Good news! Despite the degenerate best efforts of Natalie Maines, Sheryl Crow and Michael Moore, America still managed to win the war in Iraq! So, what happens now? With Saddam Hussein’s repressive dictatorship removed, the pressing question is how, and with what, the current anarchic void will be filled.During a Pentagon briefing last Friday, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld defined what it will not be: “A vocal minority clamoring to transform Iraq in Iran’s image will not be permitted to do so. We will not allow the Iraqi people’s democratic transition to be hijacked. . .”
Rumsfeld’s clamoring “vocal minority” consists primarily of Iraqi Shiite Muslims who make up about 60 percent of the country’s 25 million people. Um, isn’t that a majority?
Ever since 1979, when the Iranian Revolution replaced the Shah with ruling clerics, the US has struggled to contain radical Shiite fundamentalism in the region. In the 1980s, for instance, the US abetted an enforcer named Saddam Hussein in Iraq. Hussein did his job and brutally suppressed Iraq’s Shiite majority for decades. As we know, however, he was recently relieved of his duties.
According to the administration’s prospectus for the war, post-Saddam Iraq would be fashioned after post-WWII Japan.
History, though, shows that bringing democracy to a country by simply “installing” modern liberal ideas and holding elections seldom works. Japan had a small but powerful modern class that embraced and nurtured democratic reforms. Although Iraq has plenty of well-educated engineers and technicians, you can’t honestly equate modern technical training with a modern liberal education or worldview, nor can we realistically expect any pro-democracy helpmates from them.
Which leaves the question: what exactly is next for Iraq? Perhaps a crack team of State Department linguists crafting an Arabic translation of “hanging chad” while Katherine Harris boards a plane to oversee the Iraqi elections? Hardly. One proposal allegedly making the rounds in the White House is to more efficiently implement George and Rummy’s Excellent Regime Change (r) by simply declaring that Iraq is a wholly owned subsidiary of Bechtel Group.
While a corporate takeover of an entire country is admittedly a bit unusual (“hostile takeover” takes on new meaning when you have cruise missiles), it does allow Bechtel to cut out the reconstruction middleman while enjoying numerous tax advantages. Talk about furthering the Republican precept of “democracy, oligarchy, whatever.”
And the best part is, the administration would acquire rights to the name “Elite Republican Guard(tm)” as part of the deal. John Ashcroft is already salivating at the prospect.
This article appears in Apr 30 – May 6, 2003.
