It may be recalled when on April 12, 1770, the British Parliament repealed the Stamp Duty because of opposition from the colonists, some Americans, who called themselves Sons of Liberty, were not happy. In most leading urban areas of America, obscure political hacks such as Sam Adams of Boston had achieved public renown and personal success for the first time in their lives by denouncing the threat of British tyranny from the moment of the Stamp Act. No new dish of outrage from Britain meant lean days or bad home cooking. As time passed, the stature of politicians whose popularity depended upon British tyranny diminished progressively. They despaired for their future. Their influence faded inexorably.

Then in 1773, the Parliament passed a law with American implications. In the course of regulating the affairs of the East India Company, the House of Commons legislated some provisions that would make British tea, legitimately imported, cheaper and therefore competitive with that smuggled into the colonies from Holland. It lowered the duties on British tea. So-called patriots like Sam Adams interpreted cheap tea as the means of seducing the Sons of Liberty into subjugation. According to them, the House of Commons had paused for three years "not to repent their evil deeds, but rather to collect themselves, and devise some measures more effectual.The plan of oppression is renewed." Adams and his followers decided to "venture upon a desperate remedy" to prevent the tea from being landed. On December 16, 1773, one hundred and fifty Sons of Liberty disguised as native Indians boarded three ships in Boston harbour and "in a very little time," according to Sam Adams, "every one of the teas was immersed in the bay, without the least injury to private property."

Of course, the East India Company regarded their tea as private property of some value. In fact, by their accounting, 10,000 pound worth of private property had been wantonly and publicly destroyed, leading to a chain of events which ultimately triggered a full scale war. However, if Britain had ignored Sam Adams and his antics and did not declare martial law in Boston, Sam Adams and his followers would have again lost their standing and like Canada, America would have evolved peacefully as an independent nation within the Commonwealth.

The 18th century political opportunists like Sam Adams and his group of Sons of Liberty, US President George W. Bush and his neo-conservative underlings seem to be using spreading democracy in Iraq as a thinly disguised quest to promote their own careers. Having been elected in a dubious 2000 presidential race by disenfranchising thousands of African-American voters and by the intervention of partisan Supreme Court judges, Mr. Bush needed some spectacular show of force to project his image as a saviour of democracy. To achieve this, he is using the military intervention in Iraq first to dismantle Iraq's nonexistent weapons of mass destruction and when weapons could not be found, he has expanded his justification for military intervention as a gesture to bring democracy in Iraq.

According to Bush's ambassador to Iraq Zalmi Khalilzad, the Americans might have opened "a Pandora's box in Iraq." The Sunni insurgents are attacking the Shi'ite majority who have won the election. The once-dominant Sunnis resent their loss of power and now dominant Shi'ite majority fear that any concession may lead to renewed Sunni domination and the Kurds are looking for an opportunity to secede from Iraq. Instead of bringing democracy, Bush might have brought anarchy in Iraq. The American forces have become bystanders incapable of stemming the sectarian bloodletting.