I'm in favor of whatever modest success we can eke out of Iraq. But we should keep in mind that "strong states" alone do not a drained swamp make.
Count me in on the ‘hopeless’ that still believe in the BIG GOAL here.
Yes, yes... imposing democracy, draining the swamp, changing the middle east, etc.
Perhaps the author is just to short-sighted and impatient.
Surely the poll that came out recently on Muslim’s opinion on the justification of suicide bombings (down SHARPLY from what they were post 9/11) alone is an indication that us going into Iraq was, AT THE VERY LEAST, a catalyst for change in a region that sorely needed it.... to the point of it being a national security issue, had it not.
I believe that disingenuous people (people who really don’t believe it can work), are fine to support the effort, but only if it is easy. I’m glad for their support, but people like me (and our President) have said all along that it was going to be “hard work”, and take time... on the order of decades... but when history is written about these days, the “we can’t do it people” will appear much like Al Gore’s father, clinging onto segregation, just because getting rid of it “can’t be done”
I picked my nick on these forums for a reason, and I don’t feel its any less possible now than I did when I chose it.<
But as soon as I heard the iraqis put Islam above their "Democracy" in their constitution, I knew they didn't want true democracy. They gotta want it first and they don't.
The future of Iraq will have muslim and Iraqi characteristics. It took great vision for Bush to project that. LOL.
The people of Iraq defied terrorist threats to vote several times. That may not mean they’re huge fans of Democracy. I doubt the people of Japan in 1945 were huge fans of Democracy either then, either. A democratic republic is the worst form of government, except for all the others.
Welcome to FR
The American black population wanted segregation to end, as did a great many, if not most, white people. This equation does not exist in Iraq, where the vast majority of the people would lay down their lives before they'd leave their twisted, sanguinary tenets of Islam. Islam and democracy cannot co-exist, one or the other, or both of them will necessarily have to become diluted to the point of being unrecognizable.
For some examples of Islamic 'democracy', just look accross the Iraqi border to Iran. Not exactly a Jeffersonian dream, eh? ~ It is said that Turkey is the closest thing in islam to real democracy, but even there they have a Ministry of religion, where the great majority of government funds are given to the mosques to propogate islam, and where the 'democratic' government suppresses all other faiths, and must routinely crush political uprisings led by the imams.
As Pope Benedict XVI said not long ago: "Democracy and Islam are incompatable". ~ I believe that as long as America is dumb and blind enough to fight a limited war against our spiritual and cultural enemies, the best we will do is hold them at bay for a time. If our mission is to 'convert' them to our way of life, to our way of thinking about humanity, we will ulitmately lose. When it becomes our (the West's) mission to grind them into dust so the free world can survive and prosper, then and only then will we win.
Actually, they do. Countless Iraqis have lamented to me that they voted with their hearts in that first election and are now regretting it. They are fed up with their current leadership and vow to vote more carefully the next time around.
It was their very first democratic election. It was a learning experience and they appear to have learned.
Iraqis tend to be more secular-minded than a lot of their regional brethren. What I like is that they freely speak their minds against their government and they hold public demonstrations demanding that the government do the job they were elected to do.
They were not allowed to do things like that before.
A possibly unintended result of our presence here is that the Iraqis are emulating us. They want to be like us and I strongly suspect that this will reflect in the next general election.
There is nothing hopeless about this. Sure, there are still a lot of problems, but the progress and hope, largely unreported by the media, is apparent in leaps and bounds.
South Korea was run by a strong man with democratic trappings after the Korean war and it has evolved into a full fledged Democracy. Given time Iraq will evolve. Right now what they need is stability and security.
Reality is where freedom goes....the truth will follow. The good book says as much. But one needs faith.
Interesting debate tactic. RINO.
bttt
review
Count me in on the ‘hopeless’ that still believe in the BIG GOAL here.
Yes, yes... imposing democracy, draining the swamp, changing the middle east, etc.”
_________________________
Naive
lol. I been on this screenname for a year and others since ‘98. Thank though ;)
Just try putting the genie back in a bottle.
Democracy alone won’t do it.
You’ve got to have free markets (which may be nigh impossible given the veritable one trick pony of oil revenues).
Israel has figured out how to thrive in the area - why can’t Muhammedans?
I had an ex-girlfriend who worked for MTC in Iraq, she told me some of what you say here. But I had the feeling that they were pulling the wool over her eyes, I saw her own staff do that pretty well when she was stateside.
How can you be sure that 1) you're not being lied to, and 2) the Iraqis you know are a representative sample of the rest of the country as a whole? I can certainly understand that the people you've met are very glad to have American financial support from those spending money there, but if you and your coworkers were not "rich" Americans paying them for goods and services, would they hold you and the US in high regard?
I'm not trying to be argumentative here, I really am trying to reconcile my memories of her experience, your stories of your experience, and what I observe through the media. Thank you for your sincere consideration of my questions.
America, a 200 year old republic, did the same in 2006. I hope we learn from it, too.
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