Over the Horizon in Iraq
Powerline blog
Michael Gove has a good column in today's London Times about Iraq's post-election prospects. He points out that the international news media see all conflict through the lens of Vietnam:
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There is a particular point at which knowledge appears to end and a huge black hole begins. It seems to occur somewhere in the 1960s. The specific event beyond which most commentators now find it difficult to see is the Vietnam War.
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For many reasons, which Gove summarizes succinctly, the Iraq conflict has little or nothing in common with Vietnam. What is most significant are the grounds Gove sees for optimism about Iraq's future:
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In contrast to insurgents who are either nostalgic for Saddam’s reign or, in the case of the Islamists, dreaming fondly of the restoration of a medieval caliphate, a radically different and more hopeful future looks likely to be embraced by Iraq’s majority. In Iraq, unlike Vietnam, it is the Americans who are offering an escape from the corrupt status quo that prevails in the region. If democracy takes root, then Iraq has a chance to transcend the miseries of arbitrary and autocratic rule which, so sadly, imprison many other Arab peoples.
If the Iraqi elections due to be held in less than two weeks’ time are successful that will give the coalition something the Americans never enjoyed in Vietnam — a clear political victory. The insurgents will have been defeated in their principal aim, the denial of democracy.
The Iraqi leaders most likely to emerge in pole position after the vote, such as the United Iraqi Alliance, have already made it clear that they will offer Sunnis senior positions in any new government. After 80 years during which they have been shut out of secular power the Shia leadership have no desire to assume their proper share in the control of Iraq, only to see the nation they inherit immediately fracture.
There are, certainly, dangers ahead. But they lie, as so often in the Middle East, in erring on the side of the status quo.
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I think that last point is right. It is remarkable how reactionary the conventional critique of President Bush's Middle Eastern policy is. Conventional wisdom on the left now is that we should have left Saddam in place, and, going forward, we must do nothing to disturb the precious equilibrium represented by near-universal tyranny in that region. That policy was never right; and, if September 11 proved anything, it is that the reactionary approach to the Arab world isn't safe, either.
Posted by Hindrocket
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