What If…?

I’d like to conduct a mental exercise. Let’s pretend the United States had a democratically-elected president back in 2000.

If that had happened, I think today’s headlines would not just be about Egypt and Libya and Bahrain. I think today, or maybe tomorrow or next week, we would be hearing about the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, as Iraq joins the irresistible lurch toward democracy in the Middle East.

Those who sought to justify the war in Iraq trotted out one reason after another. The terrorists who attacked us on 9/11 didn’t come from Iraq, so we heard about weapons of mass destruction. The weapons of mass destruction turned out not to exist, so we heard about democracy and the need to rid the world of this evil dictator.

But as it turns out, time might have done the trick, much more neatly and legitimately. It doesn’t take much imagination to think about a unified Iraq, whose citizens suddenly find themselves with fewer reasons to fight, now that they have worked together to rid themselves of a tyrant.

And think what could have been saved. Thousands of American lives. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqi lives—to say nothing of the refugee problem that afflicts Iraq's neighbors. Trillions of dollars that we still haven’t figured out a way to replace. The reputation of this country as a champion of democracy.

Maybe, right? Maybe it would’ve worked out that way. All we know now, as we stand on the sidelines, is that our slipshod, democracy-at-the-barrel-of-gun solution in Iraq now looks shaky, out-of-touch, and overly expensive. Maybe it will work out. Maybe.