Letter from America
This Timothy Garton Ash column appears in the New York Times, but its intended audience is Europe, particularly those who can't fathom the American enthusiasm for the idea of toppling Saddam:
What strikes me most, however, is how much people in Washington really do regard the likely war with Iraq as part of an ongoing war against terrorism...Posted by Dr. Frank at December 12, 2002 08:31 AM | TrackBackBut Washington is not just sitting around feeling scared. It's not just preparing to prosecute the Iraq war. Amply conscious of being the imperial capital of the most powerful country in the history of the world, it is also beginning to think big about the path to a peace that is supposed to end both wars. An administration that came into office ideologically opposed to American involvement in nation-building in foreign countries is now plainly committed to the long haul of nation-building in postwar Iraq.
A new, democratic and prosperous Iraq is to be a model for its neighbors, as West Germany was for its unfree neighbors during the cold war. Some in Washington now talk of encouraging a velvet revolution to democratize Iran. Then there's the United States' rich and friendly but oppressive ally, Saudi Arabia, with its Wahhabi hate wells beside those oil wells. No one in the administration yet says this publicly, but there is a logic that leads from the democratization of Iraq to that of Saudi Arabia.
And so people are talking quietly here about a Wilsonian project for reshaping the whole Middle East, a plan comparable in its ambition to those for Europe in 1919 and 1949. World-weary Europeans, and people in the Middle East, may doubt the feasibility of this idea and the United States' capacity to sustain it. We Europeans would better spend our time thinking how to complement and improve it.