In Iraq the United States appears to have checkmated itself, maneuvered into the calamitous position of being unable to exit easily or stay safely.

Are the Arabs capable of democracy? And if so, can Americans be the agents of their transformation? The answer, of course, is that no one knows. The lack of a single democratic Arab government gives grounds for skepticism. … But there is reason to be skeptical of the skepticism.

Saddam may be gone but many Iraqis still think as they were taught to think: the United States is our enemy and helping the us occupation is unpatriotic. These are mindsets that may be hard to change, even if Baathism as a political movement is banned. It could require a generational shift, in which case there is little now that the United States … or any Iraqi provisional governing council can do.

When us policy makers discuss the democratization of Iraq and the Middle East, have they set out … concrete criteria for what that means? … Have they put together the indicators for when it is time to go home? Have they established, in short, what is enough democracy, and who decides?

The largely unilateral, dubiously rationalized, and defiantly prosecuted occupation of Iraq has distracted from the need to develop international consensus and capacity for nation building and other benevolent interventions. What the world needs now … is possibly a new multilateral organization or two specialized in peacekeeping and state-building operations.

There is no inherent reason why the Arab world cannot join the global democratic trend. Yet there are very real … reasons why the democratization of Arab societies will prove unusually slow, difficult, and conflictive.

Moscow's balancing act between Washington and Baghdad [has] failed, and its balancing act between Washington and Tehran is becoming increasingly difficult to maintain. … [A] reluctance to establish clear priorities among competing interests threatens to undermine both its relations with the United States and its influence in a region of continuing strategic importance to Russia.

As part of our occasional post–September 11 series on terrorism, contributing editor Michael Klare examines the motives behind America's decision to make Iraq a central objective in the war on terrorism. “If concerns about weapons of mass destruction, terrorism, and the export of democracy do not explain the administration's determination to oust Saddam Hussein, what does? The answer [can be found in] the pursuit of oil and the preservation of America's status as the paramount world power.”

Iraq had a violent and unstable political culture before Saddam, and a stability bolstered by repression, fear, and wealth under Saddam. Could history repeat itself in Iraq? Could the country produce another Saddam-like figure by replicating the conditions and circumstances that propelled him to power?

No matter who rules in Baghdad, George Bush will have to decide between the role of statesman and politician in Arab–Israeli peacemaking.

In a setting where schoolchildren line the rooftops of Saddam's palaces and jamming devices interfere with guidance mechanisms, [precision weapons] may prove more seductive than productive. Indeed, they may prove largely unusable. As the president and his advisers draw up their war plans, they should maintain a healthy skepticism about the more sensational aspects of the promise of precision air power.