I'll settle for stable...

John Kerry's remarks on the goal in Iraq earlier this week seem to disturb Patrick Belton at Oxblog.

Kerry suggested that democracy "shouldn't be the measurement of when you leave," Kerry said. "You leave with stability. You hope you can continue the process of democratization -- obviously, that's our goal. But with respect to getting our troops out, the measurement is the stability of Iraq."

Belton, noting that "...it's pretty clear that what Kerry's doing here is establishing a lower bar for withdrawing troops from Iraq..." found the notion to be "Pretty dispiriting stuff.." and wonders "...weren't the Dems once the party which had habitually criticised administrations for privileging security over democracy?"

Well, I'm not sure the latter assertion is really all that true, at least as it applies outside the borders of the US, but even if Kerry's remarks represent a shift in Democratic Party thinking, I don't find it the least bit dispiriting to hear a Party leader strike a note of realism in regard to the current quagmire.

I'm not at all sure that democracy in any unified, national sense is a widespread aspiration among Iraqis, and I'm reasonably certain that if it is, that democracy won't occur because the US imposes it. It will happen through a long and contentious national struggle by Iraqis themselves, and the continued widespread militarization by an outside force is more likely to be an impediment than an assist in that process.

If there's some kind of national directorate, hopefully with the support and assistance of others in the Islamic world, that can raise an internal force to maintain civil order that's cognizant of civil liberty, the US can and should get out of the country, whether what we leave is a fully developed democracy or not. In fact, I'm not sure there's any alternative but an occupation that lasts a decade or more, and that seems to be no alternative at all.