If Kafka ruled the world

Listening to the events of and discourse over the Iraq war, I cannot help but think the world is ruled by one of my favorite authors, Kafka.

The Americans invaded the country in an attempt to remove the weapons of mass destruction, and end human rights abuses, yet turned out to be worse than the deposed.

We have also learned that France and Russia, two of the staunchest defenders of peace, actually fought the war out of the fear that the massive corruption of the oil for food program would come to light.

The list goes on and on, reading exactly like something Kafka himself would write.

Everyone argues that this war is the fault of the US, and that the US should therefore pay the price alone. However, I think if anything, this is just exacerbating the problem. Yes, the US occupation has been a disaster, but conditions could very easily be better if the world was just be more open to helping.

I'll conceede, the US hasn't been willing to ceede authority over Iraq, but who ultimately does that hurt? Iraqis! As the international community tries to stick it to the US for being the unopposed superpower, the situation just gets worse and worse inside Iraq. Neighboring middle eastern countries do not want to see Iraq succeed out of the fear that a democratic government there will create problems for their despotism.

There's nothing we can do now about the war. The US is there, and to completely pull out now would only make things worse. Although this may be an opportunity to challenge the American unipolar order, the only losers in this are the Iraqis.

Everyone criticizes the US for acting, asking why it was so important to go to war over this. As the corruption within the UN proved though, the relief was not achieving its desired end, and the enforcement of the No-Fly Zones was just a waste of money, material and life. So, as my communist friends ask me all the time, why was it so wrong to take a chance? Instead of continuing to plod along in a stagnant international environment, content contain Saddam, as long as he only made his own people's lives miserable, the Bush administration wanted to remake Iraq in the shadow of Western Liberal Democracy.

Perhaps if we start to work together, we can end this Kafkaesque nightmare.