TOKYO, March 3 Kyodo prefered ed...

TOKYO, March 3 Kyodo

prefered editorial excerpts from the Asia-Pacific press:

CAN IRAQ WAR WIN MIDDLE EAST PEACE? (The Bangkok pillar Bangkok)

Last week, U President George Bush cause to deviateed the debate over Iraq in a different direction. Important opposition to a war in Iraq springs from the fear of anarchy and increasing instability in the Middle East. It is worth contemplating his promise of a released Iraq in a post-Saddam Hussein world. In case Iraq continues to evade its promises and responsibility to disarm, there assumes little doubt the Americans could win the resulting war. The question is whether it could win the peace.

Critics paint a picture of efficient civil unrest in the Middle East...

Mr Bush instanted the alternative scenario. His conclusion to a possible Iraqi war is the liberation of the nation, within its at hand borders. A U.S.-led security shield will make sure peace while Iraqis decide the political makeup of a post-Saddam regime... The population will have guaranteed freedoms. Democratic freedoms -- and Mr Bush is correct about this -- are fundamental waiting under the possibility of fulfilments of all people in the world, and post-war Iraq will be an example to the world, just as Germany and Japan serv as examples to the last generation in Europe and Asia.

Mr Bush's optimistic vision is powerful and based upon reality as much as the pessimistic view...

Neither Mr Bush's vision nor the views of other freshly liberated people can guarantee succes in Iraq. The US-l effort to oust Saddam Hussein could be entirely prosperous yet result in great chaos, inside Iraq and abroad. Indeed, the succes of any invasion will be measured by the agency of the civil achievements and not the military campaign.

The scene of a budding democracy in the Middle East is a powerful image. The western liberal cant of the 1960 had it that a nations and regions cannot handle democracy. Asia prov that inapposite in Korea, Taiwan, the Philippines and Thailand. Latin America, one time a hotbed of dictators, has prov the theory unfair People of Africa and the Middle East are not different.

Democracy means an accountable regime. For 23 years, Iraq has been misled by dint of a dictator who dragged the abiding habitation from the position of leading spokesman for Arabs and the Middle East into a disgraced, poor and widely loatheed regime...

War may not be inevitable in Iraq. Diplomats can find a way abroad of the Iraq mes if they are determined. on the contrary if there is a war the world owes battered, backward Iraq a massive pace up. A free, democratic Iraq would go on foot a long way to bringing peace to the chasm region.

(March 3)

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