AP reports: Surveys: More Iraqis Want Democracy. (Via Brain Terminal)
"Very low down the list is an Islamic theocracy, in which mullahs and religious leaders have a lot of influence, such as in Iran," said Burkholder, who polled in Baghdad in August and nationwide in late March and early April for CNN and USA Today.
This is good to hear, but it's nonetheless disturbing that a theocracy is even being considered. But much worse still is the fact that, according to Secretary of State Colin Powell, we would allow an Islamic theocracy to be established in Iraq.
From this weekend's Tim Russert 'Meet The Press' interview with Powell:
RUSSERT: In those free, open and fair elections, if the Iraqi people choose an Islamic theocracy similar to what we have in Iran, we would accept that?POWELL: We will have to accept what the Iraqi people decide upon. [...] [Emphasis added]
Powell goes on to say he "thinks" the Iraqi people will make the right choice, saying: "[M]y sensing of what the Iraqi people want is a democracy with a majority, but with respect for all the minorities, all working together to create the kind of country they'll be proud of."
The possibility of an Islamic theocracy being established in Iraq should be absolutely out of the question, regardless of what the majority of Iraqi people want. The primary reason for our soldiers fighting and dying in Iraq was to eliminate a threat to America, not to give the Iraqi people a chance to democratically vote themselves into an Islamist dictatorship that would be yet another threat to America. That Powell is openly counting on what he "senses" Iraqis will do does not inspire confidence that he holds our national security as the primary issue.
In his May 17 TIA Daily editorial, titled "A Roadmap for American Defeat," Jack Wakeland named a likely reason for the Bush Administration's compromising position:
At a meeting of the Group of 8 industrialized nations on Friday, Secretary of State Colin Powell stated that the United States military would withdraw from Iraqi if that nation's new government requests it. The foreign ministers of Britain, Italy, and Japan joined him in pledging they also would withdraw their troops if asked.This is the Bush Administration's answer to the question of whether it truly intends to transfer sovereignty of Iraq to Iraqis on June 30.
This is the sacrifice the Bush Administration intends to make to prove that the United States did not invade Iraq for the 'selfish' purposes of national security. President Bush has often claimed that the invasion benefits the Iraqi people. Now he is going farther. To prove that their liberation from Saddam Hussein's dictatorship was a purely altruistic act, Mr. Bush is now deliberately putting the security of the American people up for a majority vote -- by a majority of the Iraqi people.
After WWII, we imposed on Germany and Japan democratic, secular, rights-respecting systems of government to ensure that neither would be long-term threats to America. We should do the same in Iraq and Afghanistan for the same reason.
Posted by Forkum at May 18, 2004 10:38 PM
|