SELF-GOVERNMENT, IF YOU CAN KEEP IT

Dial down U.S. involvement in Iraq (Amitai Etzioni, 8/27/03, USA Today)

It is high time for a basic shift in approach: We must let Iraqis run most operations and openly take responsibility for them.

Once that happens, if there is not enough work, water or electricity to go around, Iraqis no longer will be able to blame us. If a water main or an oil pipeline blows up, it will be their own new government that is undermined, rather than U.S. forces and credibility.

The only matters that should remain under our control are the production and acquisition of weapons and the creation of a military force. This we can do from a small number of heavily fortified encampments outside of the major cities.

This radical change, critics may say, will allow the Baath party to reassert itself. As I see it, we should be willing to live with such a side effect during a transition period, just as we allowed many Nazi officials to keep running German ministries and factories after World War II -- for a while. Moreover, de-Baathification should be left to the Iraqis. If they refuse, they will live with the consequences.

Some may say that such a policy will lead to a Taliban-like Shiite government in the country's south. We should not be scared by such predictions. As long as we make it clear that if Iraqis host terrorists we will deal with them the same way we dealt with the Taliban, then they will be most unlikely to embark on such a course. And if the Iraqis are willing to put up with such a rigid, regimented life, that is their choice. Actually, given that many Iraqis, especially in parts of the country other than the south, oppose such fundamentalism, there will be plenty of opportunities for secular and religiously moderate Iraqis -- rather than Americans -- to confront the Shiites.

And what about the growing number of foreign terrorists? They did not come to fight a truly Iraqi government -- only our handpicked one. If they tried to tangle with a homegrown government, the Iraqis would run them out of town.

As Mr. Etzioni notes, freedom means, in part, being free to choose crappy governance. Posted by Orrin Judd at August 27, 2003 4:07 PM