Sunday, August 01, 2004
Remember the hostages, and think about the killers' motives
There was a time when Americans cared a lot about hostages. No more -- we can barely keep up with the barbaric kidnappings in Iraq. Barely, but we can. The Tall Glass of Milk has been carefully tracking the Iraqi hostages and their fates.
I have three observations about these execrable people and their tactics.
First, if they are Baathists willing to behead innocent people in some benighted effort to return to power, then isn't it good that we delivered the people of Iraq from their tyranny?
Second, if they are Islamist jihadists who have moved to Iraq from elsewhere in order to fight America, is it not better that they are in Iraq where we might hunt them with our soldiers and where the local population seems broadly willing to help us in that hunt?
Third, these killers are not, by and large, targeting Americans (roadside bombs, the occasional morter attack, and the murders of the Fallujah four and Nick Berg notwithstanding). In their kidnapping and their less discriminate explosive attacks their primary targets have been people working to build a legitimate pluralistic government in Iraq or rebuild the economy -- politicians, bureaucrats, professionals, and employees of foreign companies. Their attacks go right to the heart of the Bush Administration's ambition to develop, in Iraq, the most legitimate government and robust civil society in the Arab world.
So I have a couple of questions: If, as many leftist and realist critics charge, it is impossible for a pluralistic democracy to emerge in the Arab world, why are these jihadists literally killing themselves to prevent it? If the ambitions of the government of Iraq and the coalition are so doomed, why don't the terrorists just skip the kamikaze routine and let democracy fail in Iraq on its own? Perhaps they are worried that it might take root.
Even more tellingly, why is it that the jihadists care whether Iraq develops a free society with a legitimate and reasonably representative government? Perhaps because they agree with George Bush -- a successful representative government in Iraq would redefine the possible for the Arab Muslim world. Arab Muslims might learn that they do not have to choose between kings or corrupt generals on the one hand or totalitarian mullahs on the other. In such a Middle East, the jihadists might lose for lack of an enemy.
I have three observations about these execrable people and their tactics.
First, if they are Baathists willing to behead innocent people in some benighted effort to return to power, then isn't it good that we delivered the people of Iraq from their tyranny?
Second, if they are Islamist jihadists who have moved to Iraq from elsewhere in order to fight America, is it not better that they are in Iraq where we might hunt them with our soldiers and where the local population seems broadly willing to help us in that hunt?
Third, these killers are not, by and large, targeting Americans (roadside bombs, the occasional morter attack, and the murders of the Fallujah four and Nick Berg notwithstanding). In their kidnapping and their less discriminate explosive attacks their primary targets have been people working to build a legitimate pluralistic government in Iraq or rebuild the economy -- politicians, bureaucrats, professionals, and employees of foreign companies. Their attacks go right to the heart of the Bush Administration's ambition to develop, in Iraq, the most legitimate government and robust civil society in the Arab world.
So I have a couple of questions: If, as many leftist and realist critics charge, it is impossible for a pluralistic democracy to emerge in the Arab world, why are these jihadists literally killing themselves to prevent it? If the ambitions of the government of Iraq and the coalition are so doomed, why don't the terrorists just skip the kamikaze routine and let democracy fail in Iraq on its own? Perhaps they are worried that it might take root.
Even more tellingly, why is it that the jihadists care whether Iraq develops a free society with a legitimate and reasonably representative government? Perhaps because they agree with George Bush -- a successful representative government in Iraq would redefine the possible for the Arab Muslim world. Arab Muslims might learn that they do not have to choose between kings or corrupt generals on the one hand or totalitarian mullahs on the other. In such a Middle East, the jihadists might lose for lack of an enemy.
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