A Measure of Pride: Five years into the Iraq War, A Better Iraq is Emerging

Publication Date: January 2008

Publisher: Hoover Institution on War, Revolution, and Peace

Author(s): Fouad Ajami

Research Area: Government

Keywords: Middle East; Iraq; Democracy

Type: Report

Coverage: United States Iraq

Abstract:

The impulse that took the United States from Kabul to Baghdad was a correct one. Radical Arabs attacked America on 9/11, and a war of deterrence had to be waged against Arab radicalism. A better Iraq has risen, midwifed by this American war. It is not a flawless democracy, but compare it to the prison it was under Saddam, the tyranny next door in Damascus, and the norms of the region, and we can take a measure of pride in what America has brought forth in Baghdad.