War of Ideas, Part II

Throughout the country, there are people demonstrating against the government, planning a government takeover later this year, and calling the present government illegal or somehow subversive to the very ideas of what the nation should be. It's a very racous debate, and it's being played out every day by rival candidates who are vying for attention with different agendas from each other.

And no, I'm not talking about Iraq. I am talking about the United States. We are in the middle of an election cycle for the President and there are candidates who are vying for the Office of the President who are saying virtually anything that will get people to vote for them in office. Some of them claim that Iraq is a quagmire and that with the Shi'ites in the South calling for direct elections and the Kurds in the North wanting a federal system, and the Sunni's in the center of the country wanting to retain a disproportionate amount of power as compared with their population, they claim that all of the political moves in Iraq are a sign of quagmire.

Nonsense. They are a sign of the first healthy political debate that Iraq has had in more than 40 years. It is messy because politics is messy. It is messy because democracy is messy. In more than 200 years, the US still doesn't get every aspect of democracy right and there are some clearly anti-democratic procedures that are built into the system to protect rights of groups, both large and small. For example, the Senate is comprised of two senators from every state, regardless of population size - that's anti-democratic. It is balanced by a House of Representatives that is comprised of delagates from states based on population in the census every 10 years. Similarly, the President is chosen not by a direct election, but through the Electoral College.

How the Iraqis decide to implement a government that respects the rights of the groups, large and small, will take time and it will be messy.

The situation is not helped by the continuing insurgent/terrorist movement that hits away at the fringes (they may hit unarmed locations or take potshots at vehicles or aircraft, but cannot make a sustained effort). The whole point of terrorism is intimidation of the public and to get public opinion to turn against the US and those Iraqis who favor the US approach.

Those terrorists are not out to help the Iraqi people. They, like the Palestinian terrorist groups, are not humanitarians. They do not care about what happens after their hoped for victory. They just want to kill as many as possible.

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