Totten: The Future of Iraq
Michael Totten has posted the first of a four-part series exploring the big issue on everyone’s minds: The Future of Iraq.
Iraq has never been successfully governed by anyone but a strongman. You might even say Iraq has never been successfully governed at all. Who today sincerely believes the use of force by Saddam Hussein’s Baath Party regime was an effective “remedy” for the Iraqi people, as General Nasser put it? Still, despite my unease with what he was saying, I don’t think he necessarily meant a totalitarian system is the solution to what ails Iraq.
“Twelve JAM members were brought to court recently,” he said. “They asked to be put under American justice because you are softer and jail people under better conditions. Iraqis are not like Americans. You are educated, we aren’t. Without force, Iraqis cannot be civilized. Americans don’t use real force. You talk to people nicely and worry about human rights.”
This is how many Iraqi optimists talk, I am sorry to say. Most Iraqis who think the worst there is over, that the surge was more or less the end of the war, don’t believe Iraq is going to look like post-communist nations in Eastern Europe. Baghdad is not the next Prague. Iraq may be less brutal from here on out than it has been, but that doesn’t mean it will be a model democracy.
Frank says: