(Thank you, Robert, for the automatic copy to the clipboard.)

One can't go out and buy freedom and present it to someone. One can't make freedom at home and give it away.

One can't make someone else free. People have to do that for themselves. Revolution is an internal affair. It can't be bestowed. It's not a present from another. It's an assertion by the people on behalf of themselves.

Some Iraqis appear to have gotten the idea. At the moment, some Iraqis are furiously fighting to be free. Of us.

If their approach toward self-determination seems dysfunctional to us, it may be because they have never had to learn another form of behavior.

It may also be that, now rid of one master, they see us as the next in line to fill that role. What they had received in return for their past subservience was stability -- enforced by brutality, true, but stability nonetheless. Now the stability is gone, and the brutality is not coming from the new master, but from elsewhere, unmitigated by the meager presence of the new master. It's the job of the lord to protect his vassals from raiders and criminals, even if (as with their late lord) they must suffer beatings by him as a form of payment for it. What the hell are we doing?

If you had stability with brutality before, but instability with brutality now, and no habit or example of taking control of your own destiny in a peaceful way, how would you act?

Iraq needs order to replace the order it once had. Without it, the expectation of democracy is doomed. It's too much to expect them to provide it for themselves right away. They have no history of their own to show them how.