Christopher Hitchens gets it right again. He recently interviewed the grandson of infamous theocrat Ayatollah Khomeni; the young man is a cleric himself, and an upstart enemy of the extremist religious establishment in Iran - so a natural ally to our cause of liberation. He knows what he wants:
It's not strictly necessary to speak to Hossein Khomeini to appreciate the latter point: Every visitor to Iran confirms it, and a large majority of the Iranians themselves have voted for anti-theocratic candidates. The entrenched and reactionary regime can negate these results up to a certain point; the only question is how long can they do so? Young Khomeini is convinced that the coming upheaval will depend principally on those who once supported his grandfather and have now become disillusioned. I asked him what he would like to see happen, and his reply this time was very terse and did not require any Quranic scriptural authority or explication. The best outcome, he thought, would be a very swift and immediate American invasion of Iran.It hurt me somewhat to have to tell him that there was scant chance of deliverance coming by this means. He took the news pretty stoically (and I hardly think I was telling him anything he did not know). But I was thinking, wow, this is what happens if you live long enough. You'll hear the ayatollah's grandson saying, not even "Send in the Marines" but "Bring in the 82nd Airborne." I think it was the matter-of-factness of the reply that impressed me the most: He spoke as if talking of the obvious and the uncontroversial.
In the months where we daily read of lies and distortions about weapons of mass destruction leveled against the administration, or the inability of the free world to keep Saddam Hussein - not President Bush - yoked with the burden of proof, Hitchens has something to offer. Though Khomeini's ideals are delightful to see now and anticipate as principles held by Iran's future democratic leaders, we ought to remain focused on the confidence in purpose necessary to actually reach that outcome:
The arguments about genocide, terrorism, and WMD—in all of which I believe the Bush administration had (and has) considerable right on its side—are all essentially secondary to the overarching question: Does there exist in the Middle East a real constituency for pluralism and against theocracy and dictatorship. And can the exercise of outside force hope to release and encourage these elements?
When freedom lives in that region, terrorism dies. All else falls away.