[Utah Girl]

This is long, but well worth the read.

[RonF]

I might dispute your title. I don't think that Iraq's future (at least with regards to the present regime) will be long at all.

[KayEyeDoubleDee]

BTTT

[denydenydeny]

Indexing.

[CatoRenasci]

Excellent post. This is an important article. Bump!!

[Publius]

Excellent article. Fine analysis and right on the money.

[yankeedame]

Up until only 50 or so years ago the Arab world was refered to as "tribes with flags", not true government, and in many ways it still is. The ways and social organization of countless generations is not swept away by a handful of years.

History (and geography) reveals not only the past of a people, but also their character, and it is here the West errors. Look how long the western influence of France in Algeria, the British in Egypt and "The White" in South Africa lasted once direct pressure/influence was withdrawn. There is no reason to believe the results will be different with the United States vis-a-vis Iraq.

Our hope lay in establishing, and maintaining, sluice gates for the free flow of the 21st century to the restless, and plentiful, youth of those lands. Little more can we do. For change must come from them and from within.

Alas, it will take a very,very long time-- something bore with impatience in the West-- but then as the Arab saying so rightly goes: "All things fear time", and the leaders of those tribes with flags are no exception.

[MoralSense]

This righteous sense of Arab victimhood -- which overlooks what Arab rulers do to others while lamenting its own condition -- emanates from a political tradition of belligerent self-pity. The push should be for an Arab world that acknowledges its own economic and political retrogression and begins to find a way out of those crippling sectarian atavisms.

A scholarly bumper sticker, if you will.

[Molly Pitcher]

Thanks for the post, Utah Girl. Ajami makes an excellent read.

[Savage Beast]

"There would be no "hearts and minds" to be won in the Arab world"

That's okay. Just remember the immortal words of Lyndon Johnson.

[Savage Beast]

"Few Arabs would believe this effort to be a Wilsonian campaign to spread the reign of liberty in the Arab world."

Is there any appreciable desire for liberty in the Arab world? There doesn't seem to be.

[desertcry]

"...No Hearts and mind to be won in the arab world". So, if we don't get rid of saddam, the arabs would bring back to life those more than 3000 who died on 9.11.01, restore the WTC, and pentagon, and the islamists never hated us? Does this mean that the arabs never hated the non believers, if the US, and it's allies don't kick saddam out of iraq? Has the author of this article been in a time warp?

[Stultis]

bookmark

[Bayou City]

Good post. I just came across this article In Foreign Affairs Magazine and was going to post it. I find the following two passages interesting.

There will be Europeans looking for cracks in the conduct of the distant great power. The judgment that matters will be made at home, in the United States itself, as to the costs and returns of imperial burden.

It is with sobering caution, then, that a war will have to be waged. But it should be recognized that the Rubicon has been crossed. Any fallout of war is certain to be dwarfed by the terrible consequences of America's walking right up to the edge of war and then stepping back, letting the Iraqi dictator work out the terms of another reprieve. It is the fate of great powers that provide order to do so against the background of a world that takes the protection while it bemoans the heavy hand of the protector. This new expedition to Mesopotamia would be no exception to that rule.

[McGavin999]

All we can do is pin our hopes on those Iraquis who have lived amoung us long enough to figure out the benefits of living free. They are the only ones who can show those who have been kept under the yoke of Saddam that it's worth the challange. If they are not up to the task, this may well fail, but if the are.....there is a chance. We must take that chance.

Freedom can not really be "given" to anyone. It must be worked for, bled for, sacrificed for. I hope they make it.

[Valin]

BUMP!

[Valin]

I bump therefore I am.