Give and Take

I will place myself among those to acknowledge that the Bush administration has reached a major milestone with the recent elections in Iraq. This is a major blow against those who would have Iraq remain a fundamentalist regime, and it deserves to be treated as such.

There's been a noted absence of commentary on the left regarding this event. I think a lot of people are genuinely shocked that it went as well as it did. I know that I am. But at the same time, I am grateful that there is a light at the end of the tunnel, and I am pleased with Canada's contribution to the process.

Things are rarely black and white. I do not believe that President Bush is an evil man. I do, however, believe that many of his policies are misguided, and that he has executed them poorly and at great expense to the American people. I hope that he has learned from his mistakes, and that progress in Iraq does not embolden him to strike at Iran. And I hope that Iraq is now on the path towards long-term democracy and stability. But were I an American, I would be pushing for his impeachment. When you look at the intelligence that was presented before the war, the man is either a liar or an incompetent. Neither option bodes well.

My criticisms remain the same. The war was launched for the wrong reason. There were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, despite what we were told. Although the US has succeeded in installing a popularlly elected government, there were many humanitarian crises around the world that were even more dire than what the Iraqi people faced at the hands of Saddam Hussein. Not enough effort was made to internationalize the conflict, and the war itself has been managed with ham-fisted inefficiency and needless loss of life. War was the first choice, rather than the last resort. And it was far too expensive for the gain that's been realized. The end does not justify the means.

But these complaints do not change the fact that we are seeing positive developments in the region. Just because the war was immoral does not mean that the current deployment of American soldiers in Iraq is unjustified. As much as we may wish that they hadn't gone there in the first place, I doubt any of us would like to see what kind of a security vacuum would form if these forces were to withdraw immediately.

The election itself was impressive, though not without flaws. Voter turnout was substantial, and the security situation was as good as could be expected, given the insurgency. Sunni Muslims did not get the same opportunity to vote as their Shia counterparts, due to a shortage of voting slips and the continued instability. These are major issues that must be addressed for the next election.

The bottom line is that the Iraqi people now have some manner of democratic channel through which they can express their opposition to the actions of the foreign army that now resides upon their soil. This will drastically reduce the legitimacy that resistance fighters previously enjoyed. No longer are they fighting against an occupying force - they are now fighting against a force that is present at the request of their elected government. Iraqi security forces are fighting for their fellow citizens, not for the Americans. The difference may be subtle, but its importance cannot be understated.