Americans offer us hope

Editorial

For many Canadian Jews, the war in Iraq has created a painful ambivalence. Especially for those whose natural inclination is to oppose violent interventions, the build-up to the war and the intensity of the fighting has presented a particularly difficult few months. Who, after all, wants to be seen as favoring war?
Canadian Jews remember better than most other Canadians that Saddam Hussein was not just another Arab dictator whose genocidal hatred of "the Zionist entity," far from being rhetorical, was backed up in the last Gulf War with missile attacks on Israel.

Like all observers, members of the Jewish community were relieved that the latest conflict was as brief as possible and the tragic loss of life and other casualties did not continue through months of protracted war. We were also relieved, surprised even, that this conflict gratefully resulted in no direct attack on Israel.

Victory in Iraq, of course, is not assured. Sure, the Saddam regime is gone, but the peace that follows will be the most challenging aspect of the intervention. A lengthy American involvement in Iraq will have unwelcome consequences across the Arab world and it remains to be seen whether the United Nations – including Canada's offer of help – will be able to inculcate the infrastructure of civil society and democratic values in this most difficult country.

Scenes of Iraqi people welcoming American soldiers suggest opposition to the war may be more prevalent in North America than it is in Iraq itself. Still, the jubilance Iraqis displayed on television may be an immediate reaction to the overthrow of their dictator and probably will not translate into an abiding pro-American attitude in Iraq. The challenge facing the Americans and their allies as they try to create a functioning new regime was evident in the uncontrollable looting that erupted as the tight grip of totalitarianism was loosened.

If the regime change does result in the best-case scenario – a genuine democracy in Iraq that takes hold and becomes indigenous – Canadian critics of the war, who are largely on the left of the spectrum, will have to seriously re-evaluate their position. If the smoke clears on a free Iraq, critics will have to assimilate the reality that anti-Americanism may be more virulent in Burnaby and Kamloops than in Baghdad and Kirkuk. More serious still would be the larger implication, which is that George W. Bush actually knew better what the Iraqi people wanted than did the apologists for Saddam, who argued that the Iraqi people were better off under the tyrant's yoke. Who, in this scenario, is the imperialist and who the defender of the people?

For Jewish Canadians, the whole matter has been discomforting. It is a rare North American Jew who does not abide a deep physical or emotional connection to the state of Israel and few could deny that this connection strongly influenced our views on this war. As many of our friends marched for peace or circulated anti-war e-mails, some of us felt the need to keep our views close to our vests. It was another of those historical moments in which our distinctiveness within the larger Canadian body politic came into clear relief.

If the next few years see a vibrant democracy arise in Iraq alongside lasting peace and opportunity for the Iraqi people, we who tacitly supported the war may feel far less self-conscious about our position. Moreover, if an American-friendly Iraq provides enough oil to reduce the North American reliance on ugly allies like Saudi Arabia, we may see an emboldened America undermining the larger source of world terror – permitting a loosening of the distasteful but necessary friendship with the Saudi regime under which the 9/11 terrorists were allowed to foment their plans.

To those for whom the long-term security of Israel is a central concern, this potential reshaping of the region and the possibility of a little springboard of democracy in Iraq offers one of the brightest glimmers of hope in a dark period of history.

And if time tells that we were on the correct side of history, Jews may find ourselves feeling more secure not only in Israel but in the political debates of North America as well.

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