What have the Americans ever done for us? Liberated 50 million people…
[Comparing the anti-American sorts to a Monty Python scene] “All right, all right. But apart from liberating 50 million people in Iraq and Afghanistan, undermining dictatorships throughout the Arab world, spreading freedom and self-determination in the broader Middle East and moving the Palestinians and the Israelis towards a real chance of ending their centuries-long war, what have the Americans ever done for us?”
It’s too early, in fairness, to claim complete victory in the American-led struggle to bring peace through democratic transformation of the region. Despite the temptation to crow, we must remember that this is not Berlin 1989. There will surely be challenging times ahead in Iraq, Iran, in the West Bank and elsewhere. The enemies of democratic revolution — all the terrorists and Baathists, the sheikhs, the mullahs and the monarchs — are not going to give up without a fight.
But something very important is happening now, something that will be very hard to stop. And, although not all of it can be directly attributed to the US strategy in the region, can anyone seriously argue that it would have happened without it? Neither is it true, as some have tried to argue, that all of this is merely some unintended consequence of an immoral and misconceived war in Iraq.
It was always the express goal of the Bush Administration to change the regime in Baghdad, precisely because of the opportunities for democracy it would open up in the rest of the Arab world. George Bush understands the simple but historically demonstrable thesis that freedom is not only the most basic of human rights, but also the best way to ensure that nations do not go to war with each other.
Quite so. Recommended reading.
4 Comments
Kathy,
I have to, respectfully, disagree with this, Bush said over and over again in the run up to the Iraq war that all Saddam Hussein had to do to avoid conflict with the US was to “disarm” and comply with UN resolutions. In fact, the only thing that was negotiable in the run-up to the war was his status as the leader in Iraq.
Bush stated clearly on numerous occasions that freedom on for the Iraqi people was wholly and completely contingent on Saddam satisfying his obligations to the UN and to the US under the cease-fire agreement. That only “Failure to comply with UN resolutions” would bring the US into Iraq.
As late as October of 2002 Bush was using this line to explain the use of force resolution:
“…does not mean that military action is imminent or unavoidable. The resolution will tell the United Nations, and all nations, that America speaks with one voice and is determined to make the demands of the civilized world mean something.”
Liberating the people of Iraq was the only negotiable issue on the table in the run up to the invasion and any suggestion to the contrary is convenient revisionism.
And what does your comments have against Paragraphs?
You might note that a part of the resolutions that he refused to comply with (in fact, violated to the point where I would call it attempted genocide) had to do with ceasing to oppress the people of Iraq…
The paragraphs are there, btw — they just don’t have much space between them.
Or didn’t.