Posted 3:59 AM by Paul
What is it Good For?

The newspapers and TV are full of images of war. American contractors burnt alive by joyful Sunni rebels. Bloodied Iraqi children, lives cut short by US Hellfire missiles. Blindfolded Japanese hostages swords held at their throats, begging for mercy. The captors have threatened to burn them alive if the Japanese Government does not pull out in the next three days. For the first time in my life I have been part of a protest movement where our worst fears were proved wrong because we were not pessimistic enough. Normally it never turns out as bad as you expected.

The BBC has been running a series of programmes looking back on Iraq one year later. Thanks to the wonders of satellite technology a Baghdad professor took part in a radio phone-in. He had been tortured and imprisoned under Saddam and was delighted when the Americans rode into Baghdad and overthrew the dictator. It was he said, " a joyful moment". One year later and he feels very differently.

There is still no regular electricity or clean drinking water. Buildings wrecked by US and UK bombing are still derelict. Kidnap and murder are common place. It is not safe to go out at night. He pointed out that the Baath party dictatorship had managed to install most utilities and restore public order just 4 months after the end of the 1991 Gulf War. But that is the way with effective dictatorships. They make the trains run on time. It's a common misconception that they are the work of one diabolical man and his henchmen. In fact dictatorships are maintained by a wider network - not only of the service class which benefits directly from the regime , but of ordinary people who acquiesce, glad to see an end to anarchy. Give the average man or woman in the street a choice between total insecurity and ruthless oppression and they will usually choose the latter.

So a year after the fall of Baghdad the Forces of Democracy have managed to make many Iraqis nostalgic for the brutal regime of Saddam Hussein. Quite an achievement

As the chaos increases pundits are now shopping around for historical analogies to help explain how we had got in this mess and point to some kind resolution. The V word is back and Teddy Kennedy has said out loud that Iraq is Bush's Vietnam. It could even be worse.

The Viet Cong had no plans or desire to attack kill the civilian population of the US and her allies.

The Viet Cong could not drawn on the support of millions of co-religionists who are not only prepared but eager to die for their cause.

The US actually suffered fewer casualties in the first year of the Vietnam War than that first year of the Iraq war.

History never repeats itself exactly but for me the closest paralel if Napoleons invasion of Russia. It all seem to be going so well at the start….

Not surprisingly the coalition is starting to crack under the strain of the killings and the chaos. It wasn't meant to be like this. The people back home want to bring their boys back. This is not because the Poles or the Japanese are cowards. It is because their populations thought that occupying a country with who they share neither religion nor common culture was a very bad idea in the first place. Their views were ignored by the political leaders and consequently they feel no sense of ownership of the resulting chaos.

" Don't look at me mate. This was your bloody idea"

All this shows the limitations of the kind of Big L Leadership personified by Blair and Bush. What we are re-discovering is what Washington knew by instinct. Leadership is a contract between the Leader and the Led. Or as Jefferson said we should "trust the surer wisdom of the many." Along the way the politicians have forgotten the nature of the relationship. We employ them. Not the other way around.

If anything comes out of this mess I hope it is an end to the self serving myth that all we need is inspirational leadership from a dynamic CEO with a strategic plan for change which he will push through regardless of opposition from the rest of us.

Iraq is now a charnel house.. What's the answer? Democracy might help. At home as well as abroad.