We need to stop confusing democracy with freedom. Morally supporting freedom is always in our interests. But supporting unlimited majority rule is always destructive — to us, and to all who value the rights of the individual.
I suppose I should give a little more for context:
The Iraqis may reject freedom, in which case military force alone — as dismally inadequate as our efforts in that realm have been so far — will have to ensure our safety against any threats from them. But if we are going to try to replace tyranny with freedom there, we must at least demonstrate what freedom is.
We should have been spreading the ideas and institutions of a free society, before allowing elections even to be considered. For example, we should have written the new constitution, as we did in post-WWII Japan.
There'll be no Wirtschaftswunder (I don't know what the Japanese called their recovery after the War) in Iraq, the way we're going.
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