It’s a good question:
What is a ‘typical’ citizen to do here? As a typical citizen, I know next to nothing about Iraq, the Middle East, how to conduct a war, the construction of a constitution, and other details pertaining to this matter.
I do know about how difficult it is to change, for me to change, and for others to change. It is extremely difficult to impose lasting change from the outside (although it can happen). Enduring change is best driven, in part, by intrinsic motivation. Since the changes in Iraq have been instigated by outside force and outside pressures are in place in an effort to maintain these changes we can only estimate the amount of intrinsic motivation for democracy that lies within the Iraqi populace. Ultimately, we will learn about the will of the Iraqi’s when the extrinsic pressures are reduced and we see the development of their ideology and nation without occupying U.S. forces imposed upon the region.
The experts, our leadership, and pundits are all over the map on Iraq. The information peddled by our government, newspapers, and other media have been false on critical issues from the very beginning. Histrionics, ego, subjectivity, and self-interest appear to prevail in most of what I read about Iraq. However, what I appreciate about your blog is your efforts to think independently on many of these issues.
Pundits, policy makers, politicians, etc. all claim that the nascent democratization of the Middle East is primarily a function of our intervention in Iraq. These individuals claim this with the utmost confidence and express no doubts. Again, as an ‘average’ citizen, I ask myself, how can folks make this claim with such definitiveness? Who knows where the Middle East would be if we had elected to take another tack other than invading Iraq? Depending on the alternative route taken (and there were probably many alternatives to invading Iraq) and the effectiveness of its execution, we could be in the same, better, or worse position than we are in now in or efforts to deal with terrorism and it’s tributaries. Without any kind of ‘control’ group, how can these so called experts assert that Bush’s Iraq policy was the primary driver of democratization in the Middle East.
The bottom line is this – how does the average citizen go about evaluating the decision made by our government to invade Iraq and how do we go about assessing the status of this war? It seems like an impossible task.
I think the answer is that it is very, very difficult, but not impossible to ask the right questions, sift the information we have and try and come up with a provisional judgment of where things are and where they’re headed. The key word there is ‘provisional.’ The important thing to keep in mind is that all human action is conducted in a fog of unknowing, of unforeseen circumstances, of chance and contingency. Even years from now, there will be a debate on the decisions we are now examining. What I have found valuable about the blog as a genre is that it puts this process on display in a way that even columns do not; a blog can expose uncertainty and ask questions and probe for answers or logic. The objective is an open mind; an ability to change it; and a sure sense of one’s own values. My values include a love of freedom, a desire to make the world a slightly better place and a suspicion of authority. Those are the rough bases on which I have tried to make sense of the successes and failures of the past three years in a part of the world so alien to so many of us.
The Dish 