Saddam's Suzerainty

SADDAM’S MUCH-MISSED SUZERAINTY

September 26, 2006 @ FMNN

Ilana Mercer

You’d think that, now that Iraq is irrevocably broken, warbot conservatives would show a little more humility. Nothing of the kind. It’s not uncommon for me to receive scathing and scornful letters from this contingent: “What are ya gonna do?” they’ll thunder. “Let’s be pragmatic. What’s done is done, so, unless you have something constructive to say, shut up and let us get on with the job in Iraq.”

What job, pray tell? Does it not occur to this lot that sometimes things have simply been irreparably rubbished? Do they really think we can solve the problem of Iraq? Are there no limits to hubristic and delusional thinking? Is there no end to the defiance of the laws of nature? Central planning has never worked; freedom must rise from the roots, it cannot be imposed from the tree tops. Violate rules a school child learns on the playground, and you’ll come up short—always. It is not worth losing one more American life to the Iraq Moloch. The Right value fetuses. How about showing some consideration for the thousands of fully grown human beings, hobbling about on prosthetic limbs, their lives ruined forever.

Cicero said, “The first law of history is to tell the truth.” According to the UN, “Nearly 6,600 civilians were killed in Iraq in two months.” The fans of the Iraq adventure ought to quit their Hussein-equals-Hitler inanities and admit that, while he was by no means a pleasant fellow, Saddam kept Iraq as together as it will ever be. I take that back: What a shame it’s too late to beg him to take us back and restore law and order to Iraq. We’d promise solemnly never to mess with him again, so long as he kept his mitts off nukes. Secretly, that’s what anyone with a heart and a head would wish for. (This Iraqi boy does; read about what a day in his life looks like.)

Ibn Saud said: “It may be accepted as an incontrovertible fact that it will be impossible to manage the people of Iraq except by strong means and military force,” a prescription Saddam had mastered. Indeed the Sultan of Najd (born in 1876; died in 1953) knew of what he spoke.

Under Saddam’s suzerainty, the trains ran on time and Shia and Sunni lived in relative peace—in the same neighborhoods. There was no civil war (or “civil strife,” as the preferred euphemism goes). In fact, the Iraqis I had met before the war were generally well-educated and centered individuals. That simple thing comes from having an infrastructure: law and order, schools, universities, electricity, potable water, hospitals. Mark my words: this war, over which I am constantly castigated, will be responsible for the loss of a generation of young Iraqis. In a few years time, the lost Iraqi generation will be the topic for discussion among the talking titmice.

Ilana Mercer

www.ilanamercer.com
Author: "Broad Sides: One Woman’s Clash With A Corrupt Culture"

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