Why Iraq is Crumbling

Washington Post ^ | November 17, 2006 | Charles Krauthammer

[drellberg]

Are the Arabs intrinsically incapable of democracy, as the "realists" imply? True, there are political, historical, even religious reasons why Arabs are less prepared for democracy than, say, East Asians and Latin Americans who successfully democratized over the past several decades. But the problem here is Iraq's particular political culture, raped and ruined by 30 years of Hussein's totalitarianism.

[drellberg]

Let's just suppose this experiment in democracy fails. Will the effort have been for naught? I predict not. Hundreds of thousands or millions of Iraqis will keep and bear arms. They will take measures to protect their families, individually perhaps, and often unsuccessfully. But the terror masters will not have an easy time of suppressing freedom this next time around. There will be a next round, freedom will ultimately win, and its roots will have been found in Iraq.

As a nation, even our most optimistic and articulate writers lack imagination.

[seppel]

What's that got to do with democracy? People also arm themselves and protect their families in countries without democracy.

[Allegra]

[joesbucks]

I don't believe the attempt would ever be bad. I think our understanding of their desire to become democratized was over estimated (ok we went blindly forward) and that set us up for failure.

We could still win this. But of course, I could be President. About the same chances.

No, we have probably hosed whatever chance we had of possibly bringing some sanity to that part of the world.

[the invisib1e hand]

blah diddy blah blah.

Got my weekly dose of CNN last night, when I walked past the storefront window at my gym where they have it on a couple of big, flat screens.

The little drumbeat at the bottom of the screen read, "Chaos in Iraq."

That was all I needed to know about the strategy of the Left.

[dakine]

"One can tinker with American tactics or troop levels from today until doomsday."

Seems to be the plan...

[bella1]

"That was all I needed to know about the strategy of the Left."


Charles Krauthammer is hardly "left".

[GSlob]

the thing which matters most is the civilizational [i.e. sociological] framework - weltanschauung. When you were typing the words "suppressing freedom", maybe you should have paused and asked yourself, what does the word "freedom" mean - to them, as opposed to you. In this case it is the freedom to suppress one another.

[endthematrix]

"Our objectives in Iraq were twofold and always simple: Depose Saddam Hussein and replace his murderous regime with a self-sustaining, democratic government. "

Attn Moonbats: This was US intent way before 9/11, not something cooked up by the Devil, Bush and Rove.

[libertylover]

Our objectives in Iraq were twofold and always simple: Depose Saddam Hussein and replace his murderous regime with a self-sustaining, democratic government... The first was relatively easy.

I don't remember a single commentator who said before we invaded that deposing Saddam would be easy but killing the terrorists down to a tolerable level would be the hard part.

[Northern Yankee]

Yep... CNN already believes that the sky is falling, Global warming will kill us, and all conservatives are bad, so why not just add more fantasy to their warped minds?

These gloom and doom folks must be real bummers at parties.

[endthematrix]

"we should be encouraging the full breakup of the Shiite front in pursuit of a new coalition based on cross-sectarian alliances"

I think Chuck just fell off the reservation. IMO, we will give the Shiites a long leash and then have dialog with Iran. That will buy us another ten years before the Iranian pressure valve blow and calls for US blood again. They'll be close if not testing a nuke device. Maybe we will negotiate a decent deal.

[FLOutdoorsman]

Kinda takes CK out of context if you don't read the entire article from the beginning.

Forget this part:



"A republic, if you can keep it."

-- Benjamin Franklin, upon leaving the Constitutional Convention, in answer to "What have we got?"

We have given the Iraqis a republic, and they do not appear able to keep it.

Americans flatter themselves that they are the root of all planetary evil. Nukes in North Korea? Poverty in Bolivia? Sectarian violence in Iraq? Breasts are beaten and fingers pointed as we try to somehow locate the root cause in America.

Our discourse on Iraq has followed the same pattern. Where did we go wrong? Too few troops? Too arrogant an occupation? Or too soft? Take your pick.

I have my own theories. In retrospect, I think we made several serious mistakes -- not shooting looters, not installing an Iraqi exile government right away, and not taking out Moqtada al-Sadr and his Mahdi Army in its infancy in 2004 -- that greatly compromised the occupation. Nonetheless, the root problem lies with Iraqis and their political culture.

Our objectives in Iraq were twofold and always simple: Depose Saddam Hussein and replace his murderous regime with a self-sustaining, democratic government.

The first was relatively easy. But Iraq's first truly democratic government turned out to be hopelessly feeble and fractured, little more than a collection of ministries handed over to various parties, militias and strongmen.

The problem is not, as we endlessly argue about, the number of American troops. Or of Iraqi troops. The problem is the allegiance of the Iraqi troops. Some serve the abstraction called Iraq. But many swear fealty to political parties, religious sects or militia leaders.

[Canard]

"Hundreds of thousands or millions of Iraqis will keep and bear arms"

That was the case prior to the invasion.

[slaymakerpowertape]

Yes, the Iraqis are surely "bearing arms," but I don't see what's so wonderful about it. And what freedom is there in Iraq to suppress? The Iraqis can hardly go outside.

[Hostage]

Was I just imagining millions of purple index fingers and smiling faces?

[slaymakerpowertape]

Bush 41 could easily have overthrown Saddam during the Gulf War, but perhaps he didn't think that the ensuing power vacuum would result in a pro-American democracy.

[sirchtruth]

Look at the mess Moderates have created, and I included BUSH in this.

After this recent election, I started to grasp an insight into how we are fighting this war in Iraq and have concluded it's being fought in an outrageaous PC manner. If we wanted too we could CRUSH the enemy in a matter of days, the question is why aren't we? The liberal media, hate Bush crowd already estimates that we killed 100's of thousand's of Iraqi's, that B.S. at best, however because this adminstration is being timid about war and trying to get along with liberals it's just causing more problems and becoming totally ridiculous. The world's idiots and anti-war zealot's have already proven they're against America no matter what, so we should be kicking ass right now in Iraq, because it just doesn't matter what the world thinks, it matters what is RIGHT!

Well, I guess now it's too late for what Right because of the TRAL, dumbasses!

[Canard]

"If we wanted too we could CRUSH the enemy in a matter of days, the question is why aren't we?"

Because the results of the methods needed to do that would be totally inconsistent with the stated objectives of the invasion and occupation.

However, I doubt the 'crushing' would be as easy as you think. Though I guess that does depend on how indiscriminate you're envisioning the action being.

[DB]

I see this as the Middle East's one and only opportunity to join the civilized world without major bloodshed and at relatively little cost to themselves.

The next war, and war is coming, will make all of this look like a walk in the park. Nazism was only stopped after total destruction of its orgins. This is no different.