OxBlog

# Posted 6:08 PM by Ariel David Adesnik

LEAVE HISTORY TO THE PROFESSIONALS, TOM: Invoking Germany and Japan as precedents for nation-building in Iraq doesn't really work. There are some very important lessons to be learned, but critics can (and will) immediately point out that the invasion of Iraq was no World War II and that America doesn't have thorough-going European support like it did in '45. Pretty much, starting in about Germany and Japan means starting up an unproductive discussion about Iraq.

However, since Tom Friedman mentioned Germany and Japan first, I think it's a good idea to respond. Friedman writes that

I have a "Tilt Theory of History." The Tilt Theory states that countries and cultures do not change by sudden transformations. They change when, by wise diplomacy and leadership, you take a country, a culture or a region that has been tilted in the wrong direction and tilt it in the right direction, so that the process of gradual internal transformation can take place over a generation...

We did not and cannot liberate Iraqis. They have to liberate themselves. That is what the Japanese and Germans did. All we can hope to do is help them tilt their country in a positive direction.

Bollocks, bollocks, bollocks. The shock of defeat and the sudden infusion of American ideals provoked a radical transformation of both German and Japanese society and culture. For the best English-language accounts of these transformations, see From Shadow to Substance by Dennis Bark & David Gress and Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II by John Dower.

Way back in October 2002, Dower predicted that Iraq would not become another Japan because the US did not have the will power to endure the occupation. OxBlog half-agreed with Dower. I said that will power was, in fact, the critical issue, but that it was too early to dismiss the Bush Administration's commitment to nation-building. As things have turned out, the issue isn't commitment but competence.

So, does incompetence mean that we should settle for a tilt rather than a transformation? In some respects, perhaps. But there is no reason to compromise on our insistence that Iraq must have an elected government that respects the rights of its citizens. That alone would amount to a transformation. And if such a government can survice, Iraqis will have plenty of opportunities to liberate their culture and society from the legacy of Saddam.

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