Iraq has been liberated from dictatorship

Just in case you didn’t know—and I wouldn’t blame you for not knowing, because, over and over, the war in Iraq has been declared a failure here in the United States, because, sadly, most people don’t know how to measure success and their government has failed utterly to explain it to them—here is evidence from Mohammed from Iraq the Model, who’s just back from having spent a week in Egypt (emphasis mine), where he attended a blogging conference (and met the Sandmonkey).

that’s really what I felt in Egypt that I don’t feel in my war-torn city [Baghdad]; for the first time in 3 years I felt the restrains of government…I told one of my colleagues I feel safe in Baghdad despite the dangers, I may feel afraid of terrorists or random violence but I never fear the government and that’s not only how I feel, Iraqis are not afraid of expressing their differences with the authority

Mohammed compares this to how he felt in Egypt:

Back in Cairo I was sitting in the hotel’s garden reading a book when I was surprised by a man, who reminded me of one of Saddam’s security guys, interrupting my quiet afternoon reading and telling me without any introductions “Don’t believe them!”.
“Who are they?” I asked “those people” he said pointing at the book in my hand and added “we have a very good system that is represented by the government and Islam. Maybe we need some minor improvements but those people want to blow up our culture, history and beliefs”.
I could feel that these remarks would be followed by an informal interrogation with questions about my colleagues so I quickly ended the conversation and avoided going into details. However this came as a flashback from the dreadful era of dictatorship that I’ve forgotten over the past three years….

I could feel eyes following me and walls recording every word I say that for the first time in years I feel I need to watch my mouth in front a simple cleaning worker in the hotel who was cleaning up the conference hall after one of the sessions. He said “if you want to change know that we’re on your side” it may sound like a friendly gesture but I got scared and my immediate response was “No, no! this is not about any change!”

Read the whole thing.

To live without fear of the government is, of course, the minimum condition of freedom. How many Americans can imagine living in fear of their government (and the government’s many “representatives,” i.e., spies?) And yet so many people across the globe are terrified of their government—including in Egypt, a country that is nominally our ally and which receives billions of dollars of aid from us each year.

Those are the stakes in Iraq, and it’s why we must stay until the job is done.