Hussein’s farcical trial as the quintessence of our Iraq policy

The trial of Saddam Hussein, with the spruce, arrogant defendant dominating the proceedings instead of sitting silent in a glass booth, and with the implied threat of his personal survival and even his return to power struck into the heart of every Iraqi who has opposed him, is, says Charles Krauthammer, the greatest mistake the Bush administration has made in Iraq. But Krauthammer misses the point. This O.J. Simpson-like extravaganza is not a mere “mistake,” it is an intrinsic expression of the whole Bush/neocon war, with its hopeless confusion between, on one hand, imposing on Iraq and other Muslim countries an order we can live with, and, on the other hand, giving the Muslims “democracy”—a democracy in which our enemies, whom we are supposedly seeking to defeat and destroy, are given the means by which to gain power.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at December 10, 2005 10:08 AM | Send