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01/18/2007

Success in Iraq is Possible

Lee Kuan Yew was prime minister of Singapore from 1959 to
1990 and has always been a friend of the United States. Today
his title is Minister Mentor and he recently gave a speech in
accepting the Woodrow Wilson Award for Public Service.
Following are a few excerpts, from a more extensive piece in the
January/February issue of Foreign Affairs.

---

“I am not among those who say that it was wrong to have gone
into Iraq to remove Saddam and who now advocate that the
United States cut its losses and pull out. This will not solve the
problem. If the United States leaves Iraq prematurely, jihadists
everywhere will be emboldened to take the battle to Washington
and its friends and allies. Having defeated the Russians in
Afghanistan and the United States in Iraq, they will believe that
they can change the world. Even worse, if civil war breaks out in
Iraq, the conflict will destabilize the whole Middle East, as it will
draw in Egypt, Iran, Jordan, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Syria and
Turkey .

“The Bush administration has set out to spread democracy in Iraq
and the Middle East more generally. In the long run, democracy
can prevail, but the process will not be easy.

“A free and fair election, moreover, is not the best first step
toward democracy in a country that has no history or tradition of
self-government. Without adequate preparations, elections
simply allow people to vent their frustrations against the
corruption and inadequacies of the incumbents and vote in the
opposition, regardless of its characteristics. This is what led to
Hamas’ gaining power in the Palestinian territories.

“A better start would be to concentrate on education, the
emancipation of women, and the creation of economic
opportunity. Next should come a focus on implementing the rule
of law, strengthening the independence of the courts, and
building up the civil-society institutions necessary for
democracy. Only then will free elections lead to a more
democratic order.

“To think that Iraq can go from dictatorship to democracy via
two elections in three years is to expect too much. Such a
transformation is an effort for the long haul, well beyond the
two- and four-year U.S. electoral cycles.

“In its struggles today, the United States should remember the
principles and policies that guided its responses to Cold War
threats and accept that no single power, religion, or ideology can
conquer the world or remake it in its own image. The world is
too diverse. Different races, cultures, religions, languages, and
histories require different paths to democracy and the free
market. Societies in a globalized world will influence and affect
one another. And what social system best meets the needs of a
people at a particular stage in their development will be settled
internally.”

---

“Conventional wisdom in the 1970s saw the war in Vietnam as
an unmitigated disaster. But that has been proved wrong. The
war had collateral benefits, buying the time and creating the
conditions that enabled noncommunist East Asia to follow
Japan’s path and develop into the four dragons (Hong Kong,
Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan) and, later, the four tigers
(Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Thailand). Time
brought about the split between Moscow and Beijing and then a
split between Beijing and Hanoi. The influence of the four
dragons and the four tigers, in turn, changed both communist
China and communist Vietnam into open, free-market economies
and made their societies freer.

“The conventional wisdom now is that the war in Iraq is also an
unmitigated disaster. But if the troubles in Iraq are addressed in
a resolute, rather than a defeatist, manner, today’s conventional
wisdom can be proved wrong as well. A stabilized, less
repressive Iraq, with its different ethnic and religious
communities accepting one another in some devolved
framework, can be a liberating influence in the Middle East .

“The next president will face a new world. There will be not just
Iraq but also Iran to contend with, and the long-term fight against
Islamist militants will still only be in its early rounds. But the
United States overcame the setbacks of the war in Vietnam,
checkmated Soviet expansion, and became the indispensable
superpower. With a wide coalition and a proper attitude, the
United States can prevail now as well.”

Hott Spotts will return February 1, or sooner.

Note: I’m having trouble carving out time for some projects I
need to wrap up, so I apologize the schedule for this column
seems a little helter-skelter these days.

Brian Trumbore


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Hot Spots

01/18/2007

Success in Iraq is Possible

Lee Kuan Yew was prime minister of Singapore from 1959 to
1990 and has always been a friend of the United States. Today
his title is Minister Mentor and he recently gave a speech in
accepting the Woodrow Wilson Award for Public Service.
Following are a few excerpts, from a more extensive piece in the
January/February issue of Foreign Affairs.

---

“I am not among those who say that it was wrong to have gone
into Iraq to remove Saddam and who now advocate that the
United States cut its losses and pull out. This will not solve the
problem. If the United States leaves Iraq prematurely, jihadists
everywhere will be emboldened to take the battle to Washington
and its friends and allies. Having defeated the Russians in
Afghanistan and the United States in Iraq, they will believe that
they can change the world. Even worse, if civil war breaks out in
Iraq, the conflict will destabilize the whole Middle East, as it will
draw in Egypt, Iran, Jordan, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Syria and
Turkey .

“The Bush administration has set out to spread democracy in Iraq
and the Middle East more generally. In the long run, democracy
can prevail, but the process will not be easy.

“A free and fair election, moreover, is not the best first step
toward democracy in a country that has no history or tradition of
self-government. Without adequate preparations, elections
simply allow people to vent their frustrations against the
corruption and inadequacies of the incumbents and vote in the
opposition, regardless of its characteristics. This is what led to
Hamas’ gaining power in the Palestinian territories.

“A better start would be to concentrate on education, the
emancipation of women, and the creation of economic
opportunity. Next should come a focus on implementing the rule
of law, strengthening the independence of the courts, and
building up the civil-society institutions necessary for
democracy. Only then will free elections lead to a more
democratic order.

“To think that Iraq can go from dictatorship to democracy via
two elections in three years is to expect too much. Such a
transformation is an effort for the long haul, well beyond the
two- and four-year U.S. electoral cycles.

“In its struggles today, the United States should remember the
principles and policies that guided its responses to Cold War
threats and accept that no single power, religion, or ideology can
conquer the world or remake it in its own image. The world is
too diverse. Different races, cultures, religions, languages, and
histories require different paths to democracy and the free
market. Societies in a globalized world will influence and affect
one another. And what social system best meets the needs of a
people at a particular stage in their development will be settled
internally.”

---

“Conventional wisdom in the 1970s saw the war in Vietnam as
an unmitigated disaster. But that has been proved wrong. The
war had collateral benefits, buying the time and creating the
conditions that enabled noncommunist East Asia to follow
Japan’s path and develop into the four dragons (Hong Kong,
Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan) and, later, the four tigers
(Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Thailand). Time
brought about the split between Moscow and Beijing and then a
split between Beijing and Hanoi. The influence of the four
dragons and the four tigers, in turn, changed both communist
China and communist Vietnam into open, free-market economies
and made their societies freer.

“The conventional wisdom now is that the war in Iraq is also an
unmitigated disaster. But if the troubles in Iraq are addressed in
a resolute, rather than a defeatist, manner, today’s conventional
wisdom can be proved wrong as well. A stabilized, less
repressive Iraq, with its different ethnic and religious
communities accepting one another in some devolved
framework, can be a liberating influence in the Middle East .

“The next president will face a new world. There will be not just
Iraq but also Iran to contend with, and the long-term fight against
Islamist militants will still only be in its early rounds. But the
United States overcame the setbacks of the war in Vietnam,
checkmated Soviet expansion, and became the indispensable
superpower. With a wide coalition and a proper attitude, the
United States can prevail now as well.”

Hott Spotts will return February 1, or sooner.

Note: I’m having trouble carving out time for some projects I
need to wrap up, so I apologize the schedule for this column
seems a little helter-skelter these days.

Brian Trumbore