In an ongoing series of editorials on Iraq, the Chicago Tribune today examines the Bush administration's claims deposing Saddam would lay the groundwork for liberty and democracy. There's ample documentation of Bush's pre-war emphasis on ending human rights violations and persecution of Iraqis by Saddam's regime, and this conclusion from the Tribune's editorial board:
Three national elections, including last week's choice of a parliament, suggest the White House was correct in predicting that Iraqis long pinned beneath the heel of a boot would embrace democracy. And while Kurds, Sunnis and Shiites have major differences to reconcile, a year's worth of predictions from doubters that Sunni disaffection would doom self-rule have, so far, proven wrong.
Three numbers are especially instructive: An electorate of 8.5 million in January's selection of a National Assembly grew to 9.8 million in October's constitutional referendum, and to some 11 million in December's parliamentary election. That's a remarkable show of civic courage, given that each of those citizens knew his or her decision to vote could prove suicidal. As Sen. Joseph Lieberman (D-Conn.) wrote in The Wall Street Journal of Nov. 29: "Every time the 27 million Iraqis have been given the chance since Saddam was overthrown, they have voted for self-government and hope over the violence and hatred the 10,000 terrorists offer them."
Since the fall of Baghdad in April 2003, the journey to full-fledged democracy has taken Iraq from a U.S.-named Governing Council to an interim constitution, to Iraqi sovereignty, to the election of a National Assembly, to the drafting of a constitution, to voter approval of that national charter, to Thursday's election of a parliament known as the Council of Representatives.
For the better part of three years, though, critics ridiculed the Bush administration's insistence on this "deadline democracy" as a triumph of fantasy over the Arab world's autocratic experience. The factionalized Iraqis would need more time, the thinking went. Self-rule would have little appeal in the former dictatorship. The reality, though, has been a simpler triumph of human aspiration over justifiable fear. This serial optimism among Iraqis has contrasted, intriguingly, with the far more pessimistic views of many people in this country and others.
Intriguing pessimism, or predictably spiteful and ill-willed pessimism, for purely political reasons? Bad news on Iraq is good news for The Left, and good news, well, it has to be spun backwards, as L.A. Times op-ed columnist Niall Ferguson does here, predicting that in Iraq:
...all the ingredients are now in place for the biggest conflagration in Middle Eastern history. The only good news is that the first thing to go up in smoke will be the theory of a democratic peace.
Very good then Niall, old chap; keep rooting for more death and despotism and Iraq. But what's your deadline for eating crow, publicly, as progress continues? Or is this one of those convenient "it's only a matter of time" arguments? I rather suspect so.
The Washington Post's op-ed columnist Jackson Diehl actually gets it:
That's one of the perverse effects of the war: Amid all the noise of suicide bombings, talk of a quagmire for U.S. troops and a sectarian conflict that could lead to Iraq's disintegration, most people haven't noticed that in the rest of the Arab Middle East, the political momentum of the past year has been . . . distinctly democratic.
The New York Times reports this afternoon that turnout in the Iraqi parliamentary elections last week was a robust 70 percent, up from 58 percent in the nation's January vote on the draft constitution. Here's one immediate test in Iraq: the court hearing Saddam's trial must get its house in order, and move the proceedings along to the obvious and justifiable conclusion. The execution of Saddam's death sentence will be another powerful symbol for a new Iraq.
TECHNORATI TAGS: IRAQ, DEMOCRACY, ELECTIONS, CHICAGO TRIBUNE, NIALL FERGUSON, JACKSON DIEHL
Posted by Matt Rosenberg at December 21, 2005 11:36 AM
Niall Ferguson is one of the most sophisticated defenders of liberal imperialism at work, and certainly no cheerleader for our failure in Iraq however critical he may be of the Bush administration.
Whether his dark assessment of the situation in the Middle East is correct or not, I would like to think that some desk drawer in the White House contains a Plan B for the eventuality that it might be.
The siege mentality that seems to be settling around the administration does not give me much confidence in this regard. If the choices before us in Iraq are truly stark--persevere or perish--perhaps it would make sense to divide the debaters into two camps: the enlightened defenders of democracy, on the one hand, and the benighted traitors and defeatists, on the other.
Personally, I think we have a few more options than that, and I am not inclined to panic over the First Amendment just yet.
Posted by: Tom Rekdal at December 21, 2005 02:24 PMIt's unbelievable that the media can downplay such a historic time and place. I suppose they can say anything they want, but really the majority of blame for the outrageousness of the media should fall squarely on the American public. If the public would stop buying the newspapers, watching the shows, or otherwise supporting the media outlets, their revenues would shrink and they'd either change or go bankrupt.
But the public loves the negative, loves pulling down the top dog, whether or not they're doing right, and this is the result.
Until the American public stops feeding the machine, there will always be this kind of bad, or missing, reporting.
I think I read somewhere that this might already be happening, that readership of newspapers is down across the country. Of course the population of literate people is declining too. :)
Posted by: HappyGoLucky at December 21, 2005 05:12 PM