I've recently joined the editorial board of the Philadelphia Daily News and this is the first editorial we've penned:
THE PRESIDENT'S speech yesterday at the World Affairs Council drew heavily on the comparison between Iraq's nascent democracy and our own, which was cradled in this very city.
Specifically, President Bush recalled that between the end of the Revolutionary War and the approval of our Constitution was a period of six years that were filled with rebellions, tensions threatening the nation's fragile post-war unity and a horde of veterans angry about not getting paid. The point of the comparison was to remind Americans that building a democracy is never easy. If the comparison seemed far too convenient, it was.
The American fight for liberty came about after 75 years of monarchial rule during the English colonial era. It did not take an invasion from Spain to "liberate" the English colonists - we broke free when we were ready.
It was because our democracy was brought about on our own accord that our Founding Fathers had the fortitude to overcome difficulties as we struggled to perfect our form of government, as did the majority of the people. And no country occupied the United States after the Revolution ended in 1783. You have to wonder, if our focus had been on ending a Spanish occupation following a liberation and not on establishing our own stable government, would we even have had a constitution ready to ratify a few years later?
A new ABC News poll shows that two-thirds of Iraqis oppose the presence of U.S. forces and 60 percent disapprove of how U.S. forces have operated. Most Iraqis want the United States to leave. The more time Iraqis spend worrying about the U.S. presence, the less time and energy they are spending on stabilizing and defending their own democracy.
Additionally, it's only a matter of time before those poll numbers have a practical impact and anti-U.S. candidates make major advances in Iraq - possibly some that would align Iraq with Iran. That would not only threaten Iraq's democracy, but our own.