Tim Blair

Of course, this is as much a lie as the rest - but it's a lie we can use. We can harness Bush's political weakness on Iraq to demand that the democracy lie become a reality, that Iraq be truly sovereign: unshackled by debt, unencumbered by inherited contracts, unscarred by US military bases and with full control over its resources, from oil to reparations.

Gosh, next thing Naomi might conclude is that results count, not just intentions.

unshackled by debt: I'm all for debt relief in this case, but it sounds like she believes the USA is one of the major creditors. Perhaps based on the common belief amongst some that the USA sold Iraq more than half of a percent of its weapons.

unencumbered by inherited contracts: All for that too.

unscarred by US military bases and with full control over its resources, from oil to reparations: Is she referring to Iraq's Gulf War I reparations to other countries, or reparations by coalition countries to Iraq? I'd laugh at the latter, except that America provided de facto reparations to the losing countries in WWII, and is providing effective reparations to Iraq right now.

And the US "arms" included in that 1/2 percent weren't even arms at all.

demand that the democracy lie become a reality

Why wasn't she demanding a little harder from 1979-2003? Come on, Saddam was a reasonable guy, I'm sure if Naomi explained it as rationally as she did in that article, he'd be sure to come around.

Excerpts from the article…

If you believe the White House, Iraq's future government is being designed in Iraq. If you believe the Iraqi people, it is being designed at the White House. Technically, neither is true: Iraq's future government is being engineered in an anonymous research park in suburban North Carolina.

The United Nations, now that it has agreed to go back to Iraq, must somehow carve out a role for itself in this mess. A good start, if it decides that direct elections are impossible before the White House's June 30 deadline, would be to demand that the deadline be scrapped. But the UN will have to do more than monitor elections; it will have to stop a robbery in progress--the US attempt to rob Iraq's future democracy of the power to make key decisions.

And here's the really surprising part: It could actually happen. Why? Because all of Washington's reasons for going to war have evaporated; the only excuse left is Bush's deep desire to bring democracy to the Iraqi people. Of course, this is as much a lie as the rest--but it's a lie we can use. We can harness Bush's political weakness on Iraq to demand that the democracy lie become a reality, that Iraq be truly sovereign: unshackled by debt, unencumbered by inherited contracts, unscarred by US military bases and with full control over its resources, from oil to reparations.

The point of Klein’s article isn’t really about establishing democracy in Iraq, but it’s an insinuation that George Bush doesn’t want real democracy and is actually trying to establish a puppet regime.

All of the old leftist clichés are there. History of scandal, back room deals, imperialism (of the corporate flavor this time,) contracts being awarded to companies that have no experience in the job they’re doing or the region, “Illegal free-market reforms”, that the United States is actually robbing the Iraqi people of their freedoms and choices, and even the now most often used cliché that Bush lied about the WMD, the imminent threat and is now lying about democracy.

I honestly don’t think that Ms. Klein is interested about democracy in Iraq. She's more interested in scoring points against Bush. To her, Bush is an illegitimate president waging an illegitimate war (for illegitimate reasons) and is now trying to reap the (say it with me) illegitimate spoils of that war.