Krauthammer: From Baghdad to Benghazi (The revolutions in the Middle East are exposing W’s critics)

National Review ^ | March 4, 2011 | Charles Krauthammer

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Several factors catalyzed the Arab spring. But the Bush Doctrine set the premise.

Voices around the world, from Europe to America to Libya, are calling for U.S. intervention to help bring down Moammar Qaddafi. Yet for bringing down Saddam Hussein, the U.S. has been denounced variously for aggression, deception, arrogance, and imperialism.

A strange moral inversion, considering that Saddam’s evil was an order of magnitude beyond Qaddafi’s. Qaddafi is a capricious killer; Saddam was systematic. Qaddafi was too unstable and crazy to begin to match the Baathist apparatus: a comprehensive national system of terror, torture, and mass murder, gassing entire villages to create what author Kanan Makiya called a Republic of Fear.

Moreover, that systemized brutality made Saddam immovable in a way that Qaddafi is not. Barely armed Libyans have already seized half the country on their own. Yet in Iraq, there was no chance of putting an end to the regime without the terrible swift sword (it took all of three weeks) of the United States.

No matter the hypocritical double standard. Now that revolutions are sweeping the Middle East and everyone is a convert to George W. Bush’s freedom agenda, it’s not just Iraq that has slid into the memory hole. Also forgotten is the once proudly proclaimed “realism” of years one and two of President Obama’s foreign policy — the “smart power” antidote to Bush’s alleged misty-eyed idealism.

It began on Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s first Asia trip, when she publicly played down human-rights concerns in China...............

[jonrick46]

You are correct. Without Capitalism, the engine of democracy, these sand jockeys are just running the Rolls Royce out into the desert until it runs out of gas. The desert is littered with men governed by the vapors of totalitarian oligarchy.

[Eleutheria5]

Don’t sweat it. I remember on 10th anniversary ceremony of the Berlin Wall falling, not one official so much as uttered the name Reagan. But who is remembered most in that connection?

[RFEngineer]

“I thought it would take 10 years for the American Public to reevaluate GWB and his contribution to the establishment of democracy and freedom in the Middle East and elsewhere.”

I think it’s a little premature to call Iraq and Afghanistan democracies. Even with our troops on site, Karzai still managed to corrupt the process in Afghanistan.

I also think it’s a bit presumptuous to call what is going on in Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, Bahrain, Yemen, and every other Arab hell-hole “democracy”.

In Egypt, protesters interviewed said they wanted more pay and bigger apartments. That’s hardly the stuff of democracies.

In virtually all of these countries the only thing that will change will be the name on the Swiss bank accounts where all the US foreign aid will end up.

Nation building was a bad idea when GWB was against it, it was a bad idea when he started doing it, and it’s still a bad idea today.

[Mustangman]

A key point you seem to be making is that if the Muslims get actual democracy, they will simply vote in something the west will have to fear.

This may well happen, but this would be good in some ways. Let me explain.

Today, when some dictator does something wretched, we are forced to hesitate in responding because we are noever sure if this man truly represents something the masses support. Now, if Muslim leader were elected on the platform of ‘invading Israel’ and then they he did it, we would have no problem in responding strongly. Even the lefties, would come along.

Second, I would expect the first few elections to be filled with vitriol for the west and heated with religious fervor. This is the only political speak the poor regular folk Muslims have ever heard. But, some where around the third or fourth election cycle, a prominent politician will stand up and say, “If you elect me, I’ll get you a job and better roads.” And, this message will actually resonate and make a lot more sense than always having to hate the Jews. I expect it to happen in Iraq fairly soon. I don’t what one’s culture is, people want to eat, have a safe healthy home, and give their children the best.

The bottom line is the principle of a free society with open debate and regular elections is the only thing we need to support and defend. What the Muslims do with it, is their business.....as it should be. Once they get rolling, a lot of this religious crap will die down.