US no longer fighting for "freedom"

As if we ever were.

BEIRUT, Lebanon - The daily carnage in Iraq is claiming another casualty — Arab reformers who have increasingly become the target of governments that no longer feel pressured by the United States to change.

We were never really fighting for freedom. It was all about establishing a lever to influence unfriendly regimes. In places the US was shut out by the country's leadership, it was believed that the US could affect policy by establishing anti-governmental blocs in parliament.

The US never really pressured the Saudis, or the Pakistanis, or even the Egyptions to democratize except when it was a useful lever against some policy or action the administration didn't like.