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Politics : Liberalism: Do You Agree We've Had Enough of It? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Hope Praytochange who wrote (13869)	8/26/2007 8:51:16 PM
From: Hope Praytochange	Respond to of 224756

Iraq's Diem By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY War On Terror: Democrats arrogantly tell Iraq's elected government to oust Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, but those poised to replace him are worse. Imagine a Mideast version of the disastrous 1963 U.S.-backed coup against Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem. "As its American advocates had desired, the 1963 coup led to political liberalization," notes historian Mark Moyar in "Triumph Forsaken," his new history of the Vietnam War, "but rather than improving the government as those Americans had predicted, liberalization had the opposite effect, enabling enemies of the government to undermine its prestige and authority, as well as to foment discord and violence between religious groups." Al-Maliki: Flawed, but he was elected. Moyar calls U.S. backing of the Diem coup "by far the worst American mistake of the Vietnam War." Hanoi's "decisive victory through the destruction of South Vietnam's armed forces" was the logical result. But liberal Democrats never seem to learn from history. Right on the heels of Senate Armed Services chairman Carl Levin, D-Mich., calling on Iraq's parliament to vote the al-Maliki government out of office, presidential candidate Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., expressed the hope "that the Iraqi parliament will replace Prime Minister al-Maliki with a less divisive and more unifying figure." Like Diem, al-Maliki is accused of not being enough of a democrat, not governing in enough of an American style and siding too strongly with some religious factions over others. Senators Clinton and Levin and other Democrats lashing out at al-Maliki have been emboldened by a new National Intelligence Estimate (NIE). But since when are U.S. spy agencies experts on political progress? Why should the CIA and other intelligence agencies asserting that "Iraqi political leaders remain unable to govern effectively," as they do in this latest NIE, carry such great weight? "The challenge of understanding the world as it is has overwhelmed three generations of CIA officers," writes Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times reporter Tim Weiner in his new history of the CIA, Legacy of Ashes. Just look at the parade of jokers vying to step into al-Maliki's shoes. • Adel Abdul-Mahdi. "(A)t various points in his career, a communist, a Ba'athist and a secular liberal democrat," according to Time magazine. Not a resume to inspire confidence. • Former Prime Minister Iyad Allawi. So corrupt that under him, terrorists began infiltrating Iraq's security forces. • Ammar al-Hakim. Ties to Tehran's Islamofascist regime. Was briefly held by U.S. forces upon returning from Iran in February. Democrats admit that "they do not know what would happen next" after al-Maliki's departure, as the Washington Post reports. As flawed as al-Maliki may be, reports this week say that the exiled leader of Iraq's banned Baath party, Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, now wants to help fight al-Qaida. As President Bush noted Wednesday, despite difficulties in passing an oil revenue law, al-Maliki's government is sending oil revenues across Iraq's provinces. Representative government is a tough business under the best of conditions. Democrats ought to stop making Maliki's job harder than it already is. If not, they risk a repeat of America's worst blunder in Vietnam — treating the perfect as the enemy of the good.