The Staton Jones Report

Conservative columnist David Brooks comments on Bush's speech last night in the NY Times:

It's a huge gamble to think that the solution to chaos is liberty. But it's fitting that during the gravest crisis of his presidency, President Bush reverted to his most fundamental political belief. He began this war in Iraq repeating the sentiment embodied in the Declaration of Independence, that our creator has endowed all human beings with the right to liberty, and the ability to function as democratic citizens. He said last night with absolute confidence that the Iraqis are democrats at heart.

Bush is betting his presidency, and the near-term future of this nation, on that central American creed.

It's an epic gamble...

It is a huge gamble. It's also a really stupid gamble. It's as if your spouse liquidated all of your assets and decided to risk them at the blackjack table.

If this gamble fails to come off, then that mission will seem, to many, false. Perhaps democracy and freedom are not really universal values, some will say. Perhaps they are just the outgrowths of a specific culture. People on the left and right will race to withdraw from the world. It will become difficult to take on the tyrants who will menace the world.

On the other hand, if we muddle through in Iraq and some semidemocratic nation slowly emerges, it won't be because of American skill. It will be because the democratic creed is so strong it can withstand the highest incompetence...

Well, he's right about the highest incompetence, but what does he mean by a semi-democratic nation? Perhaps something along the lines of Iran, where a few clerics have veto power over elected officials?