Good Question

Arab leaders and intellectuals are ecstatic that the Iraq Study Group has declared that America has failed in Iraq. Of course, most of these people needed America to fail, because success would have reminded the world of their own collective cultural, political, economic, social, and civic failures. Nevertheless, it is astonishing that the Western press has been unable to find any leading Arab who is willing to say that it is a shame that apparently only a fascist totalitarian can govern Iraq. Is that because there aren't any such people, or is it that the press just doesn't want to give them a voice?

Tigerhawk wants to know.

The "Pottery Barn" theory was logically flawed. Iraq was our problem whether we invaded it or not. I was loud in condemning my government for propping up Saddam when he was convenient to the Shah, and for selling out the Kurds in the '70s.

I've written often that, given the choice between being the kind of America who would prop up Saddam and aquiesce in the slaughter of the Marsh Arabs, and the kind of America that would see its self-interest clearly aligned with a people against their dictator and his psychotic sons, I know which choice I'd make. Every time. I've lived under both.

If "only Saddam could keep Iraq together" is now to be conventional wisdom, I'm calling a new convention.