"Why Do They Hate Us?"

Remember the eighties?

Ronald Reagan called the USSR the "Evil Empire". The western intelligentsia pummeled Reagan; it wasn't nuanced enough. And people in the Eastern Bloc protested against Reagan in droves.

And yet today in the former Warsaw Pact, Reagan is revered. Natan Sharansky discusses how the news of the Evil Empire speech was received in the Gulag - like freedom was finally attainable.

Seeking parallels can be tricky - but sometimes they just come to you:

The man replacing the mayor of Baghdad — who was assassinated for his pro-American loyalties — says he is not worried about his ties to Washington.
In fact, he'd like to erect a monument to honor President Bush in the middle of the city.

"We will build a statue for Bush," said Ali Fadel, the former provincial council chairman. "He is the symbol of freedom."

3/4 of Iraq is delirious with freedom today, ready to take on the brutally difficult jobs of rebuilding a nation shattered by four decades of gangster rule, convincing the other quarter of the people to join in the process, and evicting or killing the one percent of deadenders that'd rather fight than switch.

Twenty years from now, what will be the "Evil Empire" speech that the new generation of Iraqi leaders harken back to, the little blink that started the germ of hope in their hearts?

Here's how you'll know that's happened:

• When the left starts trying to take credit for the fall of Hussein
• When they start claiming that it was inevitable.

I give them about five years.

Posted by Mitch at February 1, 2005 06:45 AM | TrackBack