Watching This Week yesterday morning, George Will argued there was a dirty little secret about Iraq that wasn't really a secret at all, but a fact that no one wanted to talk about. The real problem, he said, is that Iraq is really three countries: Kurdish Iraq, Sunni Iraq, and Shiite Iraq. He went on to say that the British had artificially imposed the country's current borders, that only tyranny had held them together, and that democracy would not work there because there was no one ruling group that the rest of the country would consent to being ruled by.

But I think Will is flat-out wrong.

As Fareed Zakaria pointed out on the same program, there's a long list of countries whose borders were defined by the British, or other empires.

Basically, it boils down to this: Either you believe in democracy or you don't. It never ceases to amaze me, the number of people who actually live in democracy, who don't really believe in it, apparently including George Will.

Democracy is giving the people the choice of who will govern them, while protecting the rights of any minority classes. Any good democracy also includes checks and balances, so that no single branch can claim an imbalance of power. If you believe in these principles, then you should believe that they can be applied, and should be applied, anywhere.

I've heard people say, "Well what if they elect a theocrat?" Well what if they do? The system should be structured so that a single person cannot easily transform a representative government into totalitarianism...otherwise it's not a very stable system. This isn't an argument against democracy, it's an argument against a poor implementation of democracy.

Call me naive, but I think democracy is the best form of governance devised so far (if you've got a better one, please let me know). The number of democracies has risen dramatically in the past 100 years, and will continue to do so.

Right now the alternative to democracy in Iraq is a return to some form of totalitarianism, either continued rule by American (which we don't want), a puppet, or the rise of a charismatic leader. Democracy should be the clear preference to any other option. To argue that a particular group of people cannot govern themselves is to demean and insult them.

What is it, intrinsicly, that the people of democratic countries might possess (that Iraqis don't) that would allow them to be successful at such a form of governance?

So we have to support the formation of a democracy in Iraq. Any other option is a step backwards, a continuation of failed forms of governance that have plagued the region and perpetuated instability and the repression of human rights.