"War is not necessary for peace."

Turks Challenge Hughes On Iraq

"You're concerned about war, and no one likes war," Hughes said. But "to preserve the peace, sometimes my country believes war is necessary," she said. She also asserted that women are faring much better in Iraq than they had under the rule of deposed president Saddam Hussein.

"War is not necessary for peace," shot back Feray Salman, a human rights activist. She said countries should not try to impose democracy through war, adding that "we can never, ever export democracy and freedom from one country to another."

Quite a tough trip for Karen Hughes- first she gets slammed by the Egyptians, then by the Saudis, and now by the Turks. The Orwellian nature of her comments (indeed, her speech writer should be charged with plagiarism) shows the mentality of this administration. One would think the Right would be able see the striking and frightening parallels between 2005 and 1984, but no. It isn't to be. WAR IS PEACE. FREEDOM IS SLAVERY. IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH.

Women are better off now than under Saddam? What the hell is she sniffing? Is she really that naive? Iraqi women have enjoyed secular, western-style equality for more than 40 years. They didn't have acid thrown in their faces. They were allowed to come outside. They didn't have to wear a hijab. They were allowed to divorce their cheating husbands. It's not like Iraq wasn't a functional society before this war, but this administration paints Iraqis as a backwards people whom we "saved" by regime change. When we went in there, we took no steps to ensuring women, who are so often victims in those oppressive cultures, were not enslaved by male superiority. But who really cares, right? After all, as Reuel Marc Gerecht (Director of the Middle East Initiative at the Project for the New American Century and a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute) says, "Women's social rights are not critical to the evolution of democracy. We hope they're there, I think they will be there, but I think we need to keep this perspective."

As for the exporting democracy comment from the Turkish woman, she is quite wrong. Democracy CAN be exported, but it can't be imposed, and there is no one-size fits all version of it. Democracy comes to nations by exposure to it. It creeps in at first, maybe with a few brave writers questioning an authoritarian government in the press, maybe with a small gathering of people in a minister's office asking why the regime doesn't do something about conditions in the country. It isn't something that can be forced- it's an evolution. Underground democratic movements have been brewing in the Middle East for years now. They were certainly underway when Rabat and Arafat signed the peace deal. We may very well have set democracy back in the MENA region by decades with our irresponsible God-playing behavior.

Public diplomacy is a good idea, but not when you send an ignorant woman like Karen Hughes to do it. How about sending someone who knows the Middle East, who understands the cultural idiosyncrasies of the region? When will this administration stop sending pony show judges to do its work?