The Dawn of a Glorious, Revolutionary Moment in the Mid East. "Thenk you, Mr. Boosh!"

Iraq Forum

WASHINGTON -- Revolutions do not stand still. They either move forward or they die. We are at the dawn of a glorious, delicate, revolutionary moment in the Middle East. It was triggered by the invasion of Iraq, the overthrow of Saddam, and televised images of 8 million Iraqis voting in a free multiparty election. Which led to the obvious question throughout the Middle East: Why Iraqis and not us?

To be sure, the rolling revolution began outside the Middle East with the Afghan elections, scandalously underplayed in the American media. That was followed by the Iraqi elections, impossible to underplay even by the American media. In between came free Palestinian elections that produced a moderate reform-oriented leadership, followed by an amazing mini-uprising in the Palestinian parliament that rejected an attempt to force corrupt cronies on the new government.

And it continued -- demonstrations in Egypt for democracy, a shocking rarity that led President Mubarak to promise the first contested presidential elections in Egyptian history. And now, of course, the Cedar Revolution in Lebanon, where the assassination of opposition leader Rafiq Hariri led to an explosion of people power in the streets that brought down Syria's puppet-government in Beirut.

Revolution is in the air. What to do? We are already hearing voices for restraint about liberating Lebanon. Flynt Leverett, your usual Middle East expert, takes to The New York Times to oppose immediate withdrawal of Syria's occupation of Lebanon. Instead, we should be trying to ``engage and empower'' the tyranny in Damascus.

These people never learn. Here we are on the threshold of what Arabs in the region are calling the fall of their own Berlin Wall, and our ``realists'' want us to go back to making deals with dictators. It would be not just a blunder but a tragedy to try to rein in the revolution in Lebanon. It would betray our principles. And it would betray the people in Lebanon who have been encouraged by our proclamation of those principles.

Moreover, the Cedar Revolution promises not only to liberate Lebanon, but to transform the entire Middle East. Why? Because a forced Syrian withdrawal from Lebanon could bring down the Assad dictatorship. The road to Damascus goes through Beirut. And changing Damascus will transform the region.

We are not talking about invading Syria. We have done enough invading and there is no need. If Assad loses Lebanon, his regime could be fatally weakened.

For two reasons: economics and psychology. Like all Soviet-style systems, the Syrian economy is moribund. It lives off Lebanese commerce and corruption. Take that away and a pillar of the Assad kleptocracy disappears. As does the psychological pillar. Dictatorships like Assad's rule by fear, which is sustained by power and the illusion of power. Control of Lebanon is the centerpiece of that illusion. The loss of Lebanon, at the hands of unarmed civilians no less, would be a deadly blow to the Assad mystique, perhaps enough to revoke his mandate from heaven.

And why is Syria so important? Because Assad has succeeded Saddam as the principal bad actor in the region. Syria, an island of dictatorship in a sea of liberalization, is desperately trying to destabilize its neighbors. The Hariri bombing in Lebanon is universally believed to be the work of Syria. The orders for the Feb. 25 Tel Aviv bombing, deliberately designed to blow up the new Palestinian-Israeli rapprochement, came from Damascus. And we know that Syria is sheltering leading Baathist insurgents who are killing Iraqis and Americans by the score in Iraq.

There was a brief Damascus Spring five years ago when Syrians began demanding more freedom. Assad repressed it. Now 140 Syrian intellectuals have petitioned their own government to withdraw from Lebanon. They signed their names. The fear is lifting there too. Were the contagion to spread to Damascus, the entire region from the Mediterranean Sea to the Iranian border would be on a path to democratization.

This of course could all be reversed. Liberal revolutions were suppressed in Europe 1848, Hungary 1956, Czechoslovakia 1968 and Tiananmen 1989. Nothing is written. Determined and ruthless regimes can extinguish revolutions. Which is why the worst thing we can possibly do is ``engage and empower'' the tyrants.

This is no time to listen to the voices of tremulousness, indecision, compromise and fear. If we had listened to them two years ago, we would still be doing oil-for-food, no-fly zones and worthless embargoes. It is our principles that brought us to this moment by way of Afghanistan and Iraq. They need to guide us now -- through Beirut to Damascus.

—Charles Krauthammer

http://www.latimes.com/includes/ramirez/today_ramirez_20050306.gif

Why is it assumed that the Middle East wants a western-style democratic society?

Dictators, bad. Genocide, bad. America's reason for invading, bad.

The ends do not justify the means, no matter how many cartoons there are floating across the net.

Once again, if there was no money to be made, there would be no war.

-HECK!

Same as it ever was.

Left, little ol' me? Hardly.

But based on your equation, disagrees with CJ= lefty liberal, I can see why you would think that.

The method of madness begins to unravel...

