In 2003, just weeks before the fall of Baghdad, I was a student at the American University of Beirut. During that time, anti-war demonstrations erupted across the city. I stood alongside students who were chanting: "No to war... No to dictatorship."
While opposed to Saddam Hussein's regime, we rejected his forceful overthrow by foreign forces. Needless to say, our protests did not stop the invasion, and just weeks later, Baghdad fell. As idealistic students, we soon came to the stark realisation that our voices could not change the calculus of major powers.
Later, some criticised our slogan, saying that—intentional or not—it only helped prop up the dictatorship it denounced. It soon became apparent that some regimes could not be changed through democratic pressure and peaceful means. They could only be changed by force.
This harsh reality became even more evident in subsequent conflicts in Libya and Syria. In these cases, war persisted, yet dictatorship remained.
The current situation in Iraq serves as a case in point. The overthrow of Saddam 21 years ago did not deliver neither democracy nor prosperity to the Iraqi people.
