Sovereignty and Health

Imagine a patient in a hospital bed. He has an unhealthy, even violent, medical history. After growing up in increasing poverty, he was abused by people who should have protected him and received inferior medical care for decades. He's had two major operations in short order, received pint after pint of blood, and is pumped full of medicines.

Yet his health has improved visibly in the year since he began receiving modern care. He's now able to walk a bit on his own, can at times feed himself, and believes he's on the mend. His family and friends are encouraging and understanding, and although he's not out of the woods, the prognosis of his attending physicians is that he has a better than even chance for a productive future.

Now imagine that a team of doctors from New York, Washington, and Paris arrive. The patient knows that most of them wanted to refuse him any treatment last year. Rather than examine him, they stand at the door of his room and scorn him. Several advocate pulling the plug now in order to save money, while others predict he'll be dead within months if not weeks. All mock the doctors and nurses who continue to treat him at considerable personal sacrifice. When presented with evidence that most of his vital signs are up, they deny that anything is better. When the man protests that he feels better in spite of his ailments, the hostile team scoffs that no ignorant peasant could possibly possess such advanced knowledge.

Right on cue, this morning's New York Times weighs in with an editorial that belittles the efforts and sacrifices of everyone who made yesterday's handover of sovereignty in Iraq possible. The good doctors on 43rd Street pronounce the patient hopeless, the attending physicians evil dopes, and anyone who dares to cheer him on naive if not opportunistic.

The editorial begins: "Two days early, with a veil of secrecy and a tight security lockdown, Washington's proconsul in Iraq, Paul Bremer III, handed a hollow and uncertain sovereignty to Iyad Allawi, a former Baathist collaborator of Saddam Hussein who spent most of the past three decades exiled in London, the last one of those in the pay of America's Central Intelligence Agency. It goes without saying that this is not the sort of outcome the nation envisioned when we sent our forces to liberate Iraq last year."

To boot: "[W]ashington cannot shed its responsibility for what happens from here on out. The Bush administration has handed off the symbols of sovereignty. But if Iraq dissolves into dictatorship or civil war, the White House will not be able to hand off the blame."

For a far more sophisticated, informed, and optimistic view of post-handover Iraq, read Fouad Ajami (note to the Times: Ajami is an Arab who's lived under American protection) in today's Wall Street Journal. Because he's animated by good will and knowledge of the culture rather than schadenfreude, Ajami's reading of yesterday's events contrasts starkly with that of the Times: "[Th]e unadorned, brief ceremony that saw the American regent, L. Paul Bremer, to a C-130 at the Baghdad airport had a dignity and a power all its own. There had never been an American design to dominate and rule the Iraqis. This was not a charade that has just been pulled off in Iraq. We are eager to come out well from this expedition to Iraq, and the transfer of authority marks the beginning of a new relationship between Iraqis and their American liberators."

The left is fond of portraying Third World peoples as pawns of American power. Yet when they're willing, perhaps even anxious, to see an entire country fail in order to harm a president they hate, it's clear who's patronizing whom. I think that Iraqis will know, over time, who was with them in their struggle against dictatorship and anarchy. And Americans should remember who was willing to act in defense of our own homeland -- service personnel, politicians, and just folks -- and who chose to stand on the sidelines and jeer.