Well-traveled columnist Thomas Friedman has been in Paris thinking about the upcoming election in Iraq.
Either Iraqis turn out in large numbers to take control of their own future and write their own constitution — and I think they will — or the fascist insurgents there will prevent them from doing so, in which case the Bush team will have to move to Plan B. What's sad is that right when we have reached crunch time in Iraq, the West is totally divided. All the Europeans care about is being able to say to George W. Bush, "We told you so." What happens the morning after "We told you so"? Well, the Europeans don't have a Plan B, either."The most important threat (to the West) is Islamic terrorism," said Bernard Kouchner, the founder of Doctors Without Borders and one of the few French intellectuals to support the ouster of Saddam. This is not a war with the Muslim religion, he stressed, but with a violent "fascist" Muslim minority.
"We (in the West) have always been allied against fascism since the Second World War," he said. "We have to be together, America and Europe, because our enemies are the same, Muslim extremism and fascism," but right now, unlike in Bosnia, "we are apart."
Kouchner blames Paris for having been too quick to threaten a U.N. veto and blames even more the Bush team for having been too quick to go to war without a real U.N. alliance and for mismanaging postwar Iraq. At least he cares. Most of his countrymen, I sense, are hoping Bush will fail in Iraq so that the ends will never justify his unilateral means. It's quite amazing, when you consider that Europe, with its large Muslim minorities, needs the moderates to win the war of ideas within Islam so much more than America.
It's not always the case with Friedman, but this time read the whole thing.
Posted by Alan at January 25, 2005 05:43 AM