Democracy’s Dawn? 

Whenever someone gives me guff over editorials about the Middle East rather than, say, local topics such as the perils of electronic traffic cops at intersections, I offer a few reminders.

First, Sept. 11 taught us the eternal lesson that our nation’s foreign policy does not exist in a vacuum. Never will. Second, world events affect our everyday lives. Anyone who disagrees hasn’t been to the airport in years. Third, our government has spent hundreds of billions in tax money, not to mention 1,225 American lives and untold Iraqi lives, in its alleged quest for Middle East democracy and, by consequence, a victory in the war on terror.

So, how badly do you want your money’s worth? On the cusp of Iraq’s tight-rope tense Jan. 30 elections, last week saw several ominous reports. Even as 70 percent of reserve managers at central banks said they were shifting their funds away from the U.S. dollar in favor of the stronger euro, signaling even worse days for this debt-and-tax-break-addicted administration, President Bush was poised to request $80 billion more for war efforts in Afghanistan and Iraq, even after their respective elections. Is there any end in sight? Paul Wolfowitz told Congress before the March 2003 invasion: “We are dealing with a country that can really finance its own reconstruction and relatively soon.” Right.

Give President Bush props for his inaugural speech, in which he declared “the best hope for peace in our world is the expansion of freedom in all the world.” Bush basically lifted a riff from Martin Luther King Jr.: “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” But it is, of course, true. Too bad Bush, unlike Dr. King, is so inept at transferring ideals into the realm of reality.

Before Bush’s invasion of Iraq, most Americans only knew of one man and one terrorist organization: Osama Bin Laden and al-Qaeda. Now we know of several more, “terrorist” or not: Abu Mousab al-Zarqawi and Tawhid, Moqtada al-Sadr and his Mahdi Army, plus the Saudi-based, Wahhabi-inspired Ansar Al-Sunnah Army, which ordered the Dec. 21 suicide bombing in Mosul by a Saudi medical student and has called upon Sunni clerics to boycott the elections. Funny, isn’t it, how Saudi Arabia always gets a pass for exporting terrorism while Iraq pays the ultimate price.

Had we not dismantled the Ba’thist network holding Iraq together after Saddam Hussein’s fall, it’s doubtful the Iraqi people would have suffered so much so far into this messy game. For someone so adamant about our “freedom” mission for the Iraqi people, Bush’s nonchalant approach is shameful. When not muttering “Bring ’em on!” his administration essentially blames the Iraqi people for not maintaining order in their own country. Mistakes? Incompetence? Blame it on “the terrorists who hate our freedom.” Democracy in Iraq? Make no mistake. At this point we owe it to them.

Jan. 30 was supposed to quell Shia opposition to U.S. occupation. Too bad it riled the Sunnis. And too bad the predicted winners in this election—the United Iraqi Alliance, Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, and Dawa Party—boast strong ties to Iran, an “evil” country now officially deemed an “Outpost of Tyranny” by Condoleezza Rice. Should the Iraqis decide on a brand of democracy other than what Bush and the neocons want, we’ll be there through 2006 to help them out. With 120,000 foreign troops on their soil, don’t think Iraqis don’t know who calls the shots.