Dyer chooses sides

Gwynne Dyer, in his new book Future: Tense, is openly rooting for the Iraqi "resistance". Yeah, I'm shocked too. (Hat tip: Rob Breakenridge, whose World Tonight radio show is reason enough to start using Sparks.)

The United States needs to lose the war in Iraq as soon as possible. Even more urgently, the whole world needs the United States to lose the war in Iraq. What is at stake now is the way we run the world for the next generation or more, and really bad things will happen if we get it wrong.

Okay, I haven't read the book. (Dyer's columns in my daily paper are more than enough. Trust me.) If this Amazon.ca summary is accurate, Future:Tense argues that America's policies are going to start a new World War, the U.S. economy is going to collapse, and global warming is going to drown us all. And that the Bush Administration is "fearmongering".

Jack Lassenberry of Detroit's Metro Times, who gives the book a rave review, says he's "willing to listen" if anyone can tell him why Gwynne Dyer is wrong. For the defence, I submit this Tom Friedman column (preferably without its remarkably naive paragraph about the Israeli-Palesinian situation):

I think there is much to criticize about how the war in Iraq has been conducted, and the outcome is still uncertain. But those who suggest that the Iraqi election is just beanbag, and that all we are doing is making the war on terrorism worse as a result of Iraq, are speaking nonsense.

Here's the truth: There is no single action we could undertake anywhere in the world to reduce the threat of terrorism that would have a bigger impact today than a decent outcome in Iraq. It is that important. And precisely because it is so important, it should not be left to Donald Rumsfeld.
[...]
What Iraq is now embarking on is the first attempt - ever - by the citizens of a multiethnic, multireligious Arab state to draw up their own social contract, their own constitution, for how they should share power and resources, protect minority rights and balance mosque and state. I have no idea whether they will succeed. Much will depend on whether the Shiites want to be a wise and inclusive majority and whether the Sunnis want to be a smart and collaborative minority.

There will be a lot of trial and error in the months ahead. But this is a hugely important horizontal dialogue because if Iraqis can't forge a social contract, it would suggest that no other Arab country can - since virtually all of them are similar mixtures of tribes, ethnicities and religions. That would mean that they can be ruled only by iron-fisted kings or dictators, with all the negatives that flow from that.

But - but - if Iraqis succeed in forging a social contract in the hardest place of all, it means that democracy is actually possible anywhere in the Arab world.

Democrats do not favor using military force against Iran's nuclear program or to compel regime change there. That is probably wise. But they don't really have a diplomatic option. I've got one: Iraq. Iraq is our Iran policy.

If we can help produce a representative government in Iraq - based on free and fair elections and with a Shiite leadership that accepts minority rights and limits on clerical involvement in politics - it will exert great pressure on the ayatollah-dictators running Iran. In Iran's sham "Islamic democracy," only the mullahs decide who can run. Over time, Iranian Shiites will demand to know why they can't have the same freedoms as their Iraqi cousins right next door. That will drive change in Iran. Just be patient.

Years from now, if I run into Gwynne Dyer while we're scavenging for food in the post-apocalyptic wasteland he predicts, I'll tell him he was right. Honest. But for now, I'm siding with the Yanks and their neocon masters.

Posted by damian at February 10, 2005 07:46 PM