03-07-2003, 12:49 AM
The question won't be "which will it be?"
The question will be "which will they be?"
That country is held together by spit, duct tape, and the Caudillismo (arabic chapter) of Saddam Hussein. If it wasn't, it would be at least two states, probably more. They also don't really like each other, especially in the Kurdish instance.
Plus, of course, you have all sorts of neighbours who want a sphere of influence, if not actual conquests. Turkey, for one, is very interested in the Kurds, and not like the French were interested in the Americans.
So, a government there would have some very real choices. Peace? Stability? Representation? Prosperity? Liberty? Cohesion? All of these things would require separate types of states; any prospective government would be lucky to get two of them covered, let alone all of them, which seems to be what the administration is promising. Cohesion is probably the hardest of them, since most people in the region don't like most other people, and the pan-Arabists are going to fight with the nationalists are going to fight with the Islamists, and they're all going to fight with anyone supporting a western-style democracy. How is this all going to stay together as one state or coalition without resorting to opression? My bet is that it can't.
When the administration says democracy, they mean the American model, as Mr. Spectre not-sarcastically pointed out. But that model relies on assumptions that are not only false in Iraq, they're VERY false. There must exist a certain range of conditions, a certain level of social development, and certain traditions. Any proceeding with the assumption that Iraq has these things, or can pick them up in a heartbeat, is going to be a diastrous failure, in my opinion.
Jester
The question will be "which will they be?"
That country is held together by spit, duct tape, and the Caudillismo (arabic chapter) of Saddam Hussein. If it wasn't, it would be at least two states, probably more. They also don't really like each other, especially in the Kurdish instance.
Plus, of course, you have all sorts of neighbours who want a sphere of influence, if not actual conquests. Turkey, for one, is very interested in the Kurds, and not like the French were interested in the Americans.
So, a government there would have some very real choices. Peace? Stability? Representation? Prosperity? Liberty? Cohesion? All of these things would require separate types of states; any prospective government would be lucky to get two of them covered, let alone all of them, which seems to be what the administration is promising. Cohesion is probably the hardest of them, since most people in the region don't like most other people, and the pan-Arabists are going to fight with the nationalists are going to fight with the Islamists, and they're all going to fight with anyone supporting a western-style democracy. How is this all going to stay together as one state or coalition without resorting to opression? My bet is that it can't.
When the administration says democracy, they mean the American model, as Mr. Spectre not-sarcastically pointed out. But that model relies on assumptions that are not only false in Iraq, they're VERY false. There must exist a certain range of conditions, a certain level of social development, and certain traditions. Any proceeding with the assumption that Iraq has these things, or can pick them up in a heartbeat, is going to be a diastrous failure, in my opinion.
Jester