Nuanced Dominoes

A nice job critiquing the Bush administration on Iraq by Ken Pollack. This is what reasoned critique based on historical perspective and unblinkered analysis looks like. I can't resist quoting his swing at the leftist's race-based arguments about democracy being impossible in the MidEast because they're just stupid Arabs:

It's not a matter of dominoes falling, it's something somewhat different. For the first time ever Arabs will be able to look at Iraq and see an Arab democracy. Often when we say democracy, Arabs hear Britney Spears, sex on TV, same-sex marriages and hip-hugger blue jeans. They know they don't want any of that. But once you get that first democracy formed in a region, it has a remarkable transformative effect. This is what the East Asian historians say about Japan. Fifteen, twenty years after the occupation of Japan was over, when there was a functional democracy in Japan, it changed a lot of perceptions throughout East Asia. For the first time East Asians could look at Japan and say "That's the kind of state that I could imagine living in."

Before Japan, East Asians thought about democracy the same way that Arabs do now. They thought of it as being an American or a European thing. Those were the only examples they had, and they knew they didn't want that. But then Japan came along and proved that you could build a democracy that was very different from a Western-style democracy. To me, Japan is more dissimilar from our form of democracy than Hosni Mubarak's Egypt is from our democracy. But it is a functional democracy that is consistent with Japan's values, traditions and history. And if we get it right in Iraq, for the first time there will be a democratic Arab state with a free-market economic system that will be consistent with Arab values, traditions and history.

He also says a number of critical things but does so in a level-headed and insightful way (Pollack served under Clinton BTW.) When I see one of the Dem candidates actually paying attention to someone like Pollack, then we'll have a race for the White House. Right now Lieberman is the only one with a clue. Otherwise the Dems are toast this go-round...