I forgot to share my opinion on Iraq

I've always been surprised that the left has been so unanimous in criticizing the war in Iraq. After all, it was meant to throw out a dictator and promote democracy in a region that doesn't have too much of it. How come then so little leftists have supported it, despite its flaws? I think no one has better summarized it than Francis Fokuyama in the New York Times on Sunday.

"The problem with neoconservatism's agenda lies not in its ends, which are as American as apple pie, but rather in the overmilitarized means by which it has sought to accomplish them."

Attacking the left for failing to promote democracy misses this point. They're also all about democracy (representative, that is). But the problem is not that the right fails to understand this: it's that the left itself is about to forget it. I find too many leftists complaining that it's not the job of the US to promote democracy. Actually, it is - just like it is the job of any democratic state, but even more so because it's the most powerful and rich country in the world.

Promoting democracy means respecting it with religious zeal. The scandal of the 2000 election should never happen again - and I don't mean the Florida scandal, but the fact that Bush received less votes than Gore. It means promoting one person-one vote everywhere, even at the World Bank and the United Nations where money and sovereignty are placed above democracy (it's easier to understand at the WB in my opinion). Promoting democracy means to support efforts like those in Haiti and Palestine - including the respect of the election outcome. By all means, it doesn't mean to show up in tanks and F16 and then distribute voting ballots, but let's keep in mind that the end is not the problem with the war in Iraq. It's the means.