Comment
The war's silver lining
We need to face up to the fact that the Iraq invasion has intensified pressure for democracy in the Middle East
Jonathan Freedland Wednesday March 2, 2005 The Guardian
Tony Blair is not gloating ... But if he had wanted to brag and claim credit - boasting that the toppling of Saddam Hussein had set off a benign chain reaction - he would have had plenty of evidence to call on.
.... it cannot be escaped: the US-led invasion of Iraq has changed the calculus in the region. ... This leaves opponents of the Iraq war in a tricky position, even if the PM is not about to rub our faces in the fact. Not only did we set our face against a military adventure which seems, even if indirectly, to have triggered a series of potentially welcome side effects; we also stood against the wider world-view that George Bush represented. What should we say now?
First, we ought to admit that the dark cloud of the Iraq war may have carried a silver lining. We can still argue that the war was wrong-headed, illegal, deceitful and too costly of human lives - and that its most important gain, the removal of Saddam, could have been achieved by other means. But we should be big enough to concede that it could yet have at least one good outcome. ...
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1428372,00.html>
Carl
>From: "Carl Remick" <carlremick at hotmail.com>
>Subject: [lbo-talk] NY Times turning pro-war
>Date: Tue, 01 Mar 2005 18:09:20 +0000
>
>[Disgusting. But that's liberals for you.]
>
>March 1, 2005
>
>EDITORIAL
>
>Mideast Climate Change
>
>It's not even spring yet, but a long-frozen political order seems to be
>cracking all over the Middle East ... this has so far been a year of
>heartening surprises - each one remarkable in itself, and taken together
>truly astonishing. The Bush administration is entitled to claim a healthy
>share of the credit for many of these advances. ...