By Charleston C.K. Wang
Guest columnist

Wang

In March, the United States, with Britain and a small coalition of allies, went to war in Iraq. As the shock and awe unfolded, there was concern for the high cost of taking the urban centers of Iraq. History has proven the folly of attackers of cities in the face of unyielding resistance.

Three weeks later, American troops were eating lunch in the sunshine of downtown Baghdad. The Baathist regime of Saddam Hussein had collapsed.

Sun Tzu wrote 2,500 years ago that to win a hundred victories in a hundred battles is not the highest excellence; the highest excellence is to subdue the enemy army without fighting at all. America truly can rejoice along with President Bush and his war-waging team for the most excellent success of this second Iraq campaign.

Now is the time to build democracy and, more important, give the Iraqi people a fair chance to start a legacy of freedom in their ancient land. Now, this most important question: Is Iraq ready to embrace democracy?

If democracy simply means the creation of a government popularly chosen by the Iraqi people, the answer is quite likely, yes and soon. After all, Iran had a popularly created government after the fall of the Shah. If democracy means the election of representative government with freedoms in the western tradition such as those in the United States and United Kingdom, the answer is more elusive. So is Iraq really ready to embrace democracy (or will Iraq fall for an Iranian-style theocracy)?

Time will tell and it is likely to take quite some time. The reason is that democracy, which features individual freedom, liberty and rights, has a legion of prerequisites, such as inter alia: the separation of religion and the state; the separation of the power of government; the existence of an independent judiciary; the freedom of speech; the freedom of the press; tolerance for differences in opinion; a free market; the sanctity of private property; the existence of a commercial and manufacturing base that do not depend solely on the exportation of natural resources; and the existence of an entrepreneurial class.

Sometimes, for brevity, we look for the existence of the rule of law in the political sphere and the rule of free enterprise in the economic. In the social sphere, does the people appreciate the bundle of rights, as well as obligations traditionally associated with individual liberty and freedom?

In Asia, it has taken Taiwan over half a century to arrive at the current state of democratic freedom. China is still fashioning her economic realm and the political is still very much on hold. Two other Asian countries worthy of study are Malaysia and Singapore: their cautious, sometimes critical, interest in western-style freedom and liberty hold valuable lessons. One key Asian lesson is that embracing democracy is a slow, subtle courtship that cannot to be quickly forced upon another too rudely; and not at the end of American guns. For now, the demise of the Baathist regime is just the beginning of another long engagement for the Iraqi people. We certainly but patiently wish the people of Iraq the very best on their new and challenging journey.

Charleston Cheng-Kung Wang of Montgomery is an attorney.