A million Iraqis will get the message

Well then it is hard to find a parallel in the Western world, the American world, to the assassination of the Ayatollah Hakim. He was not just an imposing national figure but the leader of the Shiite Muslim sect which was born 1300 years ago. A revealing New York Times despatch from Baghdad on Tuesday made plain a principal, perhaps the principal, motive for the outrageous bombing of the mosque and the assassination of the ayatollah and why the Americans should be being blamed for them.

But first let's recall a little history. A decade or more, in his last year in office, President Bush the elder made a speech about the threat of Saddam Hussein to the stability of Iraq, which Mr Bush and just about everybody else thought had been guaranteed by Saddam's defeat and the surrender of his forces in the Gulf War over Kuwait. I think I ought to remind you that there was quite a body of surly Americans who complained for years after that war was over that it had been bungled because "we should have gone on to Baghdad and removed Saddam ourselves." Realistically, in retrospect, that might have been a good thing but it would have violated the United Nations resolution voting for the war. The order was to get Saddam and his forces out of Kuwait - no more.

Well in that unremarked speech of the first President Bush he simply said: "The people of Iraq must make Saddam step aside." Not a very fiery or threatening speech or a hint of how you'd do that. But there were enough Iraqis to respond, and a legion of Shiites, and they started a rebellion in the name of the ayatollah. 14 provinces rebelled whereupon Saddam shattered many of the Shiite holy places. The ayatollah himself yielded to the urgings of his disciples and followers and he went into exile. Obviously he was the prime target for assassination.

The rebels begged the United States for help but the administration, fearing that a declared war by the ayatollah against the Baathites of Saddam would turn into a civil war, and chose not to launch any more expeditions into Iraq. The administration trusted the ayatollah as a saintly man and a leader but they could not guess at the character or intentions of the many thousands of Iraqis who would join the rebellion against Saddam. I don't believe there's any other nation on the UN Security Council willing to intervene. The ayatollah stayed in exile until Saddam was toppled and, we all thought, the second war was over. He returned to see and deplore the evident failure of the American-British occupying forces to restore anything like stability to the warring factions and religions and tribes.

Which brings us back to Tuesday's Times despatch. A month or two ago the dean of one of the holy cities held a prayer meeting with the Ayatollah Hakim and wondered if the ayatollah agreed that he, as the Shiite leader, should join the movement to expel "the infidels". The ayatollah granted that he thought the American and British had blundered in failing to establish order, let alone law. But he reminded his friend that for over a thousand years every ruler of Iraq - king, general, dictator - had abused and persecuted the Shiite sect. There then followed an exact quotation from the ayatollah. "If we repeat the same mistake, if we don't cooperate with the Americans, someone else will cooperate and we will have lost our opportunity. This is our last chance." There must be a million Iraqis who get the message - whoever cooperates with the Americans is a target.

We may well ask, last chance for what? And we can only guess: to become the government, the political leader of the nation. I may be wrong but I think it very doubtful indeed in the ayatollah or the leaders of any of the other religio-political factions is thinking of instituting a democracy. The Baathites - Saddam's socialist party that reigned so absolutely and ruthlessly for years - is by no means a broken enemy. This administration anyway thinks of Saddam or his successor as having the means, the money and the weapons hidden outside Iraq to remobilise and reinvade and renew the war that had been declared at an end.

Old Middle East experts in and out of the United Nations - they're usually ageing European diplomats - shake their heads, often in private, and add a little chuckle while bemoaning the "naivety" of the Americans in hoping by such interventions - in the Middle East, in Africa, wherever - to usher in democracy to countries like Iraq that have never known it. Well it may be naive, it may be hopeless but believe me it is the true belief, the ambition, of George W Bush.

ageing European diplomats - shake their heads, often in private, and add a little chuckle while bemoaning the "naivety" of the Americans in hoping by such interventions - in the Middle East, in Africa, wherever - to usher in democracy to countries like Iraq that have never known it. Well it may be naive, it may be hopeless but believe me it is the true belief, the ambition, of George W Bush.

My hope is in two things: the oil revenue of Iraq and the secret ballot.
The oil revenue of Iraq is bounded, but it is big bucks by third-world standards. And if the people of Iraq are put in a private polling booth and given a choice between vast palaces and tyranny as usual, on the one hand, and democratic republican government with a Social Security System fully-funded from petrodollars on the other, I am hopeful as to the outcome.
Hopeful that is, for a result comparable to that which, by a 4-to-one margin, swept the Sandanistas from power in Nicaragua against the sanguine expectation of liberals everywhere.

Considering the track record heretofore of these "ageing Europeans," I would give little credence to their head shaking and chuckling. People who can't do often say it can't be done.

Those who wish to seize power, whether backed by a small cabal or a mob, will do whatever they can to stop a secret ballot from happening. Destruction of infrastructure, slaughter of innocents and moderates, silencing of the press, whatever it takes. All is justified in the pursuit of power, whether or not it is cloaked with the invocation of the name of God.

European diplomats . . . shake their heads, often in private, and add a little chuckle while bemoaning the "naivety" of the Americans in hoping by such interventions - in the Middle East, in Africa, wherever - to usher in democracy to countries like Iraq that have never known it.

My hope is in two things: the oil revenue of Iraq and the secret ballot.
The oil revenue of Iraq is bounded, but it is big bucks by third-world standards. And if the people of Iraq are put in a private polling booth and given a choice between vast palaces and tyranny as usual, on the one hand, and democratic republican government with a Social Security System fully-funded from petrodollars on the other, I am hopeful as to the outcome.
Hopeful that is for a result comparable to that which, against the sanguine expectation of liberals everywhere, swept the Sandanistas from power in Nicaragua. By a 4-to-one margin.

it may be naive, it may be hopeless but believe me it is the true belief, the ambition, of George W Bush.

It appears that the Democrats must have disaster in Iraq in order to prevail in '04. And it is not clear that an election in Iraq can or should be delayed until after our election. If an election is held in Iraq at all shortly before ours next year, it will function as a plebicite on the reelection of Mr. Bush--a bad result would be heavily damaging to his bid for reelection and a sweeping victory would have the opposite effect.

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