Posted on 12/28/2005 5:47:26 PM PST by prairiebreeze
In December 2004, I wrote a column that led with this line: "Mark it on your calendar: Next month, the Arab Middle East will revolt." The column placed the January 2005 Palestinian and Iraqi elections in historical context. These were not the revolutions of generals with tanks and terrorists with fatwas, but the slow revolutions of the ballot box, with political moderates and liberal reformers the genuinely revolutionary vanguard. To massage Churchill's phrase, these revolts were the beginning of democratic politics, where "jaw jaw" begins to replace "war war" and "terror terror."
These slow revolts against tyranny and terror continue, and are the "big story" of 2005 and the truly "big history" of our time.
Partisan, ignorant, fear-filled rhetoric tends to obscure this big history, in part because the big story moves slowly. The democratic revolt is grand drama, but it doesn't cram into a daily news cycle, much less into "news updates" every 30 minutes.
Television, the medium where image is a tyrant, finds incremental economic and political development a particularly frustrating story to tell. A brick is visually boring -- a bomb is not. The significance of a brick takes time to explain, time to establish context, while a spectacular explosion incites immediate visceral and emotional responses. In the long term, hope may propel millions -- hope that democracy will replace tyranny and terror. But in the short haul, violence and vile rhetoric, like sex and celebrity, guarantee an immediate audience.
So the "big stories" get lost in the momentum of the "now."
In April 2004, I interviewed former U.S. Sen. (and 9/11 commission member) Bob Kerrey. The subject was Iraq and the War on Terror in "historical terms." Kerrey had argued in a speech he gave in late 2003 that "20 years from now, we'll be hard-pressed to find anyone who says it wasn't worth the effort. This is not just another democracy. This (Iraq) is a democracy in the Arab world."
"If you look beyond the short-term violence and instability (in Iraq)," Kerrey told me, "you do see significant activities on the part of the Iraqi people that indicate they understand the commitment necessary to govern themselves. ... There are going to be in the short term terrifying, confusing moments, (like) attacks on Iraqi police headquarters. The intent (by the opposition) is to produce destabilization, to cause people to say, 'Let's get out of here; they don't like us.' ... If we stay, then I am very confident that Iraq will build a stable democracy ..."
That's a clear statement of U.S. strategy in Iraq. Here's my formulation, from February 2003: "Removing Saddam begins the reconfiguration of the Middle East, a dangerous, expensive process, but one that will lay the foundation for true states where the consent of the governed creates legitimacy and where terrorists are prosecuted, not promoted."
Implementing the policies and sustaining the will to achieve these goals is of course immensely difficult. It's a painfully slow process -- too slow, it appears, for television.
The Iraqi people, however, see it. In October, after the Iraqi constitutional vote, an Iraqi friend of mine dropped me an e-mail: "Major players (in Iraq) are coming more and more to realize that dialogue, alliances, common interests and just plain politics is the way to win -- not violence, intimidation and terror. So this (lesson) is apparently slowly 'sinking in' in our confused and frightened Iraqi mentality."
Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari said that the constitution is "a sign of civilization. ... This constitution has come after heavy sacrifices. It is a new birth."
Jaafari echoed a sentiment I heard last year while serving on active duty in Iraq. Several Iraqis told me they knew democracy was "our big chance." One man said it was Iraq's chance to "escape bad history." To paraphrase a couple of other Iraqis, toppling Saddam and building a more open society was a chance "to enter the modern world."
The great democratic revolts are profoundly promising history. They are the big story of 2005 -- and, for that matter, the next three or four decades.
Several Iraqis told me they knew democracy was "our big chance." One man said it was Iraq's chance to "escape bad history." To paraphrase a couple of other Iraqis, toppling Saddam and building a more open society was a chance "to enter the modern world."
Hope for the future ping.
Is this the same Bob Kerrey who held up Richard Clarke's barely published book like it was the gospel truth and barked like a dog at Bush administration officials at the 9-11 Omission hearings?? (of course it is..)
bump for publicity
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Just for the CLARITY of it...
Tran Blasts Dean: Calls of Solidarity in Iraq
http://www.Freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1085111/posts
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Make that...
http://www.Freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1536289/posts
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It occurs to me that Demcorats never learn from Republican mistakes. But George W. Bush has learned a ton from both parties mistakes.
Click here for the 'tator take on the 2006 election.
bump for later read (hopefully)
Someone posted an article on FR maybe two weeks ago, (sorry, I can't recall the article in question), in which the author pointed out that colonial powers made it a point to impress western govt./values everywhere they went, except in the Arab world. Arabs were deliberately left to their own devices in terms of modern thought, and the US is attempting to remedy this. I realized this was so true, like the elephant in the living room. Colonial powers were looking over their shoulders in terms of history and the Crusades when they made the decision not to mess with Islam's stranglehold on rational thought/Arab behavior, etc.. Well, Churchill's quote is as apt today as ever it was. (Someone will come up with that quote, I'm sure, and thanks in advance.)
A fine way to ring in the new year. May God bless those who have brought freedom and hope to a once hopeless nation.
The really smart democrat would support the Bush admin. wherever possible, especially the war on Islamofascism. He/she could define differences among other issues, something that plays well on the local level, but don't mess with protecting the US. That's seminal and even the dumbest voter gets it. Remember the shock and horror that Russian/ Beslan school attack caused in the US? Every soccer mom and dad sat up and paid attention.
Good analysis. There is also the extra bonus that if President Bush can persuade the American people that not only do the Democrats have no intention of trying to fix anything, they have also committed criminal acts which endanger our safety and impede our ability to fight terrorists, then that, as we say in these parts, will be "all she wrote".
As I report in my article Hillary tried that. She supported the war.. and has gotten so much flack from the Democratic base that she is in danger of losing their votes for the primary.
The problem is the Democratic internal polls show that any Democrats who does not spout the Howard Dean line will not have a chance at getting the nomination and will not get the Democratic base's votes in the general election.
That is why 2006 is a bad year for Democrats. Democrats like Republicans have to get the votes of both their base and over half the moderates to win. The problem for Democrats is the positions that get them the votes of the base costs them the votes of the moderates. And as Hillary found going for the support of the moderates cost her the support of the base.
Democrats are in a lose-lose postion. It is much like 1972. To get the democratic base they had to run an anti war candidate like McGovern.. That got them 38 percent of the votes. But an anti war candidate like McGovenr could not get any moderate votes. That is why Nixon won 60.7 percent to 39.3 over McGovern.
The republican base never votes for Democrats. The Democrat base never votes for Republicans. There are not enough Democrats or Republicans for either to win with out a majority of the moderates. This year the Democrats can win the base or the moderates .. they can't win both. They will go with the base and lose.
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