Wishful Thinking
Reader comment on item: A Strongman for Iraq?

Submitted by E.A. Remler (United States), Apr 28, 2003 at 14:50

It is very highly improbable that we can find a strongman who will guide Iraq to a democracy and to reasonable relations with the U.S. Postwar Germany, Japan are not reasonable comparisons to the situation today in which Iraqis feel no guilt but rather feel that we are at fault for their woes and are supported in that opnion by all their neighbors. To base policy on the highly improbably hope that we find someone of the caliber of Ataturk is just wishful thinking.

It is fine to try to do this but active pans and steps must be made for an alternative. We must assume that we will be faced with hostility from Arabs for an indefinite period in the future and we should use our victory to make it easier for us to control their violent impulses when they appear to be getting out of hand. Such control will amount to a quick, calming, punch in the nose when necessary--not too dissimilar to what the Israelis do. To that end, we should maintain military bases in Iraq with quick reaction forces and otherwise retreat from their public life--let them look after themselves as best they can.

Their self-rule will probably be a bloody and messy business which we want to keep clear of. It took many centuries for democratic attitudes to evolve in the West--and we know how incompletely they have evolved even to this day. Even with an increased pace of evolution, Democracy will take a century or more to grow in the Mid East. Any policy that ignores this very probable estimate, is no policy at all.

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