Victor Davis Hanson : Iraq's Hard Road to Political Freedom

The Chicago Tribune ^ | January 28, 2005 | Victor Davis Hanson

[quidnunc]

Fostering elections in Iraq is a hard road, well apart from the daily violence of the Sunni Triangle. The autocratic Sunni elite of surrounding countries prefers democracy to fail, warning us that an Iranian-sponsored theocracy will surely follow in Iraq, legitimizing a new Arab Khomeinism.

Sunni Iraqis want exemption from, or a delay of, Sunday's election — even though they cannot or will not stop their own violence that imperils it. The United States earns very little credit abroad for its newfound dedication to democratic reform — even as realists at home warn that we should instead back the status quo, who better guarantee order that purportedly favors our own national security.

There are rarely supporters of the hard road of promoting democracies abroad until they are well established. We learned that well enough both before and after the Afghanistan war. Many swore that the Taliban could not be removed. After their demise, new critics warned that the fascists could not be replaced with democrats — and now suddenly they are mostly silent or indeed supportive of the new Afghanistan.

In the face of censure, the United States once bombed Christian Europeans in the Balkans to arrest an Islamic genocide, in hopes of stopping former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic and ushering in a democracy. Greeks and Russians were furious. The Arab world offered little thanks that we saved their fellow Muslims. Europeans who had watched the carnage on their doorstep for a near decade whined about our heavy-handed bombing. But perseverance in pursuit of principle — perhaps the Clinton administration's most controversial hour — saved thousands of lives and gave the Balkans a chance at consensual government.

-snip-

[quidnunc]

FYI

[presidio9]

btt

[dirtboy]

Sunni Iraqis want exemption from, or a delay of, Sunday's election — even though they cannot or will not stop their own violence that imperils it

Let's go back a few years. Imagine the liberal response to any request from the minority South African government to delay open elections.

Now, fast forward to another time, where the minority power structure is engaging in violence far worse than anything that happened during the transitino from apartheid. Do the liberals condemn the Sunnis for trying to block the majority from achieving power? Do they demand that we stay the course?

Of course not. Suddenly, the rights of a power-abusing minority group are more important than the rights of the majority Shiites (and another group, the Kurds). Which proves, once again, that liberals are the masters of situational ethics.

[mainepatsfan]

"If in World War II Americans had acted as the present-day European Union does now, there would probably be no European Union today."

It would exist under another name, the Third Reich.

[USF]

Ping

[Tolik]

Thanks. The VDH ping list was already pinged to this article published elsewhere and posted here: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1329655/posts

But I don't mind at all, the more the merrier.

VDH is very strong lately, and gives at least two articles weekly instead of just one. Plus his responses to readers at his own site. I wish he would head the communications office for Bush. He (Bush) badly needs it.