A logic of Steele

Another op-ed piece by Jonathan Steele. Oh well, because it's there. So first we have that...

... pulling foreign troops out would almost certainly improve Iraq's security, since much of the violence is directed against the occupation. Without the occupation, the insurgency would decline dramatically.

Leave aside the fact that - as Harry has already indicated - there might be a worry for many Iraqis if there were a precipitate withdrawal of US and British forces. But even taking Steele's logic on its own terms, it somehow changes... all of one line later in his article:

Has [Blair] not noticed that in Basra and the other two south-eastern provinces where British forces are based the insurgency barely exists?... Basra has been quiet for months. Suicide bombers are conspicuous by their absence. Attacks on British forces are rare, and fatalities even rarer.

Er... so not much room for a dramatic decline in the insurgency there then? And this suggests that the relative levels of insurgency are based on other factors than, merely, the occupation. Then we have this:

How can we say we are trying to bring democracy to Iraq... and then not recognise democracy at home? Ten days before the general election an NOP poll showed that 60% of Britons wanted British troops out by the end of this year. Last week's slashing of the Labour parliamentary majority reinforced that view.

Democratic Theory: An Introduction by Jonathan Steele. First principle: government by opinion poll. Yes? No, I doubt he'd really sign up for that if we were to focus on opinions on some other issues. Second principle: you may take the meaning of an election result to be what a single journalist tells you it is: thus, Labour's reduced majority means... troops out by the end of the year. But there'll be those who want to pass here, seeing this principle as too open to the random construction of political meanings - as if you were to allow yourself to be guided in the interpretation of, well, anything really, by a posse of postmodernists. Third principle: when talking about an issue vital to democratic developments in a far away country, collapse the question into what (you say) the democracy of your own country indicates. So much for anything the elected government of Iraq, or those who voted for it, might want. Again, pass. (The deep meaning of 'anti-imperialism' in this case, as from the very first: what concern is it of ours?)

I think I'll stick with other writers on democratic theory.