The Iraq War generated a lot of controversy and people still debate whether or not that war should have been fought in the first place. Even among conservatives, there was debate about the feasibility of the war. For instance, Robert Novak, a classic conservative, believed that it was a bad idea to go into Iraq. Although the following is not his reasoning, it is what occurred to me when I heard that he had been against it. My thinking goes along these lines: A country like America has had a successful democracy because people fought for it. Can democracy be forced on people? The removal of Saddam Hussein, according to some, has been very successful because a democracy, no matter how basic, is being formed in Iraq. And it is not a good idea for Israel to be the only democratic in the Middle Eastern religion. However, people who say the war should never have been fought believe that the rationale for going to war was false, so the whole endeavour was compromised. There were no weapons of mass destruction. Actually there were, but they were not in stockpiles as had previously been assumed. Another argument against the Iraq war is that it created a power vaccuum, filled by Iran’s Ahmadinejad. The problem with replacing a bloodthirsty dictator is that there is always a worse bloodthirsty dictator out there. The ultimate question, then, is can democracy be forced on people? The battle between good and evil has existed since the beginning of time. God’s way is to allow people freedom of choice. The devil’s way is to force people to be good, which seems meaningless. If democracy is assumed to be good (there’s also a debate about that!), then it follows that democracy should be something that people fight for, like Americans did in 1776. It remains to be seen what the outcome of the war will be, but people will be arguing about it even after such an outcome has occurred.
