Two almost worthless opinion pieces in yesterday's Washington Post
The first is by Jim Hoagland and is entitled, "De-Baathification, Root and Branch". His argument is that the Baath party is baaaad and that the US policy should be for "root-and-branch destruction of Baath rule". Hoagland ignores that the Baath party totally ruled Iraq for 40 years and everybody who is anybody (except clerics) has some association with the Baath party. Military leaders, police, ministry officials, etc. Unless we are willing to replace every manager in the Iraqi government with a US manager, then our choice is to (a) accept leaders from the Baath party, (b) put into power exiles who know virtually nothing about Iraq or (c) establish a theocracy. It is a lot easier to say how not to do something than it is to say how to do it.
The second is by George Will and is entitled, "Wanted in Iraq: A Few Good Founders". Will begins with "Iraq needs only four people to achieve post-Saddam Hussein success. Unfortunately they are George Washington, James Madison, Alexander Hamilton and John Marshall." He then lays out the contributions those four made to making the American democracy a success. Will ends with, "Iraq's success will require just four people ....But that means it also needs the social soil in which such people bloom." Clearly, there isn't such a soil currently in Iraq. What is Will suggesting - that Iraq is hopeless until a more democratic political life takes hold? That the US should occupy Iraq until the social soil is right to produce democratic leaders? Will's piece is nice history lesson, but Will cheated his readers by not applying it to our situation in Iraq.
6:22:14 AM 
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