Let Them Vote
In this morning’s column, Jonah Goldberg expands on his Iraqi referendum idea:
If Iraqis voted to keep American troops, everything would change. The “occupation” and “war for oil” rhetoric would be discredited overnight. America would have put its vital interest money where its principled mouth is. Iraq’s anti-American factions would be further pulled into the process, even if they voted “no.” The Iraqi people would “own” this project in their own right. Iraqi politicians would no longer have to worry about being called lapdogs to America — “the people have spoken,” they could respond. Arab nations couldn’t claim that the democratization of Iraq was inauthentic or imposed by “imperialists.” Even the Europeans would be floored by the audacity of the gesture. And our own troops would have the idealism of their project reaffirmed.
BACKGROUND: Let Them Vote
related articles
- Six Years Later: War, Not Tragedy (September 11th, 2007)
- D’Souza Smackdown (August 29th, 2007)
- The War Within (July 1st, 2007)
- Livingstone v. Blair (July 1st, 2007)
- The Clash of Civilizations (June 9th, 2007)
