Fascinating article appearing in the usually anti-American Arab News. It’s from a columnist, Fawaz Turki, who was opposed to the war and still argues that “I have no illusions about the shenanigans and hypocrisies of a big power like the US, including its neocon ideologues, who are more cons than neos,” has nevertheless begun to change his mind:
Is it too early to adopt a revisionist view of the US war in Iraq and for this column to admit its mistake in having vehemently opposed it from the outset?
At issue here is whether the Iraqi people have benefited from the overthrow of the Baathist regime and whether the American occupation will eventually benefit their country even more. I’m convinced – and berate me here from your patriotic bleachers, if you must – that what we have seen in the land between the Tigris and the Euphrates in recent months may turn out to be the most serendipitous event in its modern history… Washington may not succeed in turning Iraq into a “beacon of democracy” but it will succeed, after all is said and done, in turning it into a society of laws and institutions where citizens, along with high-school kids, are protected against arbitrary arrest, incarceration, torture and execution.
Wouldn’t it be ironic if this war – now so reviled by many Americans – was only finally appreciated in the region it helped liberate? I’ll take that over the partisan snipes in Washington any time.
The Dish 