Uprisings inspired by Iraq?

The 2003 invasion of Iraq to overthrow Saddam and install a democratic regime was justified at the time as an effort to cultivate political change in the Middle East, by providing a model in a strategic location in the region. The intervention has been expensive and controversial, and the outcome remains uncertain. However, so far, despite continuing sporadic violence, it seems to be working. Three sectarian rivals, Sunni, Shia, and Kurd, have managed to unite as one nation without a dictator to rule them. Of course, U.S. forces are still there, making sure that happens, but if that model of cooperation endures the departure of U.S. forces, it may indeed be a positive force for change in the region.

Is that what is already happening with all the uprisings in the area? First Tunisia, then Egypt, and now most of the other nations of the Middle East and North Africa? Of course, they are mainly the result of local conditions, of oppression by local rulers, corruption of local officials, rising food prices, and growing numbers of educated but underemployed youth. However, they do not resemble the revolts that have led to the rise of the Ayatollahs in Iran, of Hamas in Gaza, and recently of Hezbollah in Lebanon. These revolutions may still be hijacked in some cases, but on the whole they seem to be mainly led by more enlightened younger persons, a large number of whom seem not only fluent in English, but to speak with an American accent. This is a cultural revolution, and it seems to take its rhetoric more from Thomas Jefferson than from Osama bin Laden. We could finally be seeing the Islamic Reformation that many have been hoping would emerge.

The best way to guide these revolutions in the right direction is to provide them an example of strict constitutional compliance in our own country. The world is very much aware that we are violating our own Constitution, and that diminishes our influence in the world. We cannot police the world, but if we do well enough at providing a model of constitutional rectitude, we may not have to. The burden is on us to prove the rule of law works. We are the leaders in the struggle for constitutional republican government. The world looks to us as an example. Constitutional compliance is not just our duty to one another, it is a matter of national survival.

One of the ways we violate our Constitution has a very real impact on the peoples of these and other countries. Our unlawful use of fiat currency as legal tender, combined with our inability to restrain the growth in the money supply, has been exporting inflation to the entire world, dependent as it is on the U.S. dollar as the world's reserve currency, and thus raising the prices of critical commodities like food in countries where people can barely afford it. Such inflation might provoke needed political reform, but reforms won't endure if new democratic regimes can't solve the economic distress of their peoples, caused in part by our own overconsumption. We need to reduce our consumption of government services and benefits, and reduce government spending, not just to avoid economic collapse, but international conflict that could ultimately threaten our national survival.

So if our intervention in Iraq is to be salvaged, we need to get our own house in order, comply with our Constitution, and lead the world in the abandonment of fiat currencies.

Now, having said that, it needs to be pointed out that the invasion of Iraq was unconstitutional. Whether it was a good idea in the long run of history, it was still a violation of our Supreme Law. However, it was not the 2003 invasion that was the main offense. It was the Gulf War in 1991. Congress should have declared war in 1990 after Iraq invaded Kuwait. The invasion of Iraq in 2003 was a response justified by Iraqi violation of the armistice agreement that ended what has come to be called the Gulf War, but which was never really ended until the overthrow of Saddam in 2003. It makes no difference whether Saddam actually had weapons of mass destruction. He acted as though he did, and that is sufficient to be an armistice violation. The subsequent occupation is not really a war, nor is the intervention in Afghanistan. Occupations may be violent, but with no opposing national governments or armies, they are not really "wars" as that term is understood in terms of the law of nations, especially after the Peace of Westphalia.