Friday, April 25, 2003
Victor Davis Hanson on War on National Review Online
Victor Davis Hanson is feeling bullish on the future as his says that time is on our side in Iraq.
[...]Iran may think it smart to use its fundamentalist agents to undermine the American achievement in Iraq. But look at the newly constituted map, where it suddenly finds itself surrounded by reformist movements. The omnipresence of the United States, twenty years of failure inside Iran, and the attractions of American popular culture will insidiously undermine the medieval reign of the mullahs faster than it can do harm to the foundations of democracy in Baghdad.
What will the theocracy do when Internet cafes, uncensored television and radio, and free papers spring up across the border in Iraq? How, after all, do you fight such a strangely off-the-wall culture as our own, which turns the villainous Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf into "Baghdad Bob," with his own website and a cult following, replete with T-shirts and coffee mugs — or prints out thousands of decks of playing cards decorated with the names and pictures of Iraqi fascists?
In the surreal world of the Middle East, Saudi Arabia talks of the need to banish Americans liberators from Iraq to ensure "democratic government" there. But it can do all of us a favor by first expelling Americans from Saudi holy soil, and then bringing some public transparency to the labyrinth of billions of dollars (800 and counting?) that has been sequestered in foreign banks by the royal family.
True, most of the Arab street may curse infidels in Baghdad, but a sizable minority will acknowledge the freedom there and ask, "If there, why not here?" Or: "Don't our own kleptocrats have lavish, glittery palaces of extortion just like Saddam did?" Nothing has been more pathetic in the last few days than listening to in-house Arab "intellectuals" damning the United States, ridiculing the "liberation" of Iraq, and railing at the old bogeyman of "colonialism" — even as they watch demonstrations and a freedom in Baghdad impossible in their own police states. What a burden they must carry: supporting the old Arab nationalist status quo ensures the continual absence of their own independence. Nothing is more fatal for an intellectual than complicity in his own censorship.[...]
What will the theocracy do when Internet cafes, uncensored television and radio, and free papers spring up across the border in Iraq? How, after all, do you fight such a strangely off-the-wall culture as our own, which turns the villainous Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf into "Baghdad Bob," with his own website and a cult following, replete with T-shirts and coffee mugs — or prints out thousands of decks of playing cards decorated with the names and pictures of Iraqi fascists?
In the surreal world of the Middle East, Saudi Arabia talks of the need to banish Americans liberators from Iraq to ensure "democratic government" there. But it can do all of us a favor by first expelling Americans from Saudi holy soil, and then bringing some public transparency to the labyrinth of billions of dollars (800 and counting?) that has been sequestered in foreign banks by the royal family.
True, most of the Arab street may curse infidels in Baghdad, but a sizable minority will acknowledge the freedom there and ask, "If there, why not here?" Or: "Don't our own kleptocrats have lavish, glittery palaces of extortion just like Saddam did?" Nothing has been more pathetic in the last few days than listening to in-house Arab "intellectuals" damning the United States, ridiculing the "liberation" of Iraq, and railing at the old bogeyman of "colonialism" — even as they watch demonstrations and a freedom in Baghdad impossible in their own police states. What a burden they must carry: supporting the old Arab nationalist status quo ensures the continual absence of their own independence. Nothing is more fatal for an intellectual than complicity in his own censorship.[...]
