Bloodbath or breakthrough in Iraq

In the midst of a national argument about a troop “surge” or pullout in Iraq, Natan Sharansky offers his point of view – that a “precipitous withdrawal of U.S. forces could lead to a bloodbath that would make the current carnage pale by comparison,” according to Haaretz.com

Sharansky also argues that those who believe Iraq may have been better off under Saddam Hussein forget that “in totalitarian regimes, there are no human rights.” According to a poll conducted this spring in Iraq, nearly two to one (49 percent to 26 percent) surveyed said they preferred life under their new government to life under the old tyranny.

“Of course, Saddam Hussein’s removal has created a host of difficult strategic challenges, as well as numerous human rights atrocities. But Saddam was a mass murderer who tortured children in front of their parents, gassed Kurds, slaughtered Shi’ites… The price for stability that Hussein supposedly brought to the region was mass graves, hundreds of thousands of dead in Iraq, and terrorism and war outside it. Difficult as the challenges are today—with Iran and Syria trying to stymie democracy in Iraq, with Al-Queda turning Iraq into the central battleground in its holy war of terrorism against the free world, and with sectarian militias bent on murder and mayhem—there is still hope that tomorrow may be better,” Sharansky writes.

And no one can know whether President Bush’s “surge” of U.S. troops will succeed, but “those who believe human rights should play a central role in international affairs should be doing everything in their power to maximize its chances.”

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