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On
January 30, Iraqis voted for a transitional National
Assembly.
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There
is a part of me that still is and will always be against the Iraq
war. However noble the ends, the means will always be wrapped in
a cloud of moral ambiguity. I remain, in every sense of the
word, conflicted. I remember in the early spring of 2003,
empowered by the heady idealism of a young activist, I committed
myself to the cause in which I so emphatically believed.
Feverishly, we organized against a war we felt was unjust,
immoral, illegal, and destructive. Those were times of a bygone
age, times when we could still afford to believe in a world free
of hatred, violence, and—yes—war.
Without
even realizing it, it seemed as if we had become perennial
protestors, angry at the world but helpless to change it. By
opposing and resisting the “system” at every turn, we
thought we could change it. Looking back, I think we were wrong.
Our
goal, naturally, was to stop the war before it started (or
perhaps we were just being naïve). As millions throughout the
world flooded the streets in solidarity, it seemed—if only for
a brief instant—that we might succeed.
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On
January 30, 2005, I saw something which would shatter any
remaining illusions that opposing war in Iraq was the only moral position to take. Checking the news headlines
online in my apartment in Jordan, I saw heart-wrenching pictures of thousands of Iraqis lining
up, braving terrorist threats, to vote for the first time in
their lives. These days, it is truly rare to be overwhelmed by
hope, but overwhelmed I was. In a hundred years, I expect—and
I pray—that future generations will look back at January 30 as
a historic moment, a moment that would forge the identity and
aspirations of a people. For more than five decades, the Arab
people have been denied their freedom by their own leaders as
well as by Western powers, the latter fearing that free
elections would lead to hostile bands of nationalists, leftists,
or, now, Islamists coming to power.
The
very thought of Iraqis voting after the unceremonious toppling
of a most brutal dictator was both exhilarating and
revolutionary. Millions of Arabs throughout the region saw the
same images on their television screens via satellite channels
such as Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiya. For those who dared to
comprehend the moment, the wall of Arab autocracy was being
broken down before their eyes.
Of
course, the negative aspects of the Iraq war (and there are many) should give even the most fervent
supporters of regime change pause. More than thousand Americans
and many thousands of Iraqis have died, cities have been
destroyed, and America’s credibility further eroded by the horror of Abu Ghraib.
History has recorded these crimes committed in the name of Iraqi
freedom.
In
any case, as American Muslims we now have a choice. It is not an
easy one, but it is one that we must nonetheless ponder, for our
actions—or, more appropriately, our silence—will have
consequences. The war itself is over. The past is gone and we
can no longer take solace in the empty chants of anti-war
protestors who seem woefully unaware of the exigencies of
political reality. The emotive chants of “bring the troops
home” are at best laughably naïve, and at worst downright
offensive. If we withdraw now, Iraq will continue its tragic descent into anarchy. And then civil
war leading to a failed state will be its fate. That much should
be obvious.
Millions
of Arabs saw the toppling of Saddam via satellite
channels. The wall of Arab autocracy was being broken
down before their eyes. |
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The
new Iraqi government does not have the capability to effectively
put down the increasingly emboldened insurgents on its own. It
needs American and international support—and firepower. The
insurgency, or the “resistance” as some so disingenuously
call it, aims through its terror campaign to derail one of the
most noble experiments of our time—the cause of Iraqi
democracy. There is a question that each Muslim needs to ask
him/herself: Do we wish to see Iraq
ravaged by civil war or do we wish to see Iraq fulfill its promise and become the first true Arab democracy, a
model of inspiration in what is still the most authoritarian
region in the world? Let us put our dislike of Bush and his
coterie of warmongering, torture-condoning neo-cons aside, and
focus on what is really important—the future of our Iraqi
brothers and sisters, who deserve nothing less than to live as
free citizens, free from the evils of autocracy and the scourge
of terrorism.
Every
morning, I brace myself for the inevitable headlines—more
Iraqis dead, more American soldiers killed in combat. We have
paid an enormous price with the blood of innocents. It no longer
matters whether the war was unjust or just. These debates, while
interesting and at times thought provoking, have a tendency to
become, in the wrong hands, intellectually masturbatory and
philosophically indulgent. More importantly, such debates are
not particularly relevant to the immense challenges we now face.
Many of us were against the war. Some were for it. Some find
themselves stuck somewhere in between. Yet it is time now to put
past disagreements behind us and unite in common cause and
solidarity for the welfare of the Iraqis.
We
all too easily take refuge in the pieties of protest, thinking
that we have done our day’s work and spoken out against the
bad men of empire and occupation. And, indeed, our rage might be
well served by shallow rhetoric and self-pitying indignation.
But this is not the time for such selfishness or silence in the
face of greater threats. There is a bloody conflict currently
underway between those who engage in the wanton killing of
innocents in the name of “resistance” and those who wish to
see the Iraqi people move courageously toward a free, dignified,
and democratic future. And I suspect that this time around, the
moral position is a clear one—or at least it should be. There
are some things in life, politics, and war which are morally
ambiguous. This, however, is not one of them.
*
This article was originally published in Civil
Society, a publication of the Ibn
Khaldoun Center for Development Studies, on June 5,
2005.
**
Shadi Hamid, a master’s candidate in Arab studies at Georgetown
University, just returned from Amman, Jordan where he was a Fulbright fellow researching Islamist
participation in the democratic process.
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