Tuesday, August 22, 2006

Changing the perspective

Suppose that the U.S. had not pushed for the overthrow of Saddam Hussein.

Further suppose that the Iraqi people had risen up and overthrown Saddam Hussein.

Suppose further still that the majority in Iraq had installed a democratic, representative government based on the unity of Iraq's religiously disparate provinces while opposing terrorism.

What nation, besides Iran, would refrain from establishing friendly diplomatic relations with Iraq?
Certainly not the nations of the West, I hope. Even Democrats would be delighted at the Iraqi people's pre-emptive strike against their oppressive government, I think.

Let's take our suppositions one step further.

Suppose that sectarian violence began to threaten the stability of the fledgling Iraqi government in the scenario painted above. Suppose that Iraq requested security forces from the West in large numbers, and suppose that those forces would be under the threat of terrorist-style attacks such as IEDs.

Should the policy be hands-off at that point? Would we want the kids in our military placed in the middle of a civil war "with targets on their backs"?

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