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# Posted 7:44 PM by Ariel David Adesnik

I'M CONFUSED: The WaPo has a moderately interesting story on the steady stream of foreign anti-war protestersarriving in Baghdad. According to one of them, "We're here out of no love for the current regime, but we're also opposed to the arrogant American position that we know what's best for the Iraqi people."

Where to begin? First of all, America's proposal to democratize Iraq means that the Iraqi people will be able to decide for themselves what's best for them. While there is no question that some of them will die as a result of the American attack, the fact that thousands of Iraqis have taken up arms against Saddam shows that they are quite familar with the Western concept of sacrificing one's life in the name of freedom.

Second, aren't the protesters insisting just as arrogantly as the US government that they know what's best for the Iraqi people? They're certainly not doing anything to help the world figure out what the average Iraqi really thinks.

Third, why are the protests so focused on the US? Doesn't the fact that the entire Security Council told Iraq that it has to disarm suggest that it, too, has pretentions of knowing what's best for the Iraqi people?

Fourth, if the opinion of the 300,000 Iraqi immigrants in the US counts for anything, then the US should tell the UN to go to hell and liberate Iraq right now.

There isn't much point in arguing, though. I'm just venting. The only real test of the protesters commitment to their ideals is an impossible one: whether they could observe first-hand what happens in Saddam's torture chambers and come out still insisting that the US and the UN don't know what's best for the Iraqi people.

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