Free to make their own mistakes

"Every country has the right to liberate a slave pen," Ayn Rand argued. A right, but not a duty. Naturally, there is no guarantee of success when a slave pen is liberated, and the act of liberating one slave pen may in fact encourage by example the removal of similar shackles elsewhere.

Such is the case with the liberation of Iraq. There is no guarantee of success in the difficult task of building a stable, peaceful democracy in Iraq, nor is there in its newly liberated near-neighbour Lebanon. But there is much cause for hope.

The citizens of both Iraq and Lebanon are now free to succeeed in this endeavour or to fail. As this article on Beirut's immediate future says of the Lebanese, they are now free make their own mistakes.