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I understand what the author is saying and have a great deal of sympathy for his point of view. He may yet prove to be right, and perhaps this is only splitting hairs, but I think not. It is simply this - we are not "imposing" a democracy on Iraq. We have created a set of conditions under which they may fight for it - and they are now, and are going to have to continue to do so - with some decent prospect of success.

The Iraqis are not passive recipients of this political largesse, they have paid dearly for it. It is an incredibly difficult challenge given the autocratic antecedents of the country, the tribal grass-roots organization, and the broad and vicious historical oppression of Kurd and Shi'a by Sunni. It's impossible, absurd - I can certainly understand why so many very knowledgable people find it unlikely.

But it hasn't failed yet. And if it doesn't it won't be because the U.S. gave anything to anybody, it will be because the Iraqis earned it. There is no other route to freedom, there is no other route to democracy. IMHO.

Back in my youth I read The Conscience of a Conservative by Barry Goldwater. (Actually ghost-written in 1960 by the grandfather of L. Brent Bozell.) Goldwater criticized the current mania on the part of the US and UN for ending colonial rule in Africa and elsewhere. He was especially caustic on the idea that democracy was exportable and that everybody was ready for it. Due to cultural differences, he felt that exporting democracy was a fool's errand. Only those cultures that had an experience with English Common Law, either by culture or by conquest, could handle self-rule. There were simply some societies that were not ready for self-government. Sometimes the best that could be expected was a benevolent despot, and preferably one that sided with us rather than the Soviets.

A "nation" of Sunni Kurds, Sunni Arabs and Shia Arabs -- all itching to dominate and even kill each other -- cannot function as a stable platform for democracy. The Kurds view the Arabs as a lower form of life, somewhere between worms and lizards, and would prefer not to share a country with them. The Sunni and Shia Arabs have been persecuting each other for 14 centuries, and their attitude appears to be, "Why mess with success?"

One question that our soldiers began asking was, "Is Iraq the way it is because of Saddam, or was Saddam the way he was because of Iraq?" At first we thought it was the former, but now it appears to be the latter.

This ties in to what I call the Trashcan Theory of History. There are some countries that can only function when a trashcan lid is firmly put in place. Remove that lid and all kinds of horrible things pour out.

Occasionally, a trashcan lid works a miracle, and the people are ready for self-rule. Spain under Franco is a good example. When the Spanish Civil War ended with a German intervention, half the people of Spain were quite willing to kill the other half. Franco's 36 years of military dictatorship gave the Spanish a cooling-off period. The Spanish hated and feared Franco more than they hated and feared each other, and Franco offered 36 years of stability. Once he was gone, the people were ready to rule themselves, and aside from a single hiccup early in Juan Carlos' rule, they've done quite well.

Iraq and Yugoslavia are good examples of trashcan lids being removed before people were ready. Regrettably, I'm coming to believe that only a strongman can hold that country together, and preferably someone less psychotic than Saddam.