Johann Hari shows the likely state of Iraq after the war:
Following the Gulf War, northern Iraq — where the Kurds were sheltering in the mountains from Saddam’s thugs — was not handed back to Baghdad. It became an independent statelet guarded by, yes, US and British military might.
What does it look like 10 years later? Is it governed by another mini-Saddam circa 1980, a cheap pro-American puppet? No. It is a self-determining democracy. It elects, freely, its own leaders. It has freedom of speech and of the press (in Sulaymaniyah alone, there are 138 media outlets, including literary magazines and radio channels). It lives under the rule of law, upheld by both male and female judges.
As Barham Salih, the prime minister of the Iraqi Kurdistan regional government in Sulaymaniyah, explained recently: “In 1991, we had 804 schools. Today we have 2,705. We started with one university in Arbil in 1991; today we have three. In 10 years of self-government, we built twice as many hospitals as was built for us in seven decades. Then we had 548 doctors. Today we have 1,870 doctors. I’m not going to tell you that everything is rosy… but it’s remarkable what we have achieved.”
If it were not for US military power, this democratic entity would not have existed for the last 10 years. Without US military power, it will not be extended throughout Iraq. Of course, it would be far better if we could establish a democratic Iraq without a war that will kill many thousands of innocent people. War is horrendous, but a small number of things are even worse: Saddam’s tyranny is one. Has the left really forgotten the fundamental principle that it is worth fighting to free 23 million people from tyranny and to help them to build democracy? What has become of us?
The Iraqi exile leaders gathering in London late last year ? disparate and fractured though they are ? agreed that northern Iraq must be the model for post-Saddam democracy.
Link via Dr. Frank.
I don’t agree with a lot of what Hari says — we freed Chile from a communist takeover, and if we had been less cynical in Vietnam, we might have won, and saved them from the holocaust that resulted when we abandoned them.
But the fact is that Kurdistan proves that democracy can exist there.
It continues to astound me that more people don’t point out the horrific cruelty of allowing Saddam Hussein to stay in power.
As a muslim arab, my biggest fear from the upcoming war that it will turn out to be pretty much the same as the previous one. Many innocent people will die and Saddam will be spared. I agree he is not a good man, but lets not forget politics and righteousness don’t mix. As a matter of fact in the American quest for a peaceful million if not billions were killed. Plus there’s something that seem to be left out, when you Bush or previous administration talk about peace and freedom in the world, they mean “peace and freedom in the world for Americans and their close friends. As for the rest of the world go to hell”. Lets not forget than many leaders in the middle-east and world wide are far worse than Saddam but the media conviently blocks them out. This is nothing more than a war for oil control. Bush much like his father are business men protecting their oil companies… Too bad that human life means so little especially when its american. The struggle to elminate racism continues … But as long the ignorant still rules, the struggle will only get tougher. The one message I like to tell the American people “Plz no more presidents from the south, especially Texas”…. May Allah have Mercy on us all…
By my count, there are only three nations with governments so oppressive to human rights that they need replacing right now: Iraq, North Korea, and Zimbabwe. I can understand why we aren’t moving militarily against Korea – they have nukes, so toppling Junior Kim would probably cost more lives than it would save, but I do think it’s unconscionable that Mugabe is allowed to commit genocide against his people. Since the issue there started with Mugabe’s racist executions of white farmers, there’s a racial element that makes it hard for the US to enforce human rights there, so this one belongs to the UN or the OAS for action, and they’re so morally compromized they’re content to do nothing.
That leaves us with Iraq, and we will shortly move to correct that situation.
Cuba and Libya have undesirable dictators, but they’re not at the level of brutality as the others I’ve mentioned, so I’m content to leave them to simmer on their own for the time being.
Iraq has invaded a US treaty partner, Kuwait, and that’s all the justification we need for changing the regime and thereby liberating the Iraqi people from their socialist dictator.