March 27, 2003
FROM ERIC THE RED TO OLAF PALME IN ONE GENERATION?:
Time for Muslim world to prove the West wrong (David D. Perlmutter, March 27, 2003, Jewish World Review)As a college professor, I regularly conduct a class exercise to illustrate that the "national character" of peoples isn't genetically fixed.I pick out an inoffensive coed with a Scandinavian name and ask her if, when she passes by a prosperous-looking town, she feels compelled to burn it down, kill the inhabitants and steal their cattle. Usually, the reply is a chuckled "No!" I comment that her predatory Viking ancestors would be displeased with her lack of bloodlust.
Now, many commentators tell us that the Iraqi people (and, by implication, all Muslims and Arabs) are intrinsically unable to sustain a participatory democracy and a civil society. The postwar aims of the United States and the world – even those who oppose the second Persian Gulf War – must be to prove them wrong.
The prescription for a transformation from a nation governed by genocidal tyranny must be drastic and immediate. In a world of proliferating madmen and weapons of mass destruction, we can't wait a millennium or even a generation. [...]
It is fair to say the pre-Gulf War II Saddam Hussein was a minor military threat to his neighbors. Ironically, a democratic, civil-minded Iraq would be a moral threat to the ruling castes of many Middle East and Near East theocracies, kingdoms and tyrannies. The temptation for those players to try to sabotage the rule of law in Iraq will be great. The United States must make the costs of such adventurism unacceptable.
In such strategies, almost everyone has a role to play, not just the Marines, Iraqi-Americans and the White House. For example, the many millions in the West who have taken to the streets opposing the war have assured us that they are doing so for humanitarian reasons – such as saving the children of Iraq from the fallout of battle. After the war is over, they can prove the sincerity of their concerns by directing time, energy and money to helping rebuild the country for those children.
An Iraq that is saved by its own people and by the good will of foreign soldiers and citizens isn't a fantasy but a necessity. If a postwar Iraq fails, and if we fail a postwar Iraq, we will condemn the region and the world to many more wars with no hope of a positive outcome.
But the $64,000 question is does the Arab world want peace, prosperity and democracy more than it hates the West. The jury is still very much out. Posted by Orrin Judd at March 27, 2003 8:22 AM
It seems to me perfectly "logical" that much of the anti-war movement, in order to show how wrong this war is, will hope that rebuilding Iraq precisely not succeed. Along with much of the Arab world (that is, if they bother with the issue at all).
Moreover, those who have become Saddam's defenders will indoubtedly attempt to link the rebuilding of Iraq to the creation of a Palestinian state, to the extent that rebuilding Iraq will not be deemed a success until Palestine (i.e., the Palestine that Palestinians want) is created.
The two issues have already been linked so often that this link has become gospel truth, no matter how wrongheaded it is.
Anyway, let's hope the point of view that can be expressed as, "Why should I succeed if by doing so, my enemy succeeds?" is not the motivating credo here.
Palestinian statehood is separate but necessary and inevitable--the sooner the better, for Israel and the U.S..
Posted by: oj at March 27, 2003 11:09 AMOrrin, you're sounding more and more like me.
National characteristics, such as, for example, French poltroonery or German self-pity, obviously cannot be genetic. But they can be very deeply entrenched, nonethess.
Yes but they both eventually became pacific democracies, though dying ones.
Posted by: oj at March 27, 2003 3:07 PM