Was the attempt to create a free and democratic Iraq a mistake?

After the successful invasion, the nation sank into anarchy. Sectarian militias ravaged neighborhoods in an effort to establish fiefdoms. The result was a wholesale ethnic cleansing that ripped the very fabric of Iraqi society and turned the subsequent occupation into a fiasco.

In retrospect, armchair quarterbacks assert that much of the chaos could have been avoided if the United States sacrificed democracy by installing another dictator. This dictator would have squelched the unrest and kept the country from falling apart. A stable new regime could have provided us with a solid ally in the Middle East. And most importantly, the loss of troops and the huge monetary expense would have been kept to a bare minimum.
 

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However, there are many problems with this kind of approach.

Backing dictators in a region as volatile as the Middle East is iffy at best. Could a new Iraqi strong man suffer the same fate as the Shah of Iran? And could powerful religious extremists turn the country into a puppet state of Iran or become a new stronghold for Osama Bin Laden?

The belligerent leadership of Iran is already running guns and explosives to Shiite insurgents as well as providing training to them. Iran is intent in exploiting any weaknesses in Iraq in order to gain more influence in the region. Al Qaida also flooded the country with Sunni extremists in an attempt to establish a new caliphate. Perhaps an American backed dictator could have prevented the bloodshed but there wouldn’t be any guarantees that it would have worked if such a leader was not competent enough to handle crisis after crisis.

Admittedly, there is a perverse appeal to having a secular fascist running Iraq instead of the government disintegrating into a hard line Islamic regime.

However, the promise of democracy is a totally different approach in combating Islamic extremists from all over the world. Islamic fascists are sadistic totalitarians who cruelly impose their will on a population and democracy is anathema to their beliefs. But a functioning democracy in the Middle East with a prospering economy is quite a radical concept. The success of a free democratic Iraq could have enormous ramifications for the region.

Democracy is in short supply all around the world and in the countries that do have it still endures severe limitations with true freedom (like lack of free expression, religious freedom, etc). And in the Middle East, with a few exceptions, democracy it is practically non-existent. Islamic fascists loathe the concept of freedom and promoting democracy may very well be the only way to completely defeat them in this war against terror.

But as the United States has learned the hard way, introducing democracy is perilous at best.

And perhaps the biggest disappointment is in the Commander-in-Chief because the buck stops with him. A lot of supporters of this conflict, myself included, had a “misplaced confidence” that the occupation would have been handled properly. Instead, George W. Bush botched the war and he almost turned it into a colossal failure. True, there was no post war planning and the Pentagon and the State Department never fully cooperated or had a shared doctrine but the President is ultimately responsible for any outcome.

Interestingly, the Pentagon learned quite a few valuable lessons. In the past, the Pentagon and hawkish politicians always claimed that there were only two things that our military is extremely good at: killing people and blowing things up. So in other words, nation building is something that was better left to the bureaucrats of civilian agencies. Sadly, the mismanagement of Iraq by our bureaucrats allowed the country to slip into anarchy.

However, the Pentagon has turned a complete 180 degrees in its philosophy. Instead of loathing nation building, our military is now fully embracing it. There will be no more squabbling bureaucrats from different agencies fighting each other over turf battles because the military will take a much larger role in establishing a functioning government as well as in rebuilding the economy and the infrastructure of an occupied nation. So in other words, instead of relying on bureaucrats, the military is going to do much of the rebuilding on its own.

Overall, democracy was always the right decision for Iraq. It is unfortunate that the application of it was messed up and the United States paid a terrible price for these mistakes. Democracy can be a powerful solution to the problem of global terrorism. However, it has to be implemented correctly. Perhaps with the “lessons learned” in Iraq and a radical shift in military doctrine, freedom can finally come to the Middle East.

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