Your presumptuousness is matched only by your arrogance.

Do you really believe that Saddam Hussein received 98% of the popular vote? Or that he would have gotten much beyond 30% even in a fair election? The man slaughtered thousands of Kurds and Shiites, and kept a small majority in power to keep the majority under his heel. Ahmadinejad is in the same boat. The people won’t over throw him because they are scared. They cannot speak out against the government. They cannot meet to organize any revolt. They are held at the mercy of the secret police. Don’t be decieved by what you see on CNN, if those people don’t cheer for the tyrrant, their families are imprisoned.

And the rest of the world is held hostage as well. Iran becomes bold not because they think they are going to be invaded, but because they know that America is now tied up in Iraq and that the rest of the world lacks to stomach to do what is right. Iran has seen that Germany, France and Russia don’t have the moral fortitude to stand up for what is right, and instead pretend that they are concerned about the welfare of the rest of the world by engaging in "negotiations" with terrorists. Finally, those countries have acknowledged a threat, and yet they still do nothing but talk. The UN is a puppet discussion forum, nothing more, because it also lacks the courage to do what is necessary. That is why the tyrrants are emboldened.

Democracy and freedom go hand in hand. If there is another form of government that guarantees human rights like freedom of speech, freedom of religion and freedom of the press, I don’t think we’ve found it yet. And you don’t believe that people would choose living a free life over living under a dictatorship? I’ve posted numerous examples of cultures that were thought to be fascist/communist/imperialist that have embraced and thrive under democracy. Read some Sharansky. All people choose freedom if given the choice. Freedom is threatened in Iraq by rebel groups, both Shiite and Sunni, that are not willing to let others live a free life.

Numerous mistakes were made by the US when we came to Iraq, and most are a result of not understanding the culture, and then refusing to learn. Anyone that has patrolled the streets of Baghdad knows that these people ‘’must be’’ ruled with an iron fist. Iraqis respect power and money. Without some driving force – be it fear or profit – governing people that are worried about where their next meal might be coming from is difficult. You can rule people with the amount of force necessary and still let them have basic human rights – and that is where we went wrong. American leadership assumed that Iraqi’s had the same ingrained values and respect for law that Americans and Europeans do, and that was a false assumption. Anyone that has worked closely with common Iraqi’s knows this, but the State department and senior civilian leadership, and really the American people, refused to accept this when we went to stand up the government.

This does not change the fact that people deserve to live in freedom, and that sitting back and doing nothing is wrong. I leave you with a quote from Edmond Burke.