George Bush justifies our Iraq adventure by saying we are spreading democracy. But….

• Can Iraq be a democracy if 80% of Iraqis want the US out of their country, yet we stay anyway?
• Can Iraq be a democracy if it’s unsafe to be a minority–a Kurd, a Christian, a Sunni?
• Can Iraq be a democracy if women are oppressed?

Tony Campolo raises these questions on the “God’s Politics” blog. He says Iraqi voters are choosing a Shiite government that embraces Shia law. That Christians face much more persecution than they did under the comparative protection of Saddam Hussein, and that their numbers have declined from 1.4 million to around 700,000 (he cites a United Nations report). That the new parliament is “showing signs of increasing the oppression of women.” A hallmark of a democracy, Campolo writes, is that the government makes it safe to be a minority. An excellent point.

Fareek Zakaria, in the current Newsweek, says the Shiite politicians he talked to “seemed dead set against sharing power in any real sense.” If not for the US presence, they (and the predominantly Shiite army) would crack down viciously on the Sunnis. The Sunnis, the main insurgents attacking US troops, would be massacred without the presence of US troops. The world is a complicated place, George.

To be fair, Iraq’s new government is very young. Heck, we didn’t have democracy in the United States until 1920, when women were given the right to vote (and then you can argue that blacks weren’t really free to participate in the political process until the 1960s). I think it was Pat Buchanan, speaking on the Daily Show, who said the American model of democracy is: first you say everybody is free and equal, 100 years later you free your slaves, and 60 years after that you let women vote. So we can’t expect perfection out of the Iraqis yet.

But neither should we accept the delusions of George Bush that we are creating a democracy in the Middle East.