Between Jihad and Democracy

Winning the war in Iraq was a success in its own right, having turned an enemy Iraq into an allied Iraq. But we can leverage this narrow win into a broader win if we can help Iraqis create a real democracy that shows Arabs and other Moslems (like in Iran) that there is an alternative to the current choices of secular autocracy and jihadi rule. Liberals shouldn't reject this goal just because George W. Bush pursued this objective earlier in his time in office. The win in Iraq shows that Islamo-fascism can be discredited and defeated.

Iraq's terrorists are running out of money to fight the government:

The Sunni Arab groups don't really want to take on the security forces, as the terrorists have been running out of money and just want the police to leave terrorist groups alone. The Sunni Arab terror organizations are spending more of their time committing crimes like robbery, extortion and kidnapping, in order to raise badly needed money. These terrorist groups have payrolls and other expenses, and without sufficient income, they will disappear. The Saddam era cash is gone, as are donations from foreign Sunni Arabs who approve of the effort to put the Sunni Arabs back in charge in Iraq.

Spending more time fund raising means less time for killing. This is good. And the need to get money corrupts the terrorists, too, putting them on the road to becoming criminals with an outward shell of (sick) idealism for their cause.

Funny how the foreign Sunnis aren't motivated to donate money to the losing cause of Iraqi terrorists.

The recruits from the Sunni world already dwindled to a trickle as the thought of dying in a losing cause made more think twice about going to Iraq.

Beat up the jihadis enough in Afghanistan and they'll stop volunteering for that jihad, too.

More broadly speaking, we need to dry up the recruiting pool in the Arab world (and we'll need to address the recruiting in Central Asia and Pakistan) by promoting rule of law:

Elections, though vital in the end, are not an early panacea. What the Arabs need most, in a hurry, is the rule of law, independent courts, freeish media, women’s and workers’ rights, a market that is not confined to the ruler’s friends, and a professional civil service and education system that are not in hock to the government, whether under a king or a republic. In other words, they need to nurture civil society and robust institutions. The first task of a new Saudi king should be to enact a proper criminal code.

In the Arab lexicon, the concept of justice means more than democracy. In the end, you cannot have the first without the second. But the systems that now prevail in the Arab world provide for neither.

The article describes how the aging leaders of Egypt and Saudi Arabia may mean they will soon be faced with the choice of moving towards rule of law or succumbing to jihadist rule.
 
It could go either way. But the need to move toward democracy and rule of law has become apparent to more in the Arab world. The Arab spring of 2005 that saw significant movement toward democracy in Iraq, Lebanon, Egypt, and elsewhere reversed course in 2006 after the Samarra mosque bombing almost caused a civil war in Iraq.
 
While it is conventional wisdom that George W. Bush was spectacularly wrong in wanting to inspire democracy in the Arab world, the fact is that the overthrow of Saddam did spark awareness of the need for democracy in the Arab world as well as inspire real movement toward democracy.
 
But given the history of Arab autocracy, nobody should expect steady progress toward democracy and rule of law. But if we do see the Arab world finally achieve democracy and rule of law, we can give a good part of the credit to George the Liberator. He, at least, compared to the so-called "compassionate" left, never assumed that democracy and freedom are beyond the capabilities or needs of Arabs.