h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Finally the coalition has the scenes they wanted. The Iraqi people have realised that it's all over; they're cheering in the streets of Baghdad. Pictures are burning, shoes are flying. A fallen statue of Saddam Hussein lies on the ground while the people dance on it and scream their hatred.

I'm reminded of the end of 1989, when the world order that I'd known all my life crumbled in front of my eyes. The borders opening; the Berlin Wall falling; the swarms of people cheering as one government after another fell; the final, bloody fall of the Ceauscescus on Christmas Day. The stories of two of my teachers who were there the night the wall fell, as East German wall guards helped them find chunks of concrete to bring home.

A revolution chosen by the people, for the people. But the Ba'ath regime would never have turned over power as the Czechoslovakian government did in their velvet revolution. Iraq had their Prague Spring in 1991 - how many more would there have been? Has this swift war saved Iraq years of bloody civil war, or opened the floodgates to more terrorism and anger and violence? Do countries have a right to choose their own form of government, and should we have waited until the Iraqis finally turned on their government themselves?

How many lives would have been lost in that situation, and how many are living on borrowed time now?

Wouldn't it be wonderful to find out that our leaders really are motivated by humanitarian concerns, and not petty national interests or dreams of empire? That all the trumped-up excuses for war never happened? That the choices of a far-right-wing clique haven't laid the way for the destruction or sidelining of the UN and international law? That there's now no precedent for any country to invade any other they like without recourse to anyone?

Wouldn't it be fantastic to see the coalition troops swiftly pass responsibility to a democratically elected government, leaving them to organise their own affairs, and to make their own choices without outside interference or coercion? To see that government succeed, without either chance or coup passing Iraq into the hands of another tyrant? To know that we aren't delivering them into the hands of another murdering torturer, to have their screams ignored for another twenty-five years?

All these questions remain to be answered. But that's all for tomorrow.

Today, I'm happy to watch the icons burn and the statues fall, and hope for the future.