Bring back the communists! (well, some of them)

did you notice that in the footage that CNN (or at least CNN international) showed after the capture of saddam hussein, the joyfully celebrating crowed was comprised of... communists! (you could tell if you read the banners and plackards, which were in english). this shouldn't come as a huge surprise. the communist party was persecuted in Saddam's iraq because it wasn't arab nationalist like the ba'ath party. it was also the only party to include significant numbers of all the country's ethnic groups.

in iraq and through much of the middle east, the communists are the most effective group promoting secular, enlightment values. they have (or at least had at one point) underground organizations even in places such as saudi arabia. in israel the list that includes the communists, is the most genuinely binational parliamentary group. (the successor to meretz doesn't do badly, but it's not quite as balanced)

my modest suggestion: let's take over the communist franchise in the middle east. it's probably available fairly cheap. china and russia have both long since stopped financing communist parties overseas, and both north korea and cuba are too strapped to give much.  

aren't we supposed to be promoting democracy, i hear you ask. yes, the communists claim to be as well, and their definition of what constitutes democracy will get a hell of a lot closer to ours once we're picking up the tab. he who pays the piper calls the tune.

a whole slew of secular social democratic states in the middle east might annoy the u.s. right, but would probably make a whole lot of other people happier. including the citizens of those countries.