I’ve not been very g…

I’ve not been very good at keeping up with the Homespun Symposium questions of late. Here’s this week’s:

What are your predictions for the elections in Iraq? Will there be violence? What will the government look like? Will it be legitimate, liberal, and capable of accomplishing anything? And what effect will the election have on the U.S.?

Let’s take these one at a time, but I’m going to answer the first question by answering the rest.

Will there be violence? – Most assuredly, and it’s happening already. A government duly elected by the people of Iraq will most certainly look different than al Qaeda and their ilk would like it to look, and they’ll do whatever they can to, if not prevent the elections, at least continue to make things difficult for any government that takes power. The terrorists would promise “peace” as long as they are given total control of the country, but it would be the same kind of “peace” that the Left fawned over while Saddam Hussein was in power. So yes, there will be violence, but violence that seeks to destroy the rule of law should be dealt with, not capitulated to.

What will the government look like? – For starters, I have no delusions that this is going to be an American-style republic from the word “go”. It takes time for everyone–citizens and politicians alike–to get used to how things work (ask Russia) and no doubt there will be false starts and fundamental problems in the near future. I have no doubt the Left will try to paint everything–from serious problem down to the smallest trifle–as “proof” that the new government is a failure, but the important thing is that Iraq is moving in the right direction. (What would today’s Left have said about the new American experiment’s success or failure knowing that slavery was still in full operation through the mid 1800s? The Founding Fathers got us going in the right direction, but they didn’t solve all the problems right out of the gate.)

Having said that, while I don’t think the new Iraqi government will “look like” what we have here today, I do believe that over time it’ll be more and more recognizable as a representative republic.

Will it be legitimate, liberal, and capable of accomplishing anything? – I believe it will be able to make its own strides, although at first that will be, as I’ve said, slow moving. An entire generation has grown up distrusting its government (for good reason) and getting out that ingrained thought pattern may take yet another generation. There still should, of course, be some healthy skepticism of governmental power in general, but the mindset of wholesale distrust and fear of it may take another generation to get rid of. This goes for the governing as well as the governed. Those in power may consider what Hussein and the Ba’athists did the norm and may exercise their power in a similar fashion at the start. This will put those higher up, and especially at the top, in a situation where they must be the first to throw off the old mindset of how government operates that was the norm during the reign of Hussein. The sooner they lead in this by example, the sooner the people will be able to properly adjust to their new situation.

And what effect will the election have on the U.S.? Conservatives and liberals will celebrate the coming of a representative republic to the Arab Middle East, although if Afghanistan is any indication, the liberals joy will be extremely short-lived. They will, as I mentioned, be ready to pounce upon any problems (big or small, real or imagined) in the new Iraqi government as some sort of “proof” that we should have left Saddam Hussein in power there and let sanctions “work” (by which they mean continue to enrich UN thieves and Hussein’s cronies, while leaving the people of Iraq to fend for themselves).

I’m not sure if the new Iraqi government will be a 100% gung ho ally, because there’s more to their situation than who rescued them. They still have to live with their neighbors and their foreign policy will therefore be heavily influenced by their geography. (All the more reason for the idea of a representative republic to spread throughout the Middle East.) However, in the long run, I think they’ll be more like the countries of eastern Europe who feel more thankful that they were rescued from dictators by the US than they feel required to toe the anti-America line of France and Germany. In that sense, I believe they’ll be a good ally.

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