Life of George

Gerard Baker in the Times of London refers to The Life of Brian in assessing the growing realization that Bush and Company were right.

Life of Brian references are always a good start.

Confronted with this awkward turn of events, Reg’s angry successors are asking their cohorts: “What have the Americans ever done for us?” “Well, they did get rid of the Taleban in Afghanistan. ’Orrible bunch, they were.”

“All right, the Taleban, I grant you.”

“Then there was Iraq. Knocked off one of the nastiest dictators who ever lived and gave the whole nation a chance to pick its own rulers.”

“Yeah, all right. Fair enough. I didn’t like Saddam.”

“Libya gave up its nuclear weapons.”

“And then there’s Syria. Thousands of people on the streets of Lebanon. Syrians look like they’re pulling out.”

“I just heard Egypt’s going to hold free presidential elections for the first time. And Saudi Arabia just held elections too.”

“The Palestinians and the Israelis are talking again and they say there’s a real chance of peace this time.”

“All right, all right. But apart from liberating 50 million people in Iraq and Afghanistan, undermining dictatorships throughout the Arab world, spreading freedom and self-determination in the broader Middle East and moving the Palestinians and the Israelis towards a real chance of ending their centuries-long war, what have the Americans ever done for us?”

It's been interesting, these last few weeks, watching the left's case against Iraq and the Bush doctrine collapse, even among some of the Administration's most formerly strident critics.

Baker notes:

It was always the express goal of the Bush Administration to change the regime in Baghdad, precisely because of the opportunities for democracy it would open up in the rest of the Arab world. George Bush understands the simple but historically demonstrable thesis that freedom is not only the most basic of human rights, but also the best way to ensure that nations do not go to war with each other.

In a speech one month before the start of the Iraq war in 2003, Mr Bush laid out the strategy: “The world has a clear interest in the spread of democratic values, because stable and free nations do not breed the ideologies of murder. They encourage the peaceful pursuit of a better life.”

I doubt that anybody, even the most prescient in the Bush Administration or at 10 Downing Street, thought the progress we are now seeing would come as quickly as it has.

It'll be interesting to see if that's how it goes into the history books. Judging by how my kids' history books devalue the role of Reagan and Thatcher in the fall of the USSR, I'm not hopeful.

Posted by Mitch at March 4, 2005 06:17 PM | TrackBack