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April
9, 2003, 9:30 a.m.
As
the Cheering Starts
Iraqis get their
first taste of freedom.
EDITOR’S
NOTE: This morning, we asked a few familiar faces for their
thoughts as they watched the celebrations in Baghdad and elsewhere
in Iraq, as the Saddam Hussein regime seems to be officially coming
to an end. We may add to this as the day rolls on, so check back
in.
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Arnold
Beichman
"Iraqis cheer as Saddam's regime crumbles," said a news announcement
on my computer screen. As I watched the jubilant Baghdad crowds milling
about while the looters looted, I thought of the many episodes in human
affairs which began joyfully and often ended tragically. As an 18th-century
British statesman, Sir Robert Walpole, put it after a 1739 British war declaration
against Spain: "They now ring the bells, but they will soon wring their
hands."
The postwar struggle now begins with two questions in the forefront. First,
how is a democratic system to develop in a culture in which the idea of
participatory government doesn't exist, where a Friday mosque sermon is
certain to be more influential than a new government's decree and in a region
of the world where the very idea of democracy is regarded as a threat to
existing tyrannies, theocracies and oligarchies?
Second, what is the
future if anyof the existing international system in an era of now documentable
unipolarity? Can a United Nations Security Council (the U.N. General Assembly
has degenerated into a "get Israel" cabal) ever regain whatever
influence it may once have had as a force for peace?
One final word: Tony
Blair has just proven, as Churchill before him, there will always be an
England. I'm not so sure about France.
— Arnold Beichman is a research fellow at the Hoover
Institution.
William
J. Bennett
Freedom enabled and tyranny disabled is a wonderful thing to behold —
and cherish. One sees the scenes in the south, middle, and north of Iraq
and is taken back to the Berlin Wall just over a decade ago; one sees
these scenes and wishes them for other oppressed peoples from Iran to
China. "We hold these truths to be self evident that all men are
created equal," has been reified again, for a new generation —
thanks to local resolve, patience, and American and British power. We
have, yet again, deployed our power to liberate Muslims, even though it
has often been Muslims who have attacked us. But that is who we are; and
the dividend of Muslim democracy, however long it takes to entrench, will
be worth the effort. The soul yearns for freedom, the arm brings it: we
can take a good measure of repose in knowing we provided the strength
behind both.
— William
J. Bennett is the author of Why
We Fight: Moral Clarity and the War on Terrorism, among other books.
John
Derbyshire
Now comes the hard part. They are cheering because Saddam's gone, not
because we are there. Like everyone else in the world, they want to be
ruled by their own people, not by foreigners. Everything now depends on
the emergence of a patriotic elite that can take matters in hand and get
some decent civil administration going. They are starting from scratch,
the problems are immense, and there isn't a lot we can do to help them.
I hope that elite exists and will soon appear. Until it does, we should
be careful and restrained. When we need to act, we must act quickly and
unambiguously. Every country needs some civil authority, and for the time
being, Coalition soldiers are all Iraq has got. While those tough-looking
young men and boys fill the streets cheering and looting, there are middle-aged
and old people, women and little kids, cowering in their homes wondering
what's coming next. Some kind of order must come next.
—
John Derbyshire is a contributing editor to both National Review
and National Review Online. His latest book is the upcoming Prime
Obsession.
Martin
Kramer
The long-awaited scenes of celebration from Iraq tell us this: Iraq's
own people have lost their fear of Saddam. They know that even if he still
lives, he will not return. A chapter is closed.
But in Baghdad, a
joyous crowd celebrates every regime change. In 1958, a military coup
destroyed the royal family. The crowd seized the body of the regent and
dismembered it. The trunk was secured to the balcony of the Defense Ministry.
"A young man with a knife in his hand climbed a lamp-post nearby,"
wrote an Iraqi witness, "and began cutting off the flesh, working
from the buttocks upwards."
No doubt, there are
many in today's crowds who would do the same to the body of Saddam —
including people who, only last week, pledged themselves willing to sacrifice
their spirit and blood for him.
The Iraqis, in the
end, did not rise up. They waited to see the whites of American eyes before
they headed into the streets. They did not earn their freedom; they had
it delivered to them, U.S. federal express. It is doubtful they are ready
to assume its responsibilities.
This is the time
to put illusions aside, and take a hard look at the people whose fates
we now control. Just as they could not remove the dictator without American
lifting, they cannot make a civil order without American prodding. There's
nothing exceptional about an excitable crowd in Baghdad. "Liberation
Day" will come only when the Iraqis go to the polls, and convene
a parliament.
—
Martin Kramer
is editor of the Middle
East Quarterly.
Paul
Marshall
My first reaction
to seeing American soldiers leave their Bradleys and strolling around
Baghdad's parks and palaces was simple joy.
Then caution kicked
in -Baghdad's a big place: there'll be dirty close in fighting away from
these broad plazas, there's still Tikrit and the north-a whole careful
Central Command briefing inside my head.
But, if we can't
rejoice now, we never can.
At last, at last,
Iraqis celebrating, not just here or there, or tentatively, but massed
in the heart of the capital, giving flowers to Marines and dancing on
the remains of Saddam's statues. The Washington Post quoting a Baghdad
Imam, "Only now will I start living."
And all in only three
weeks, and so few dead, and no Scuds or WMD or terrorist attacks, and
the major oilfields protected.
And then I thought
of General Franks, and his chorus of critics in the 101st Armchair Brigade,
and that all he has to do now is smile. And then I thought of the French,
and smiled as well.
—
Paul Marshall is senior fellow at Freedom
House's Center for Religious Freedom. His latest books, Islam
at the Crossroads and God
and the Constitution: Christianity and American Politics have just
been released.
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