"It's a catastrophe for tyranny. It's a great day"

Pro-war liberal Paul Berman celebrates the fall of Baghdad. But the real fight for Iraqi freedom, he warns, lies ahead -- and will take years.

By Suzy Hansen

Apr 10, 2003 | When the Iraq war began, Salon talked to Paul Berman, author of "Terror and Liberalism" and a liberal intellectual who favored the military intervention to topple Saddam Hussein's regime, even though he didn't entirely trust the methods and motivations of the Bush administration. In that interview, Berman said that the American left should reconsider some of its traditional arguments against the war and instead march in support of overthrowing the fascist dictatorship -- one he compared to Nazism. Now that Baghdad is largely under the control of the U.S. military, and at least some Iraqis are dancing in the streets, many liberals and those on the antiwar left wonder where to go from here.

Salon spoke to Berman about his reaction to the day's events.

So this is a good day. How have you felt watching TV?

I've been ecstatic. It's a revolutionary moment. It's a catastrophe for tyranny, obscurantism, bigotry and fascism. It's a great day.

Was this what you'd hoped for?

I hoped it would be quicker than this, but yes.

I would imagine that for people who were against the war, it's somewhat of a confusing day. How should the left be thinking about this?

First, I would advise the people who feel confusion to explore their own confusion. The worst thing people on the left can do is to look for ways to cling to some old-fashioned ideas that are not always appropriate.

Certainly, today, at least, is a victory for the Bush administration.

I guess that's right. I don't give a damn about that. What's important about today is the overthrow of this horrible tyrant. People on the American left should get over their obsessions with the horrible Bush in order to be able to recognize the grandeur of the moment. Just because the horrible Bush's father was president in 1989 did not mean that the revolutions of 1989 were horrible. They were great. The overthrow of Saddam is a great accomplishment.

OK, and so what should the left be concerned about now? It's a joyous moment, but one of great uncertainty too. And some of the left's worst fears in terms of imperialism and occupation could still be borne out.

What we on the left should do is press for a genuine liberal revolution in Iraq, which is to say press our own government to do more, press our institutions to get involved. There are two gigantic left-wing impulses that have been at odds here and we have to choose which is more relevant -- anti-imperialism and anti-fascism. What I hope is that everyone recognizes that we're in an anti-fascist moment. We should make sure the fascism of Iraq is really and truly overthrown. And so if in our anti-imperialist ardor we end up pressing the U.S. to do less in that region, to pull out quicker, to turn over power quicker to whatever colonel will ask for it, that would be a mistake.

But do you support Ahmad Chalabi and the Iraqi National Congress as the Bush administration does? There are indications that the Iraqi people will not accept leaders who have not been a part of the country for so many years.

We have no idea. The truth is that the Iraqis have no idea. It would be foolish to imagine that they do or could. They've had no political parties. They've had no way to express or even form opinions. No one inside the country has been able to put themselves forward as an opposition leader or even as a dissident. They're starting at zero. I'm sure it will be a long while before they're in a position to have legitimate political parties and leaders. It will be a long while before they can conduct normal business without killing each other.

They're in much worse shape than much of Eastern Europe, which came out of Communism with alternate leaders. And worse shape than Germany, which had been under Hitler for only 12 years and which did have some old, well-established parties that could come in from exile or back from the camps and play a role.

We ought to remember that Germany was not set up as a full democracy for a long time. In some ways, Germany was not a full democracy until 1989. The first thing the U.S. and the allies did was to ban the Nazi Party, which was the principal party of Germany. The allies did a lot and took control of all the German institutions and began to reshape them. All that took a long while. The European Recovery Act of 1948 was a big deal.

We ought to remember that in terms of the left -- in regard to the European Recovery Act and the Marshall Plan -- the American left split. Some people opposed all that -- the people who had been associated with Henry Wallace, who was the [Ralph] Nader of his day, and people who were on the Communist Party side of things. But the socialist democrats and the liberal left was for all that. And we ought to be able to look at that split and realize some were wrong. We want more engagement from the U.S.

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