This assertion is completely without basis in fact. US policy has been to create an independent Kosovo/a client state. The Kosovars already have the dirtiest relationship of any US client state on the planet, with the US running several torture centers in Kosovo with full approval.

That’s a curious way of looking at the issue – that the actual actors, the people on the ground who, in living their lives the way they do, make certain things impossible and others inevitable, are just objects and the only real actors are those in Washington, London, Moscow and Beijing moving pieces about in the global game of Risk.

Not one I share, to say the least.

Actual imperialism is, in 2005, one of those things that those ordinary people have made impossible. Given that, it’s about as valid a topic of worry as Godzilla attacking New York.

soru

But here we go again, and (implicitly) we on the anti-war side are accused of fellow travelling with isolationists, racists (the Iraqis are biologically ill-equipped for democracy), Imperialists etc.

Just to clarify. I am arguing that (as Nick Cohen, of all people, pointed out at the time) that incredibly late in the day, perhaps as late as 2002, the plan WAS to get rid of Saddam and then install a new pro-American dictator. Why was this plan dropped? Simply: because it was obvious by 2003 that they simply wouldn’t get away with it. So then the plan shifted to another template, a template based, let’s not forget on precisely what happened the last time .

That is, the plan was for a ‘controlled democracy’ based exactly on what the British did to Iraq the last time.

Given that this is the case, if the pro-invasion left insist on parallels with world war 2, perhaps they should concentrate on the time in world war 2 when the British, you know, like, actually invaded Iraq? Where: ’ the current U.S. posture against Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden offers a reprise of Churchill’s 1941 crusade against Rashid Ali and the Grand Mufti. Three fundamental arguments advanced to support the call for “regime change” in Iraq—the need to pre-empt Saddam Hussein before he acquires weapons of mass destruction and the means to deliver them; the requirement to strike a blow at terrorism; finally, a region that contains twenty per cent of the world’s oil supply must not be allowed to fall under the control of a demonic regime that will use those resources for malevolent purposes—mirror points made in a different but in many ways eerily similar historical context by Churchill over sixty years ago….’ with the result that : ‘Therefore, the prevailing historical verdict on Britain’s interaction with the Arab world during World War II is that, in its effort to preserve its political base through the invasions of Iraq and Persia, the exile of the Grand Mufti and sponsorship of Zionist counter-terror groups like the Haganah, and heavy handed tactics against the young King Farouk in Egypt, Britain fanned the flames of Arab nationalism and Islamic fundamentalism that ultimately compromised its long term interests in the Middle East.’ (precisely what is happening now).

In any case. The Iraq that has been planned is clearly similar (to put it mildly) to the Iraq that existed in the 1930s until the 1958 coup.

It was the presence of British bases that showed that the British held the whip hand: hence the reason that discussion over whether the American bases currently being constructed in Iraq are to be permanent or not is not an academic point. Iraqis aren’t stupid, you know.

And incidentally, I don’t think Abb1’s point IS stupid. Was Iraq a democracy between 1932 and 1958? Well in some senses yes. It had a relatively free press. It had elections. The British could point to it and say: ’ you see! we brought democracy!’ and doubtless imperialists like those at Harry’s Place nodded their heads and mumbled that this showed how our intentions were good.

Equally, looked at another way, it is clear that in some ways Iraq during this period was NOT a democracy, as the invasion of ‘41 showed. Other indications of lack of freedom were the Baghdad Pact, and the fact that the Hashemite monarchy was British installed.

The Iraqis have been through this shit before, they know imperialism when they see it, and they aren’t going to let it happen again. That is why there will be no peace in Iraq till the bases go and until all the American imposed laws are repealed and anyone who says differently is living in a fantasy world…and…what was it….oh yes…..arguing that the Iraqis are ‘not ready’ for democracy.

I didn’t say “democracy is the wrong form of government,” I said the ME is unsuited to the process of “democratization” by an external power. Do you understand the difference?

That is progress, of a kind.

soru

Free elections alone are not sufficient for a country to become a true democracy; the culture of the country’s political institutions and civil service must also change. This is an especially difficult cultural shift to achieve in nations where transitions of power have historically taken place through violence. There are various examples (i.e., Revolutionary France, modern Uganda and Iran) of countries that were able to sustain democracy only in limited form until wider cultural changes occurred to allow true majority rule.

Democracy, and especially liberal democracy, necessarily assumes a sense of shared values in the demos (otherwise political legitimacy will fail). In other words, it assumes that the demos is in fact a unit. For historical reasons, many states lack the cultural and ethnic unity of the ideal nation-state.

Do you similarly think an empire is a country ruled by an Emperor, so ‘anti-imperialism’ means opposition to the foreign policy of Japan?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy is a basic introduction to the topic.

soru

My point illustrated.

How can someone (even a headbanger like abb1) claim to be progressive, without knowing the answers to those questions, without understanding the difference in the daily lives of people under a true dictatorship, a repressive society with some freedoms like Iran, and a democracy?

Only the abscence of a genuine set of progressive voices in the US, instead of mere reaction to a right-wing agenda, can explain that.

soru

Perhaps it would be more accurate to say ‘if a US left existed’, if there was something other than a big fat hole between people who wish McCain was on their team, and students and entertainers indulging in the political equivalent of death metal.

You seem to think “cautious” and “insincere” are interchangeable here.

The word used was ‘or’. But, to clarify, those are two different criticisms that both could be made while retaining the view of democracy as a good thing, a solution and not an indulgence.

In fact, the two criticisms are largely incompatible, as is is hardly wise to urge someone you think is incompetent to take bolder risks.

A better president could have won the war earlier, more thoroughly and at lower cost, lending more weight to american diplomacy and less resentment of it. UN approval, extra European peacekeepers, no Fallujah, Abu Graib seen as an anomaly not part of a pattern, the list goes on.

Then maybe that better president could have been bolder.

Is your imagination so limited that you really can’t grok such a position deriving from anything other than Buchananite isolationism and Islamophobia

In the specific context of Iraq, yes. I suppose someone could be unaware of Iraqi literacy and urbanisation rates, the degree of monetarisation of the economy, or the expressed opinions of Iraqis towards democracy, and that would be no better or worse than other forms of ignorance.

But, once informed of those, to persist in the view that democracy is the wrong form of government for Iraq is to think that Iraqis are genetically, religiously or culturally unsuited to that form of government, and that is a sentiment that is most fully expressed by Buchanan and the Islamophobes.

soru

Although some people might argue that the original mistake might contain a hidden truth.