Iraq - the other side of things

There are more and more problems each day. The same for the victims. Most of them belong to the US troops. The internal insurgency armies, lead by clerics and massively supported by the "diaspora", managed to set up a domestic front. A new hell arises the last weeks: hostages. A combination of political weapon, business and bloody "sport". The creation of political institutions, able to assume the responsibility of governance, seems overwhelmed by the street events. No one avoids now the word "failure". Politicians, journalists, analysts and simple observers spelled it so often that it became a common place. The satisfaction of some - not at all hidden - intersects the worry of others, or the disappointment. How was it possible to come all this way?

Looking from the standpoint of those who opposed military operation in Iraq from the very beginning, you might say that the result was obvious. They saw, others didn't! Why bother a dictatorship working so well? Moreover, which brings benefits to those daring to do business with it - be it on the black market! How to start a military action aiming to destroy a regime - the only one able to keep the order and to ensure the stability of the day to day life! What if this normality is actually oppression! What if it threats peace and security in one of the most sensitive areas of the planet! Everybody would have been quieter if discussions in the Security Council would have go on for years and years, no matter how many. Meanwhile, Hans Blix would have inspected thoroughly whatever Saddam would have allow him to inspect, reporting to the world that there are no WMDs in Iraq! Moreover, terrorists would have been quieter and more focused. Maybe they would have attempted to destroy one or two US buildings, maybe an American embassy somewhere, they would have blown one or two military ships, have hijacked one or two planes - belonging to the American airlines, obviously! What the fuss is all about, we would have all been quieter! But now, look, costs are day by day higher!

Another distinctive voice, which can be heard quite often in the American politics, doubts the capacity of the Bush administration to prepare the events. The word Vietnam was spelled out for the first time - related to the Iraq situation - on American ground, not elsewhere. The remake, a Hollywood specialty, seems to inspire the real politics, not only scriptwriters. The fact is that the team that prepared the military intervention couldn't also cover the post-war political planning. The firm belief in the values of democracy (Americans live with it naturally) convinced many people that after dictatorship there can be only democracy and nothing else. Like the gold under scores, all the liberty needed in order to shine is to remove the exploiting regime. The American ideas about how democracy is born and how it develops, based on the experience of their own society, seems inadequate in other social and cultural environments. The Iraq clearly shows, like the Eastern Europe, like Russia, that dictatorship can be followed by another dictatorship, by a pseudo-democracy or by an exhibition-democracy. In Iraq, the only ones still believing in democracy are the Americans. All other actors of the political scene are only competing to prepare the future dictatorship: either one of the Shia fundamentalists, or of the Sunni fundamentalists, or even the dictatorship of a coalition amongst fundamentalists! The bet is enormous: any success of democracy in Iraq would automatically invalidate the totalitarian regimes within the area, both the ones that hate America (such as the Iranian regime) and the allied ones, such the one in Saudi Arabia. Fundamentalists all over the world, unite! This is the new logo of fighters for the cause of authoritarian regimes, not only in the Arab world, but also far beyond it. The Iraqi reality clearly shows that the "enemies of democracy" are in greater number than the ones who love it. That the ones ready for the final sacrifice in the name of democracy are fewer than the ones ready to sacrifice themselves for a future dictatorship! What is worst is that the European policy attempts to justify and even to legitimate this option, fundamentally opposed to its constitutive political values. The "Zapatero effect" still produces consequences, and some of them are detrimental for the true European spirit.