-HECK!

-HECK!

Wow, if thats the standard of determining who is liberal and who isn't, then there sure are alot more liberals out there than I thought

What difference does that make? Who cares which side wins the presidency for a season, when it swings back and forth all the time, and in general, both sides have very similar agendae; only different methodology?

CJ, you almost make it sound like liberals will never win another election. That's ridiculous, and goes against democracy. If only one party always has power, then the inherent systemic balances that democracy is supposed to enable will be lost, and there goes the neighbourhood...

The most recent democratic candidate for the Presidency, John Kerry would have NEVER involved the U.S. in an Iraq invasion under his watch. John Kerry would have never even fought to remove Saddam out of Kuwait during the Gulf War—he voted against it. That's a mighty big difference in my book. Perhaps the biggest. But presently, I don't really feel like getting into the subject of how different Democrat and Republican agendas are—so don't get me started. They are! See many of my other posts. Books have been written on the subject. The new Chairman of the Democratic National Committee, Howard Dean, is and was the most passionate and vocal anti-war Democrat and arguably the most liberal of all the active Dem officials. He has been chosen as the representative of the party. That should tell you something.

It's enough for me that Dem ideals are so different from mine that I would not dream of voting for a Dem ever again. But that's just me.



I support the USMC, Lt. Pantano

I love asking people "How'd that Kerry - Edwards bumper sticker work out for you?" I ask the question to people on the road at least 5 times a week.

sordidmesh:



completely off topic

but I checked out the links in your signature.
A SOLDIER WAS CHARGED WITH MURDER?
FOR FIRING UPON SOMONE...... DURING A WAR????!!!!

now do you understand why I am disgusting with our government?

Evidently there are rules of engagement during the war for more oil.

-HECK!

A lot of things that weren't given a moment's notice during WWII probably should have. That being said, if the story you're telling is accurate, then Lt. Pantano shouldn't be charged with anything. Still, this war has a lot of people looking in, and there's bound to be people crying foul from the rooftops, not just about the intentions behind the war, but right down to each bullet fired, and each decision made. That's the nature of this war. It sucks in a way, but in another way, it could be looked at from the angle that such deep probing is well-deserved, after such a huge "mistake" (yeah, right... Good spin...) was made on the part of U.S. intelligence regarding WMD's...

Pantano's story is amazing. I really don't get it. How can indecent bureaucrats prosecute a soldier caught in the obscenities of this war ? If the account of what happened is accurate, I don't see where the problem lays, excepted that the two fugitives should have been shot at in the legs instead of being shot down. That maybe is the concern.
As for the rest ... politicians who sent these soldiers on the ground are to be held responsible for the consequences of their wrong doings, and the Bush admin ranks first in the list of those on whom to lay blame.

Vice Admiral Albert Church has released his investigation of prisoner abuse by the American military. The headline in "The Washington Post" is "Abuse Review Exonerates Policy: Low-level Leaders and Confusion Blamed."

But the headline in "The New York Times" states: "Details of Afghan and Iraq Abuse Are Cited in Pentagon Report." It is not until the middle of the article that the "Times" gets around to the primary conclusion, "But the inquiry found that Pentagon officials and senior commanders were not directly responsible for the detainee abuses, and that there was no policy that approved mistreatment of detainees at prisons in Afghanistan, Iraq and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba."

That is the headline of the report. And that was buried by "The New York Times." The paper did this because for more than a year it has implied the Bush administration and the military instituted and approved a policy of abuse.

News headline, May 16, 2004: "Rumsfeld and Aide, Backed Harsh Tactics, Article Says". Editorial headline, August 26, 2004: "Holding the Pentagon Accountable for Abu Ghraib." News headline, January 17, 2005: "High-ranking Officers May Face Prosecution in Iraqi Prisoner Abuse, Military Officials Say."

Well, today, "The New York Times" "buried the lead" because the conclusion of the Church report is the exact opposite of what the paper has been reporting. It's as simple as that.

Now "Talking Points" has said right from the jump that all American abuse of prisoners must be investigated and punished if proven. But we believe in the presumption of innocence. Prove it. Don't imply something is true without hard evidence.

"The New York Times" and other left leaning media don't like the war in Iraq, despise President Bush. Thus the reporting these operations do is designed to prop up their editorial viewpoint. That is spin! S-p-i-n. Everybody got it?

One more thing: There's a chance that Admiral Church didn't get the situation correct. There's a chance someone high up in the military at the Defense Department did condone or cover up abuse. That possibility exists. But responsible news organizations do not hype stories and headline innuendo on a possibility.

The crux of the Church report is that no one in the administration or at the Pentagon ordered anyone to be abused. "The New York Times," once again, buried the headline and went with more descriptions of alleged abuse.

From Bill O'Reilly