Madam, - It was interesting to read Robert Kagan (Opinion, May 12th) decrying those people who claim it is now too late for the US to establish a democratic system in Iraq. His article seems to be based on the groundless opinion that the Bush administration sought to establish a democracy in Iraq.
It has been clear all along that the US sought not a democratically elected government but simply a pro-US administration. This was to be selected via a system designed to allow only candidates acceptable to the US. Such a system could hardly be called democratic. Now it seems that this goal will not be realisable as the US has alienated itself from many of its allies in the current Iraqi administration.
The Iraqi people have suffered enough from a lack of democracy in the past few decades. They deserve better than the imposed government Bush had planned or the violent chaos in which Bush will probably now leave them. - Yours, etc.,
FEARGAL MURPHY, Stoney Road, Dundrum, Dublin 14.
Madam, - For Kevin Myers to say that the US-led coalition "went into Iraq to enforce the rule of international law" is a bit rich when the enforcers themselves flout those same laws (An Irishman's Diary, May 13th).
The International Criminal Court, the UN, the World Trade Organisation, the IMF, the World Bank, Kyoto, the Geneva Conventions (I could go on), have all had the spirit of their laws, rules and regulations mocked with increasing regularity. But no doubt Mr Myers sees such institutions and agreements as lily-livered fantasies for limp-wristed liberals.
It is wonderful that Saddam is gone, but we have replaced a brutal dictator with an arrogant and clumsy coalition whose motives for a pre-emptive war remain very vague. To go into Iraq and hypocritically enforce Western-style democracy (an idea which took us hundreds of years to develop) and expect a whole culture to roll over and play dead is dangerous and naïve. - Yours, etc.,
ENDA KILROY, Whitehall, Dublin 9.