Gladstone writes Dems platform for 2006, 2008

[Hamlette]

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-ferguson6mar06,0,3979683.column?coll=la-news-comment-opinions

Gladstone's first principle was, paradoxically, "good government at home" — to be precise, fiscal stability. "The first thing," he argued, "is to foster the strength of the empire by just legislation and economy at home." By that measure Bush's second term has been an almost unqualified failure. To cut taxes and run deficits in 2001, in the aftermath of a stock market crash, made sense. But allowing the federal government to continue to run deficits with recovery well established has left the U.S. dangerously dependent on foreign capital for its economic stability.

Gladstone's second principle was that the aim of foreign policy should be "to preserve to the nations of the world … the blessings of peace" — not something Bush will be remembered for achieving.

Principle number three reads especially well today. "Even when you do a good thing," Gladstone observed, "you may do it in so bad a way that you may entirely spoil the beneficial effect." Ring any bells? That's just the way to nail this administration without falling into the obvious rhetorical trap of arguing that we should have left Saddam Hussein in power. Yes, you can indeed ruin the effect of doing a good thing — getting rid of a brutal, potentially dangerous dictator — by doing it in a bad way: failing to preserve public order in the aftermath.

The coup de grace, however, is Gladstone's fifth principle: to acknowledge the equal rights of all nations. "If you claim for yourself," he said, "a pharisaical superiority over , then I say … in undermining the basis of the esteem and respect of other people for your country, you are in reality inflicting the severest injury upon it." I defy you to name another president whose conduct that better sums up. Indeed, the evidence is that this administration has more than merely undermined "the basis of the esteem and respect of other people." It has blown it apart.

more at link. Good stuff. If only our "leaders" would take notes.

[Selatius]

1. There were no good solutions in Iraq no matter what happened.

My hunch is Iraq probably would've splintered apart along sectarian/ethnic lines in a glorious bloodbath of proportions not seen since the implosion of Yugoslavia in the early 1990s with or without an invasion force.

If we simply sent in a hit squad and removed Saddam Hussein and his cronies without the death and destruction of a ground invasion/occupation, it would've been motivation for the Shi'ites and the Sunnis to fight each other for power in post-Saddam Iraq, and the Kurds would've tried to bolt out the door to declare independence, which would've forced Turkey to enter the war, and people like Al-Sistani would still be inviting Iranian influence into southern Iraq anyway.

Saddam Hussein was the glue that held that country together. Iraq is an artificial creation of the British Empire created in order to keep the peoples in conflict with each other instead of watching the British Empire itself, or any foreign power for that matter, to repulse its influence. Iraqi society is not sectarian. Iraqi society is more tribal in nature, and we have utterly failed to understand that.

You don't draw lines on a map, force several different groups of people who have absolutely nothing in common with each other to exist with each other, and expect them to suddenly be one with each other in peace and harmony regardless of the centuries of disagreement and bloodshed. That's absolute insanity.