20060212
    The supporters of the Iraqi liberation and the ongoing operations there should take satisfaction today in the fact that the democratically elected majority party in the legislature selected Iraq’s first democratic head of state by electing former interim Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari as Iraq’s first Prime Minister.
    This satisfaction is based on the fact that despite the detractors and lack of support at home and in spite of the violence of the insurgency in Iraq, in just three years Iraq has gone from a despotic, totalitarian regime, persecuting its own citizens and threatening its neighbors, to a fledgling democracy with a democratically elected head of state that represents the will of the Iraqi people, not the will of a few oligarchal despots.
    This satisfaction runs deep because it makes the opponents of the Iraq liberation look as ridiculous as they have always looked. For those who bothered to pay attention to the reality of the Middle East, the situation in Iraq, while still needing much improvement, will ultimately result in far more benefit than any other Middle Eastern country can offer its citizens except for Israel, which ironically is also a democracy. As one recent article noted, Iraq is the only Middle Eastern country where widespread protests of the Danish political cartoons have not erupted.
    This satisfaction should also give the supporters of the Iraq liberation both the will and the courage to extend such a success. Currently, the insurgency in Iraq exists in large part because it is funded and supported by Syria and Iran. In order for this new Iraqi democracy to realize the promise it holds for the Middle East, these nations must be dealt with as the threats to world security and stability that they are.
    Ultimately, the satisfaction of a job in Iraq accomplishing what it was meant to should be the impetus for extending that success to the entire region. If Iraq can achieve a democracy in just three years- consider it took the US nearly 20 to accomplish the same thing, and it took 10 in Germany and Japan after World War Two- then how much more quickly can the rest of the region be brought into the same success?
    Like dominos, the rest of the Middle East just needs a push to get started in the right direction. For those who supported the liberation of Iraq, satisfaction in success should not be an excuse for further inaction. Indeed, instead, those same supporters should use such success as a justification for further action.
DLH
