In the Middle East a New World

The American Enterprise Institute ^ | 3/15/05 | Karl Zinsmeister

[Dudoight]

The bandwagon is starting to fill--and thank goodness for that.

Those of us who spent much of 2003 and 2004 urging Americans not to give up on Iraq can attest that those two years were stained with many harsh attacks, much niggling criticism, and abundant disdain for America's aggressive efforts to reshape the dysfunctional governments of the Middle East into more humane and peaceful forms. From the very beginning, of course, the Bush administration's left-wing enemies in the U.S. and Europe were hysterically opposed to the push for Middle Eastern democracy. A significant number of right-wing pundits also proved themselves to be sunshine patriots of the worst sort--bailing out of the hard, dirty work of war and cultural transformation as soon as the predictable resistance arose.

But that's politics. In Washington, if you're looking for a brave and steadfast ally, you need to buy a dog. Fortunately our warriors battling away in Najaf and Samarra and Anbar province didn't surrender to the Beltway gloom that defeated most of our media and political elites.

Everyday Americans also proved sturdier than our chattering class. They stayed with the fight long enough for some hard facts to emerge. Now some very good news is obvious to all who have eyes: We are not facing a popular revolt in Iraq. Average Arabs are not on the side of terrorists and Islamic radicals. America's venture to defang the Middle East is neither the cynical and selfish oil grab that the lunatic Left have claimed, nor a dreamy and doomed Don Quixote crusade as some conservative grumps insisted. http://www.taemag.com/issues/articleid.18481/article_detail.asp

[Dudoight]

This is a great read.

[Valin]

Ya beat me to it! Grrrrrr

"I do not (as those of you who have read my books about the war know) claim that happy days are here again, that the future will bring nothing but a cheery whirl of American marshmallow roasts with the lovely people of the Middle East. For my entire lifetime, this has been the worst-governed part of the planet. Its economic policies are in a photo finish with Africa's as the globe's most counterproductive. Ignorance and illiteracy are widespread, and Middle Easterners nurse more superstitions, blood feuds, and ugly prejudices than any people I have ever traveled and worked among.



But that's exactly why America finally plunged in to help drain this swamp and plant seeds for a healthier future. The paralyzing error of "don't rock the boat" types like Brent Scowcroft, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Pat Buchanan, Richard Clarke, and others who attacked the Iraq war as overambitious is the assumption that political and economic freedom can be brought to the Middle East only after it is already full of Rotary clubs and Wal-Marts. Note to so-called "realists": You've got your causation all backwards. It is liberty that creates peace, stability, and decency in a nation--not the reverse. If you wait until a country is serene and prosperous before introducing political and economic freedom, you will wait forever."


Bingo! We have a winner!

[PhiKapMom]

Thanks for posting -- this was really good -- this guy has nailed it IMHO.

[Valin]

Ping

[LZ_Bayonet]

"Let us never forget that peace and freedom start with superior firepower."

[Smartaleck]

What a fabulously positive article!

It's shame there are so many pessimists, even here on FR, who can't see the potential for good there. Every Muslim and Middle Easterner is an enemy?

[USS Alaska]

If I were a demonRAT reading this article, I'd seriously consider the honorable art of hari kari. The Rats must be going crazy when they read about the good news in the middle east. It is not easy and more death is going to come, but in an overall view, the good guys are winning. It's Bush's fault.

[untenured]

Besides, there are plenty of social questions where modern Western solutions may not necessarily be the best ones. If Islamic nations choose to ban pornography, if they want a different balance between work and leisure, if they prefer their own patterns of family life, Americans should be perfectly satisfied to let them follow an alternate path. There are some forms of "enlightenment" that other nations could be better off without, as this amusing anecdote from Deepak Lal's new book In Praise of Empires indicates:

In 1995 I was staying in Beijing with the Indian ambassador to China. Beijing was hosting a U.N. Conference on Women, and the large number of female delegates were housed in a large tent city. One night the ambassador was woken by an agitated Chinese official asking him to rush to the tent city, as the Indian delegates were rioting. On getting there he found that the trouble began when some American delegates went into the tents of their Third World sisters and tried to initiate them into the joys of gay sex. With the Indians in the lead, the Third World women chased the American women out of their tents, beating them with their slippers.

LOL.

[Valin]

I think for many it's a black and white world. Something is either 100% one way or the other. Now, there is black and white, but there are also shades of gray.

[ex-snook]

"The paralyzing error of "don't rock the boat" types like Brent Scowcroft, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Pat Buchanan, Richard Clarke, and others who attacked the Iraq war"

It is only about in the 2nd inning now. It won't be over until the terror flag is gone. Then we can worry about the effects of rocking the boat on the military buildup in Russia and China.

[Smartaleck]

btt

[Valin]

"It may not be the beginning of the end, but it may very well be the end of the beginning,"
Winston Churchill