"I think the Iraqi people want us to leave once we've helped them get on the path of stability and democracy and once we have trained their troops to do their own hard work," Bush said Monday in a wide-ranging interview with
The Associated Press...If free and open Iraqi elections lead to the seating of a fundamentalist Islamic government, "I will be disappointed. But democracy is democracy," Bush said. "If that's what the people choose, that's what the people choose."
Who can make any sense anymore of American policy toward Iraq? It has gone way beyond irony into the realm of dangerous farce. First we prop up Saddam Hussein as a bulwark against the spread of radical Islamic states sponsoring conflict and terrorism in the region. Now we remove him from power inviting the likely prospect of Iraq becoming a radical Islamic state and ultimately sponsoring terrorism in the region and against American interests everywhere. What in the world?
The Reagan government, 21 years ago, worried about Iran's fundamentalist Islamic government, decided to ally itself with Saddam Hussein in the Iran-Iraq war. Reagan dispatched Donald Rumsfeld, then Middle East Special Envoy, to meet with Saddam and pledge American support. The US would supply intelligence, arms and even chemical and biological weapons to the Iraqi dictator, whom they suggested was an "Arab moderate" committed to stability in the region and peace with Israel. Then, of course, Saddam invaded Kuwait in 1990, became America's biggest enemy in the region, was beaten back by coalition forces, but then was left in power so he could terrorize only the Iraqi people, who would also bear the terrible brunt of crushing economic sanctions while the Iraqi regime feasted on the socalled oil-for-food program. Then 13 years later, America removes Saddam from power, at a cost of thousands of American and Iraqi lives, not to mention $120 billion in taxpayer's money and counting, to create socalled "democratic" conditions that will likely bring a radical Islamic regime to power in Iraq certain to be hellbent on terrorizing the United States and Israel.
Why did Muqtada al-Sadr direct his fighters to surrender their weapons and agree to participate in Iraq's electoral process? Because he is a born-again advocate of democracy? Of course not. Sadr knows that anti-American and pro-Islamic fundamentalist support is widespread in Iraq. He believes he can actually use the American-installed democratic electoral process to come to power, institutionalize his radical Islamic and anti-American agenda, and then discard the same democratic process he utilized. You can almost hear his laughter in mockery of American witlessness.
Bush likes to say that the war against terror is not a war against Islam. Most Americans accept that, even if the Arab world thinks otherwise. However, most Americans, both on the right and the left, believe that terrorism and Islamic fundamentalism are historically and inextricably linked. By all indications, Bush himself believes this. He also characterizes the battle against terrorism as the battle of good against evil. So now we have the likely prospect of Iraq becoming an evil, terrorist-training, terrorist-sponsoring radical Islamic state. And what does Bush say to that? So be it. That's democracy in action.
A discredited political thinker once said that history repeats itself twice, first as tragedy then as farce. Though Karl Marx is the right-wing's philosophical antichrist, they have apparently decided to adopt his prediction as their foreign policy.