Here is my most recent piece for the Collegian. It ran as the Weekly unsigned editorial. I was fairly happy with it...do tell what you think, whether you agree or disagree with me.

THE TENUOUS FUTURE OF IRAQI DEMOCRACY

As everyone now knows, the war in Iraq is essentially over. And with its swift and easy end, the world as we know it has changed. Hawks in the media and the administration are venting their rhetorical ire at Syria, Iran and North Korea in threats ranging from veiled suggestions that these nations beware to barefaced exhortations to change Syria�s regime as we did in Iraq.

Indeed, the ease with which the American military has prevailed in Iraq may prove the bane of the United States in coming years. Despite our obvious superiority, it is na�ve to assume that every military encounter from this moment on will fall to our advantage as quickly as that of the past month. Our overconfidence may well lead to situations far more costly than the invasion of Iraq. Hubris is always the worst enemy of a powerful people.

This will most likely be proven, however, not in war, but in a supposed peace, in the reconstruction of Iraq. The challenges facing the American occupation are all but innumerable.

It is a fine line that the coalition must walk in Iraq. Despite the hopes of the Bush administration that a strong democracy might be established in Iraq to serve as a beacon of civilization and moderation to the Arab world, it is simply not possible to establish the form of a democracy and leave the people to govern themselves. Democracy cannot be imposed�it must be chosen. Yet we cannot trust the Iraqis to choose democracy for themselves.

After all, that which we call democracy is a peculiarly Western phenomenon, depending on the conflicts, philosophies, religions and societal innovations of over three millennia for its continued propagation in the nations of the West.
The notions of individual rights, responsibilities and autonomy are fundamental to our very existence�we take them in with our mother�s milk. To put it simply, tribal societies such as Iraq�s do not. Yet democracy as we know it in America cannot exist without an almost universal recognition of these principles, and our demand that Iraq immediately adopt democracy is hence incredibly na�ve.

This experiment has been tried before, in the myriad colonies of the British Empire. So long as the British occupied those colonies, they abided in peace and prosperity, apparent havens of Western civilization amidst the brutality of the Third World before it even was the Third World.

But the moment the British withdrew, the Western system they had established dissolved into political corruption and tribal infighting, as seen in the transformation of Rhodesia to Zimbabwe described by Theodore Dalrymple in his sobering article �After Empire� in the Spring 2003 issue of the City Journal.

With this in mind, it is safe to say that almost any conflict between the cultural norms of a people and a government imposed upon them will inevitably end in the dissolution of that government. Therefore, the development of democracy in any nation must have organic roots in the history and culture of that nation and people. If that connection is absent, the institution cannot survive except at gunpoint.

This is not to say that the situation in Iraq is hopeless. The very fact of the location of Tuesday�s meeting in ancient Ur gives cause to hope that the Iraqi people may yet find their way out of their dark age�for after all, as any Hillsdale freshman knows, the oldest roots of the rule of law are found in the Code of Hammurabi, which governed the very land now occupied by modern Iraq. The London Times indulged in the same hope Wednesday, asserting that the symbolism cannot help but be powerful. By meeting in Ur, these disparate Iraqi factions have invoked their connection with the ancient civilizations of Mesopotamia, meeting �against a backdrop of 6,000 years of history.�

But the road will still be incredibly hard. Such a thing, after all, has never before been done.

Therefore, let us shun hubris.