Tom Friedman in the NYT

Calling All Democrats
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN

Published: February 10, 2005

I think there is much to criticize about how the war in Iraq has been conducted, and the outcome is still uncertain. But those who suggest that the Iraqi election is just beanbag, and that all we are doing is making the war on terrorism worse as a result of Iraq, are speaking nonsense.

Here's the truth: There is no single action we could undertake anywhere in the world to reduce the threat of terrorism that would have a bigger impact today than a decent outcome in Iraq....

Democrats need to start thinking seriously about Iraq - the way Joe Biden, Joe Lieberman and Hillary Clinton have...Otherwise, they will be absenting themselves from the most important foreign policy issue of our day.

Here are four things Democrats should be excited about:

What Iraq is now embarking on is the first attempt - ever - by the citizens of a multiethnic, multireligious Arab state to draw up their own social contract, their own constitution, for how they should share power and resources, protect minority rights and balance mosque and state....

There will be a lot of trial and error in the months ahead. But this is a hugely important horizontal dialogue because if Iraqis can't forge a social contract, it would suggest that no other Arab country can - since virtually all of them are similar mixtures of tribes, ethnicities and religions. That would mean that they can be ruled only by iron-fisted kings or dictators, with all the negatives that flow from that.

But - but - if Iraqis succeed in forging a social contract in the hardest place of all, it means that democracy is actually possible anywhere in the Arab world.

Democrats do not favor using military force against Iran's nuclear program or to compel regime change there. That is probably wise. But they don't really have a diplomatic option. I've got one: Iraq. Iraq is our Iran policy.

I agree with Friedman. I think one can criticize the conduct of the war, even the decision to engage in it, but I am baffled by those who think removing a mass murderer and his sons- who gave every indication of being worse than their father- from power was an immoral act.

It seems as tho many of the critics think that because a psychopath was able to seize control of a national government that he has an unquestionable right to our respect as a sovereign leader. He doesn't. Period. To think otherwise is to substitute the State for God.

That may be a strange idea coming from an agnostic, but I think it is indeed the case that the last hundred years or so have seen the development of western cultures which do accord the state the same reverence which was once reserved for god.

How else to explain the frothing-at-the-mouth attacks on Bush for "attacking a sovereign nation" when that nation is being run by Saddam Hussein? Are these people next going to attack Roosevelt for doing the same to the poor, long-suffering Germans, who after all never invaded or attacked the US?

Every person on earth, every single one with the power to help the raped, the tortured, those dismembered alive, has at least a right if not an obligation, to come to the help of the victims. And if we hope to get some reward for that, all the better, because self-interest increases the chances that the victims will find rescuers.

Ignoring the dead from the Iran-Iraq War, Hussein put 300,000 in mass graves. So far as I can tell, there was no realistic hope that he or his family would be overthrown without an invasion by a major power.

I am baffled by the idea that because the war has created a lot of misery and death for non-fascist Iraqis that it is necessarily a bad thing, as tho they were all living in nothing more than a country run by moderate US Republicans.

The idea that we cannot impose democracy by force is clearly untrue: we did it in Japan, and we did it in Germany. I don't know if we can do it again in Iraq, but the result is unlikely to be a lot worse than rule by Saddam's sons. Even the Iranian mullahs haven't abused their power like the Husseins did.

Thanks to my sister for the lead.