Iraq War

The idea that the United States is fighting for “freedom” in Iraq, and in the greater Middle East, is the last reed the Bush administration seems to be clinging to as the turbulent waters of sectarian civil war rise higher.  Unfortunately, it is a weakly rooted reed, and clinging to it has about as much promise as adhering to a strategy of clear-hold-and-build, or clinging to the fragile, suspect Iraqi regime.            

The desire to advance human liberty is certainly laudable, but the problem is that the administration has emphasized freedom as a policy goal at the expense of clearly articulating another social value, justice, which is much more deeply rooted in Arab culture.  The result has been to cloud our understanding of the conflict, to limit our options for dealing with it, and to distort badly our entire foreign policy in the Middle East.            

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With the election this month of the first-ever democratically elected Iraqi government, under the new constitution ratified in October, Iraqi society has turned a corner, and the world looks on with mingled hope and trepidation. The optimists cheer; the sober demur. For it is not clear yet what, exactly, lies around this corner.  

Historical parallels are never perfect, no more than metaphors are literally true, and we should also keep a clear view of the distinctions between different historical moments, actors, and forces. But historical parallels can vividly illuminate the present, and serve as vital indicators of where the present could be heading, just as metaphors can make known to us the qualities or properties of a literal thing.  

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