From my direct observation of that region, I can say that anybody who believes democracy will be brought to Iraq by means of bombs or at the barrel of a gun is sadly mistaken. It is a country of considerable ethnic conflict between the Kurds in the north, the Shi'ites, the Sunnis, the Marsh Arabs and so on. Iraq is not Minnesota and President Bush's approach to this problem is mythical in nature. The establishment of democracy takes centuries, not decades. Last weekend, I visited the 1798 heritage centre in Enniscorthy. I looked at the "tree of liberty" on which the ideas and words of France, America and Ireland in that period are intertwined and reflected on the mess in which we now find ourselves.