Learning to Compromise

There is probably no greater trait that is more American than compromise. Our own Constitution was but a compromise between 13 colonies as vastly different as their North and South geographies. The colonists would not even consider approval of the first draft of the Philadelphia document until their individual rights were upheld with the Bill of Rights. The first ten amendments to the American Constitution are a compromise between the government and the people, a first for world history. Even slavery was compromised into the Constitution with the Three-fifths Compromise making each slave only three-fifths of a person and legally upholding the rights of states to intern human beings.

Throughout American history the most prevalent form of governing is compromise. The Compromise of 1820 yet again dealt with the slavery issue and again in 1850 slavery once more was compromised into the American democracy. And who can forget the compromise of 2000 when the Supreme Court selected George W. Bush to be the 43rd president while Al Gore gently stepped aside. We have compromised more than any other nation on Earth, and if we are to pass on any of our stubborn traits to Iraq, let it be the art of compromise.

It appears in Iraq that just maybe they are beginning to understand the benefits of compromise. And learning to compromise in the Middle East is no easy task. It is admiringly so that while our Fore Fathers painstakingly drafted our Constitution, people were not being murdered in the streets. Nor was America under the occupation of a foreign military. Some things are acutely different, but the only way out of this mess may be a compromise of force and wit.

Tags:
Iraq Constitution, Deal in Iraq, Iipm