Is a pro-Western Iraq any less utopian than a democratic Iraq?

In his latest article at NRO, Andrew McCarthy says that democracy in Iraq should not be the goal of our Iraq policy, and that democracy in that country is a utopian notion in any case. Fine, I agree. What McCarthy does think ought to be the goal of our Iraq policy is an Iraq that is stable and on our side, which certainly sounds more achievable and sensible than the chimerical goal of Islamic democracy. But, on further thought, what makes McCarthy believe that a pro-U.S. Iraq is achievable, given his quotation of a BBC poll showing that 42 percent of Iraqis support attacks on U.S. troops, and his own argument that Prime Minister Maliki, by saying that he wants the U.S. to leave, has shown that he is no friend of the U.S.?

Where, then, can McCarthy see any outcome in Iraq in which Iraq ends up on our side?

To repeat, McCarthy says that democracy in Iraq should not be our object, because that’s not possible, but that an Iraq that is on our side should be our object. But isn’t an America-friendly Iraq as inherently impossible as a democratic Iraq? Indeed, aren’t the two goals impossible for the same reason? Namely, that Iraq is a Muslim country?

In which case, what is there left for McCarthy to support vis a vis the continued U.S. presence in Iraq?

The goal of our Islam policy should not be to make Muslims into our friends, which is not in our power to accomplish, but to remove their ability to harm us, which is in our power to accomplish.

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James P. writes:

McCarthy says,

“The war on terror is about defeating jihadists and their state sponsors. That was the purpose of toppling Saddam Hussein.”

The amount of “state-sponsored jihad” coming out of Saddam’s Iraq was certainly not large enough to justify a five-year occupation and umpteen trillion dollars. The “benefit” is incommensurate with the cost!

“It is whether what we leave behind is a stable ally of the United States in the very bad neighborhood from which most of our enemies hail.”

What exactly does “an ally” mean as a practical matter? One might overlook the fact that 42% of the Iraqis think attacking our troops is OK—because we would leave—if we thought that after we left they were going to do good things for us. But what are they going to do, exactly? Pakistan, a supposed ally, won’t let us in to find and kill Osama, and can’t or won’t do the job themselves. Is that the sort of “help” we are to expect from an Iraqi ally in the future?

“Again, it doesn’t matter whether Iraq is a democracy.”

If we don’t care about democracy, and all we want is a stable regime that won’t sponsor jihadis and isn’t a satellite of Iran, then we should have left Saddam in power and cut a deal with him!

Posted by Lawrence Auster at July 24, 2008 02:47 PM | Send