> It's time for "the mass of antiwar protesters" to learn a lesson in
> realism from the Iraq sanctions and war: the existence of a government
> and citizens' welfare under it are not separate issues. It's the
> government that is responsible for welfare of citizens who live under
> it, from security to nutrition, sanitation to education, in any
> country where a modern government exists. Destroy a government, and
> citizens under it will suffer, deprived of what the government has
> provided them with.
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No, I think the Iraqis could have changed the Saddam regime for the better,
but only from the inside.
Your comments are applicable to regime change imposed on a population by foreign invasion and occupation.
It really is only for us to oppose aggression and to leave it up to the masses of each country to endorse or reject their own governments and otherwise settle accounts with them. I don't think you'd find any disagreement on the list about this.
A lot of the discussion on Iran, of course, has also turned on your insistence that no meaningful opposition to US aggression against it is possible without endorsing its Islamist government. But there is a long and honourable history on the left of separating these issues - of opposing imperialist aggression against non-socialist states, including monarchical and autocratic ones - without supporting their regimes.
It's not necessary to paint these regimes in prettier colours in order to defend it against aggression - whether the USSR under Stalin, Iran under Khamenei, Ethiopia under Selasie, or Iraq under Saddam , and you run the danger of turning away less politically-aware people on these grounds who might otherwise join you.