Democracy Now is reporting that “a new poll from WorldOpinion.org has found seven out of ten Iraqis want a US withdrawal within one year. Just ten percent favor the Bush administration’s stated policy to withdraw troops only as the security situation improves.” Thus, if we are to respect Iraqi democracy and national sovereignty we have no choice but to yield to the Iraqi opinion. True democracy transcends purple fingers; elections are a part, but not the whole of democracy. And so long as America disregards Iraqi opinion, (and the demands of Iraqi politicians) national elections will continue to serve as a venire for American power.
Our media rarely includes Iraqi voices in debates about withdrawal from Iraq; our esteemed politicians craft their Iraqi policy with little consideration for Iraqi opinion. According to FAIR’s study of The News Hour with Jim Lehrer, “at a time when a large proportion of the U.S. public already favored withdrawal from Iraq, “stay the course” sources outnumbered pro-withdrawal sources more than 5-to-1. In the entire six months studied, not a single peace activist was heard on the NewsHour on the subject of Iraq,” and only one Iraqi source, Ahmed Chalabi, discussed American withdrawal.
If we invaded Iraq to spread democracy, as proponents of the war suggest, then our refusal to yield to Iraqi opinion and withdraw sabotages our objective. And at a time when a majority of Americans and Iraqis favor American disengagement, the media continues to echo Bush doctrine. To hear from the occupied is to learn of the consequences of American foreign policy. To listen to the Iraqi perspective is to disrupt American ambition in the region. Our media demonstrates remarkable contempt for democracy, self determination and freedom; in this, they reflect the administration.
— Igor Volsky
The fact that the great defender of democracy is refusing to respect the wishes of the overwhelming majority in Iraq is not lost on the leaders of nations that find themselves in Washington’s crosshairs. When US policymakers behave in ways that contradict their own stated intentions, there is little reason for other nations to negotiate in good faith.
It is also not lost on the leaders of these nations that The US has never attacked a nuclear power.
Thus, the US has set the table for the arms race it has thirsted for since the collapse of the Soviet Union. The US will be able to pour as much money as it wants into the Pentagon, and keep its population in fear without the need to fabricate terror threats.