a gracefully sustained and peaceful democracy. […]
In all likelihood, the best way to prepare for a post-Saddam Iraq would have been to bust Saddam a lot sooner–giving Saddam himself a lot less time to prepare for a post-Saddam Iraq. Instead, U.S. effort and energy was absorbed by the immense effort to win allies in the U.N. Security Council–chiefly France, Russia and China–who were neck-deep in oil deals with Saddam, much of that via the U.N.’s own Oil for Food program.
The need was to introduce into the Middle East the revolutionary idea (in theory and practice) that a tyrant could fall and be replaced by something better. Setting this in motion was a risk; not to do it would have been a greater risk. And although it is beyond the power of any of us to predict with perfect accuracy all outcomes, there has been a force set in motion in Iraq that may yet, given time, bring the Middle East into better alignment […] with the Free World.
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