Iraq, present and future

A recent guest viewpoint expressed the belief that Iraq is forever doomed, whether we stay or leave it will fall to dictatorial, theocratic government. Perhaps that is true. It might even if we stay, it surely will if we leave. The offhanded way in which this is stated, as if it didn‘t matter, is most troubling. If that unnerving event does in fact take place, shall we just sit around our living rooms, chat about how me made the morally correct decision for a false “peace", and wait for the nuclear explosion in one of our cities? A scenario in which the Islamic Iraq's majority Sunni population cozies up to an already nuclear Pakistan, or the disenfranchised Shiite minority to a soon-to-be nuclear Iran would be almost assured in order to fill the power vacuum in the region. Or perhaps the renegade nuclear scientist A.Q. Khan (who developed Pakistan's nuclear program) would have a new home base to practice his craft for a regional strongman. The survival of the nascent Afghan democracy would become dubious at best, and it would sign the death warrants of thousands of brave Iraqi reformers who have labored for a third path between theocracy and totalitarianism. Any of these events would be a chilling development.

The notion that Iraq, because of its historically religious and tribal rule, is incompatible with democratic self-rule is demonstrably false. America itself proves this. People, mostly young people, from every nation on earth wait on long lists to immigrate to the United States. They have voted with their feet; they have chosen the life in which they make decisions for themselves rather than have them made for them. Freedom may be unfamiliar to many Iraqis, but remember that in 1776 the birthing of our own democracy was supported by only a third of the population. Another third opposed it, and the remainder waited on the sidelines to align themselves with the eventual winner. Of course the circumstances are different, but this is not entirely unlike what is happening in Iraq now.

Many have given up on the Iraq war. Just four years ago the majority of the American public (and most Congressional democrats) were in favor of the invasion. Rather than looking back at the mistakes made in the six years since September 11, we should look instead to the years ahead. Grave decisions will be made that will affect not only the current generation of Americans and the Iraqis, but future generations of both.

Americans share many bitter differences of opinion on this war. We may disagree on many points, even the war’s validity, but one thing we should all agree on is that wars do not end with “redeployment”, only victory or defeat. If our politicians and pundits do not have the fortitude to see through the former, they should be forthcoming enough to tell us they are willing to accept the latter.