they choose the wrong one
From an interview between the PM and Jeremey Cordeaux of Radio 5DN:
CORDEAUX:
Just on the subject of Iraq, the war to get rid of the regime and the weapons of mass destruction and also to implement a democracy. When the people of Iraq seem to be demonstrating in favour of an Islamic state similar to Iran, it’s an irony isn’t it? You go in there and you free people and you give them the right to choose what sort of a government or regime they’re going to have and they chose the wrong one.PRIME MINISTER:
Well it’s too early to make any assessment of what they’ve chosen.
I know at times I have been rough on the PM, but talkback radio hosts have a lot to answer for. Maybe we should have given clearer instructions to the Iraqi people about which government or regimes they were free to choose. Better still, you can’t trust these newly freed nations to make the right decisions, it would be better for everyone if we just set everything up the right way and then let them exercise their free choice.
April 29th, 2003 at 9:28 am
We are not free to drive through a red light, to kill another person (unless it is sanctioned by the state). We are only free so long as we choose not to do things that we are forbidden from doing. Iraqi’s will have similar freedom. As long as they choose an option from those that America deems as correct they can have their freedom.
The skill in existing without conflict is to choose only from the list of things that are allowable. If we cannot do this, for religous or other reasons, then conflict is a natural consequence. As a humanist I hope they decide that one of the options that America allows is acceptable. They have had enough conflict to last them for quite a while.