Johann Hari: Talking down democracy an act of malice against Iraqis

The sound of smashing and trashing from the chaos in Baghdad is being drowned out by the gloating of the most hardline "peace" protesters. A friend of mine who was downcast at the cheering of the Iraqi people on Liberation Day - "it's all going to end in tears, Johann" - called yesterday in much higher spirits. "You see? It's anarchy."

It was a bit odd that my friend was saying this as proof that things have gone wrong, since he is, in fact, an anarchist - but let that pass. "This is what we said would happen. Chaos. Disaster. Civil war. Would you rather be in Baghdad today, or under Saddam last year? Eh? Hmmm?"

The crucial point he was missing is that the war took three weeks and the anarchy will last two at most. Weigh that against a certainly far longer period under Saddam Hussein and his deranged sons and the choice is a no-brainer.

In Basra - which experienced both liberation from Saddam and a descent into anarchy sooner - things are already calming down, with schools reopening and people beginning to go back to work.

Once the straitjacket of Baathist tyranny was loosened, there was always going to be some lashing out. Indeed, much of what we have been seeing is a spontaneous redistribution of wealth from the disgusting, corrupt elite who thrived under Saddam towards the wider population.

Few people with riches in Iraq today possess them because they have worked hard, or have any skill or talent. They have comfortable houses and stocked fridges because they were especially willing to point out the "disloyalty" of their fellow Iraqis.

The sole criterion for wealth in Saddam's Iraq was the extent to which you were willing to offer yourself entirely to the regime, at the cost of your humanity. It is not surprising that people who have lived on virtually nothing for more than a decade (60 per cent of Iraqis under Saddam depended on United Nations food aid) want to grab what they can from these crooks and tyrant-lovers.

Of course, it would be better for these resources to be stripped from Saddam's cronies in an orderly way. If this had happened, we would not have seen the horrific spread of chaos to Baghdad's hospitals and museums, where unjustifiable and senseless acts have been carried out.

But let's imagine the alternative scenario. Suppose the American and British troops had aggressively reasserted order on Liberation Day by firing guns into the air, arresting the suspicious and protecting property rights? What would the "peace" protesters (a dishonest term: there was no peace in Saddam's Iraq, and peace could be established only by removing him) be saying about that? You don't need me to write the script.

The disorder is a symptom of the strong desire on the part of the Allied forces to avoid being seen as oppressive. Have they veered too far in the opposite direction? Probably. But - barring a bloody crackdown (wait for the gloating then) - we must wait for order to reassert itself slowly, as it has in Basra, with the Coalition showing a deft policing touch and the Iraqi people seeing the benefits of order.

The attempt, however, to interpret the troubles as a sign that Iraq is about to descend into civil war reveals an absurd negativism on the part of people who always opposed removing Saddam by American force. Some people (and I accept they are a minority among those who opposed the war) would rather the Iraqi people suffered again than be forced to rethink their own prejudices about American power.

The television images from Baghdad over the past few days have aroused a taxi-driver mentality in many people who should know better. The anarchy is feeding what I think of as the Galloway-Stalin tendency: it is being muttered that perhaps Arabs and people in developing countries need a "strong hand", and that without "control" and "harsh measures" they will simply become a primitive mob.

The counter-evidence to this is, as ever, in northern Iraq, where the Kurdish people have shown themselves capable of an exemplary democracy under the rule of law.

To spread this to all of Iraq will be tricky, since there are several ethnic groups in the country with a degree of mutual hostility. A federal state is obviously the solution, and that new state will need a great deal of financial support to ensure its internal stability.

But it is not impossible, and everybody who is today talking down the possibility of a stable, democratic Iraq is committing a terrible act of malice against the Iraqi people. There were plenty of sneerers in the 1940s who found the idea that Japan - non-Western, primitive Japan, with no reformation, restoration or enlightenment - could become a democracy.

For now, the Iraqi people, I suspect, prefer living with the problem of suddenly losing Saddam to the problem of living - and dying - under his rule.

- INDEPENDENT

Herald Feature: Iraq war