Surprise! Elections don’t defeat terrorists

If the leftist Los Angeles Times can be believed, at least some people in the United States government are starting to catch up with what I, a person with zero specialized knowledge but just the brains my mother gave me, have been repeating like a monomaniac for over two years: that there is no logical or practical connection between creating a “democracy” in Iraq and ending the terror insurgency. Here’s the beginning of the article, “A Central Pillar of Iraq Policy Crumbling,” by Tyler Marshall and Louise Roug:

Senior U.S. officials have begun to question a key presumption of American strategy in Iraq: that establishing democracy there can erode and ultimately eradicate the insurgency gripping the country.

The expectation that political progress would bring stability has been fundamental to the Bush administration’s approach to rebuilding Iraq as well as a central theme of White House rhetoric to convince the American public that its policy in Iraq remains on course.

But within the last two months, U.S. analysts with access to classified intelligence data have started to challenge this precept, noting a “significant and disturbing disconnect” between apparent advances on the political front and any progress in reducing insurgent attacks.

Now, with next Saturday’s constitutional referendum appearing more likely to divide than unify the country, some within the Bush administration have concluded that the quest for democracy in Iraq, at least in its current form, could actually strengthen the guerrillas.

The commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, Army Gen. George W. Casey, has acknowledged that such a scenario is possible, while officials elsewhere in the administration, all of whom declined to be identified because of the sensitivity of the subject, said they shared similar concerns about the referendum.[cont.]

I’ve written recently about the “Hive,” the community of intelligentsia cum social insects in which everyone thinks alike, without any central direction telling them to do so. The question arises: is the Hive equally present in all times and places in Western civilization? Or do certain circumstances—leftism, religious or secular enthusiasm, civilizational threats—bring it out more? I don’t know if the matter has been studied. I do know that never in my life have I seen so many intelligent people repeating as a passionate certitude an idea for which there was no supporting evidence and no supporting logic—that elections, a constitution, and an elected constitutional government, by their very occurrence and existence, would somehow make the Iraq terror insurgency give up and die.
Posted by Lawrence Auster at October 09, 2005 01:33 AM | Send