Anderson Cooper of CNN is reporting from Baghdad today on the Iraqi elections. These elections are a Good Thing. Depending on the outcome, and on the longer-term outcome, they may even prove to be a Very Good Thing.
Cooper noted that the elections were made possible by the American-led invasion of Iraq. This is true.
But Cooper went further. He also said that such elections "would not have been possible" without the American-led invasion. This is not true.
Many countries have made the transition from authoritarian rule to democratic elections without assistance from an invading army. Consider, for example, the transition that took place 16 years ago in Czechoslovakia. American Marines did not invade Prague and tear down a statue of Ladislav Adamec in Wenceslas Square. There was no room for American tanks in Wenceslas Square — it was filled with Czech students, artists, actors and citizens from all walks of life, hundreds of thousands of them. Their Velvet Revolution — like the many other democratic revolutions that occurred that same year — occurred without the assistance of a superpower's invasion and occupation.
Part of the argument that such an invasion was necessary in the case of Saddam Hussein's Iraq rests on the idea that Saddam was "worse" than Eastern European leaders like Adamec. I don't think this proves what proponents of the invasion think it proves, but I will concede the point: Life in Baghdad in 1988 was worse than life in Prague in 1988.
Few people would disagree with that last sentence today, but before 1989 it would have been denounced as heresy. During the Cold War, American policy was shaped by the idea that the Soviet Union and its allies were the Worst of the Worst. That's why, back in 1988, America was arming people like Saddam Hussein. His secular Arab tyranny was regarded as a lesser evil than the USSR.
The same rationale explains another American policy of the 1980s: support for radical mujahedin fighters in Afghanistan. Those fighters were opposing the Soviet Army, so they received American assistance. That assistance included the training of a young Osama bin Laden, who was supplied not only with arms but with a database of other mujahedin. Nowadays that database — the database — is better known by its Arab name.
The Soviet retreat from Afghanistan came about because of American support for those mujahedin. One could even argue that this Soviet retreat "would not have been possible" without such American support. One could go even further and argue, because that defeat helped lead to the collapse of the Soviet Union, that victory in the Cold War "would not have been possible" without the creation of al-Qaida. This is not an argument that I would make. That particular sequence of events may be how things came about, but that does not mean that this was the only way these things could have come about.
I would argue, instead, that the authoritarian rule of the former Soviet Empire was built on a lie, and so it was already doomed regardless of the outcome of its Afghan adventure. The collapse of that empire was a Very Good Thing but, with the benefit of hindsight, we can argue that it "would have been possible" without helping to turn Osama bin Laden into a deadly monster.
So too there were other methods, other strategies that could have been taken toward Iraq. Today's elections could have been possible even without the otherwise disastrous American-led invasion. Wenceslas Square is a far better model than Firdos Square for the transition from authoritarian rule to democratic elections.
The objection to this is to argue that Saddam Hussein's rule was somehow invulnerable in a way that the authoritarian regimes of Czechoslovakia, Romania, Albania, East Germany, Bulgaria, Hungary, Yugoslavia and the Philippines were not. After all, the people of Iraq had risen up and tried to overthrow him after the first Gulf War only to be brutally suppressed.
This argument is based on a misreading of the facts. While Saddam Hussein remained a cruel tyrant, his grip on power was seriously, irreparably weakened by a decade of sanctions and regular, frequent air strikes. His reign was so precarious that he was almost toppled accidentally during four days of missile attacks in 1998's Operation Desert Fox. But even without such factual objections, the assertion that Saddam was impervious to "people power" does not mean that the transition to democracy "would not have been possible" without invasion and occupation.
Consider another example from 16 years ago. Six months before the Velvet Revolution in Wenceslas Square hundreds of thousands of peaceful protesters had gathered in another square halfway around the world. China's authoritarian regime had refused to listen to those protesters' demands and the Chinese movement for democracy was crushed beneath their tanks in Tianenmen Square.
Unlike Saddam's increasingly shaky regime, China's ruling party is in fact maintaining a firm grip on power. It's interesting, though, that we don't hear anyone advocating invasion as the best or wisest path toward the democratization of China. This remains a long-term goal, but it is a goal we're pursuing through other means. We believe, in other words, that the transition to democracy in China will be possible without an American-led invasion and occupation of that country.
Invasion and occupation is not the only way to bring democracy to people suffering under tyrants. Nor is it the best, the wisest or the most effective way of doing so.
Admittedly, it does occasionally work. The U.S. military was instrumental in bringing about Haiti's first democratically elected president in decades.
Those voting today in Iraq might want to note, however, that a few years later that same elected president was kidnapped and deported by that same U.S. military. But that's another story …
Update: Bulbul reminds us, in comments, that the throngs in Wenceslas Square included not only Czechs but also Slovaks. My bad. Also, the statue-toppling reference would have been more apt if it'd been Milos Jakes instead of Adamec. I'll defer to bulbul on such matters.
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