The Solution to the Iraq War

September 2006                by Maurice Lavian

It’s been almost 3 and a half years since the U.S. invaded Iraq. The war was supposedly launched to disarm Saddam, and “liberate” the country. The operation was dubbed “Operation Iraqi Freedom”. Secular dictator Saddam Hussein was overthrown within 2 months. Since then we have seen nothing but chaos, bloodshed, and sectarian violence. The U.N. estimates AT LEAST 14,000 Iraqi civilians have been killed (mostly by other Iraqis or by foreign fighters) and more importantly, as of this writing, over 2100 American troops have been killed. Since our invasion in March 2003 Iraq has become infested with foreign fighters, both from Iran and from Al Qaida. The country sees dozens of explosions and bombings each day sometimes killing an average of 100 people a day. The death toll of American troops keeps on rising, but Bush seems determined to “stay the course” in Iraq. Bush claims that bringing democracy to Iraq will inspire change throughout the region and will make America safer. However, both Bush and the rest of the country (and probably even the rest of the world) know that Iraq is a lost cause, but it is politically impossible for the U.S. government to withdraw its troops until the country is “stable”. It does not seem likely that Iraq will be stabilized anytime soon. I am not a Bush-basher, but I have to say that he is a complete idiot for wanting to bring democracy to the Middle East. For decades, the West has worked to install secular dictatorships in various Muslim countries for two simple reasons: a) to keep oil flowing and b) to keep the violent, extremist Muslims under control and in obedience to protect the rest of the world. Saddam Hussein was one of these secular dictators, and he was one of the most important to the U.S. since he was a good counter-weight to our arch-enemy, Iran. Even as an enemy, under our “dual containment” policy, Saddam still helped the US keep Iran in check. Now our wonderful President has removed this essential counterweight to Iran, and because of this Iran has gained strength and influence in the region. Prior to removing Saddam, Iran would not dare defy the U.S., EU, and U.N. over its nuclear ambitions, or allow its proxy, Hezbollah, to start a war in the region. By removing Saddam we have strengthened one of our biggest enemies. Bush was right about democracy spreading from Iraq to the rest of the Middle East. Since the Iraqi elections, 4 other major elections have taken place in the Muslim world. Two of them, Egypt and Lebanon, were believed to be inspired by the Iraq war. In both occasions, the people of those countries elected a terrorist group into power (Hezbollah in Lebanon, and Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt). The Iraqi elections resulted in a fundamentalist victory as well. A Shiite, anti-American, pro-Iranian government was elected into power. By removing secular Saddam and installing a “democracy” in Iraq, Bush has harmed America’s interest, since it has been proven on at least 5 different occasions that if the Muslim world has the choice to vote, they will ALWAYS choose an extremist, fundamentalist, terrorist, and anti-American government. America and the rest of the world would have been much safer if Bush had let the secular dictators be. However, weather people want to admit it or not, there is one surefire, but politically incorrect, way to end the fighting in Iraq and bring our troops home. We need to re-install a secular dictatorship in Iraq. Under Saddam Hussein’s rule there was never this kind of sectarian violence as there is today. There were no Islamist foreign fighters operating in Iraq. In fact, Saddam Hussein’s government was a secular government, which was very hostile to Islamist groups and regimes such as al Qaida or Iran. Had we befriended Saddam, he would have been more than happy to give us all the oil we wanted. So what if he was killing his own people? At least he was keeping the extremists, who want USA destroyed, under control. If Saddam was our friend he would never have been a threat to America. I know it sounds horrible that a country like ours, which founded modern day democracy, would encourage dictatorships, but we must remember, in order to preserve democracy and security around the world, we must keep countries with large extremist populations (like most Muslim countries) under total dictatorships. We must find the most brutal dictator, who has no hesitation killing his own people if they disagree with him, and we need to put him in power in Iraq, give him all the backing he needs, and then all this daily killing of our soldiers and eventually the killing of Iraqis, will stop. Iraqi oil will be flowing again, and Iraq will be free of all terrorist organizations. The only conditions this dictator will have to abide by are:  a) he must not have any loyalties to Sunnirs or Shiites  b)he must keep oil flowing to the west at full capacity and c) he must oppose all Islamist groups and help us with the war on terror. This is the foolproof solution to the Iraq war!

Also see: Keep Democracy Out of the Arab World! Syria's President Confirms: Arab World Can't Handle Democracy Iranian Elections Democracy in Egypt Hamas Now Represents the Palestinian People Full List of Palestinian Political Parties Hezbollah Wins Lebanon Elections Kurdistan - The Other Iraq

Send Comments Return to Home Page

Reader Comments:

Name: Henry Clifford Location: Wainscott, N.Y. Comment: When we invaded Iraq I made a prediction, as my friends can attest, that Iraq would degenerate into civil war. I further predicted, somewhat fanciful I admit, that we would find it necessary to bring Saddam Hussein back to control what only a ruthless tyrant like him could do to harness a disparate polity such as that country clearly is. As much as we might like to wish it Iraq is not ready for for democracy. Only the delusional ideology of the Bush administration could have constructed a scenario that promised otherwise. SaddamI, I admit, is not the answer, but some other strong man, not necessarily a proponent of democratic principles, is probably the only solution