Thinking through liberation.

• Author: Taheri, Amir
• Position: Democratization of Iraq

FOR THE PAST year a four-letter word has emerged as the key to the future of the Middle East. This word--Iraq--is being presented in some Western media outlets as a code word for chaos and "another Vietnam", but it has a different resonance in the region itself.

To Arab and Iranian despots, Iraq is a code word for reforms that could end their monopoly on power. To radical Islamists fighting for power in a dozen Muslim countries, Iraq is seen as the "the final battleground" between Islam and democracy. And to the people of the region, Iraq is a code word for change.

The conventional wisdom in the West is that democratization in Iraq is a forlorn outcome. Self-styled experts in London and Washington are urging Tony Blair and George W. Bush to settle for a "possible", as opposed to an "ideal", Iraq. Translated into practical terms it means the instauration of a "lite" version of a despotic Arab regime in Baghdad followed by a quiet retreat by the U.S.-led coalition. Call it a policy of "cut and stroll away while whistling", if you like.

The arguments why Iraq could not, indeed should not, become a democracy are well known: Arabs have no experience with democracy; Iraqis are too divided by ethnic and religious differences to think of the common good; there is no popular base for democratic politics in the newly liberated country.

While these claims are easily refutable, I fear that those who advance them are unlikely to allow their minds to be changed. The Iraq debate is becoming a bit like trench warfare on the Western Front in the stalemate years of World War I.

BETWEEN 1925 and 1958 Iraq was a fairly open society with a Westminster-style parliamentary system and a constitutional monarchy. It had several political parties, from the communist to the conservative, a relatively free press and a robust civil society. For much of that time there were no political prisoners, and no one was ever executed for his political beliefs. The 1958 military coup, inspired by pan-Arabism and backed by Moscow, ended all that. But the memory of the "good old days" remains, and many Iraqis believe that they can resume their nation's quest for democracy.

As for Iraq's ethnic and religious diversity, rather than regarding it as a barrier to democratization, one could see it as an incentive. Iraqis of whatever ethnic or religious background know that only through democracy can they manage their differences. "For us, democracy is a necessity, not a luxury", says...