Posted on 11/25/2006 5:23:22 AM PST by nuconvert
Nurture Iraqi democracy, from the ground up
by Michael Rubin
Los Angeles Times
November 16, 2006
The democratically elected government of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki has proved a grave disappointment. Security has worsened since Maliki has been in power. Ignoring the pleas of U.S. officials, he has been unwilling to crack down on the militias and death squads that fuel sectarian violence — and the mass kidnapping from a Ministry of Higher Education building in Baghdad on Tuesday by gunmen in police uniforms shows the consequences.
Last month, Maliki's government refused to cooperate with U.S. troops searching for a kidnapped comrade. A week later, Maliki ordered U.S. forces to lift a blockade of Sadr City, where the missing soldier was believed to be held.
Corruption remains corrosive. Maliki's administration has hemorrhaged hundreds of millions of dollars. Oil revenues and foreign aid disappear. Maliki and his allies treat ministries as mechanisms for patronage. They dispense jobs to political loyalists, not able technocrats. Officials in the Shiite-dominated Health Ministry, for example, have replaced experienced doctors with uneducated militiamen.
But does this mean that the U.S. ambition to bring democracy to Iraq was a mistake? As a supporter of the war, and later an advisor to the U.S. occupation authority, I don't think so. Despite our disappointment with Maliki, the strategic rationale for promoting democracy in the Middle East — and in Iraq in particular — remains sound. But it needs to be a long-term strategy, as demonstrated by our success in Korea, where more than 35,000 American servicemen sacrificed their lives. Half a century later, the juxtaposition of totalitarian, destitute and nuclear North Korea with thriving and peaceful South Korea shows the value of a long-term strategy to build democracy.
(Excerpt) Read more at meforum.org ...
Democracy, as we know it, requires an understanding of why democratic institutions are necessary and beneficial to a society.
Nowhere in the Middle East have we seen evidence that the people there are ready for anything but theocratic strongman rule.
Maybe after a few hundred more years of colonialism some degree of democracy might be possible, but even that estimate is probably optimistic if the past is any guide.
No doubt many Muslims would like to live in a civilization like America. But their fundamentalist "religion" is against them.
Probably the best we can hope for is to let them alone to form their own tribal rulers and keep guns and explosives out of their hands.
But there is no easy way to go from strongman control to elecive councils, without reversion in many ways to the old strongman tactics. The militias have not been disarmed and neutralized, and the central government has not yet been accepted as an effective alternatrive to these militias.
Therefore, the militias have effectively denied the elected national government the legitimacy they need to maintain control through moral authority alone.
Like Napoleon taking control of the Paris mob as the French Revolution was near collapsing, there may have to be a "whiff of grapeshot" to calm some excitable souls. The French leaders of the time were perfectly willing to fire upon some of their own partisans, if that is what it took to restore order. A small price to pay in a country that was torn by widespread dissent and disorder. Napoleon restored a sense of destiny to France when this era of revolution had passed, but that glory largely died with the passing of the French Empire, and the country has never recovered.
Revolutions are a lot easier to start than stop.
Godo comments, but first we must end the so-called "insurgency" before democracy can take root. That means bombing the Triangle of Death (where teh Sunni terrorists congregate) and then taking out the Mahdi army (al-Sadr's pro-Iranian Shiite terrorists.) Then we can start building both democracy and Iraq's own security and police so that we can eventually reduce our presence to a small force (which will be needed for a while just in cae of emergency.)
Instead, our spineless political leaders seem to be looking for a "dignified" way to lose.
Last month, Maliki's government refused to cooperate with U.S. troops searching for a kidnapped comrade. A week later, Maliki ordered U.S. forces to lift a blockade of Sadr City, where the missing soldier was believed to be held.
"...tribes with flags."
Iraq's Shiite-Led Gov't Angers Sunnis
The Washington Post | Sunday, November 19, 2006 | BASSEM MROUE
Posted on 11/19/2006 4:46:42 PM EST by MinorityRepublican
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1741260/posts
Iraqi PM plays host to insurgents
The Times | November 24 2006 | Ned Parker
Posted on 11/23/2006 11:46:27 AM EST by jmc1969
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1743114/posts
Al-Sadr group threatens to quit
aljazeera | November 24 2006
Posted on 11/24/2006 2:36:33 PM EST by jmc1969
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1743504/posts
"Faleh Hasan Shanshal, a political aide of Moqtadr al-Sadr, said on Friday: 'We have asked al-Maliki to cancel his meeting with Bush as there is no reason to meet the criminal who is behind terrorism in Iraq.'"
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