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# Posted 9:23 AM by Patrick Belton

A NEO-CON, A CENTRIST, AND A LIBERAL WALK INTO A BAR: None of them think the U.S. war in Iraq is driven by idealism. Sound like a bad joke? Except I was out with these three guys last night. All three of them are perceptive recent graduates from Yale and Harvard, currently working in fast-track government positions as aides in the executive and legislature. And the cincher is, they're all dead wrong. Whatever you think about the precise amount of risk involved in the administration's strategy - a matter that's now passed into the purview of historians - there's an unmistakable, driving sense of idealism behind the administration's democracy-promotion aims in the region, and it's just truly tragic it hasn't been able to communicate that message better.

How does it start? Frustratingly, it can't really until we take Baghdad - even though in the meantime the way we fight and the rhetoric we use will play an important supportive role. Unfortunately, it's been a trope of conquerors to pass themselves off as liberators as well ever since Alexander wept over there being no further worlds to conquer. We only convince the world if today's successors to the Seljuk and Mongol cavalries arrive in ancient Baghdad with Jefferson and the Federalist in our back pockets, and the cash and political commitment to the Iraqi people to back it up. The U.S.'s historical record is fortunately promising on our ability to deliver: but there's no avoiding it, our moral credibility as an idealistic nation depends on our giving a great deal of thought now to making New Iraq a durable democracy. So, herewith, a promissory note: I'll be using this space in the coming weeks to collate and analyze what's being said - in government, think tanks, universities, and the blogosphere - about constructing democratic institutions for the people of Iraq. Feel free to e-mail me your forwards and thoughts. And then let's show the world American conquerors really are liberators too.

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