[billbears]

How pathetic. You believe that political views are genetically transmitted

You know I do believe you are an idiot. I'm sorry but at no point did I say that nor did I insinuate it. My point was that the culture of Western nations, England in particular, and political actions within said nations brought about a very slow move toward republican government. A move that began with the Magna Carta and peaked at the time of the American Revolution. Tell us, since you claim such a knowledge of history. What has been the culture of the Islamic nations for the past 500 years? The Iraqis may get it. However it won't be next week, next month, or next year. It won't be in the next decade either. If their form of government is still holding in a generation, I would hold out a small hope for it. Of course the last time popular government was introduced in Iraq, it took less than a generation for it to be overrun

And under your theory, there is no possible explanation of the students who demonstrated and died in Tienanmen Square in China. After all, those demonstrators were all raised from birth, aggressively, as communists. And yet, they put up a replica of the Statue of Liberty, and quoted liberally from Thomas Jefferson.

By that argument, if we're to believe your simplistic version of the world, the English monarchy should have come crashing down once Locke's writings were released in the 1690s. It takes decades, if not centuries of lone voices, sometimes small groups, not only quoting past dissidents, but living (and dying) towards an ideal of a Republic. Of course history shows us this. And since you have 'learned' from history, you should know this.

China will eventually fall. Not from outside influences but because of the people within the nation. Of course again they don't have to tell with the rigors of Islam, which will help.

You reject the idea that a new generation in any nation can choose a radically different political path than their parents. I'm sorry you have such a benighted view of the capacity of human beings to change.

In no fashion at all. I am just not as naive to believe the Iraqis, or any nation for that matter, will wake up overnight and understand the importance of having a Republic.

But do carry on Oliver. It only took the English 10 years to run back to a monarchy, the only question in the minds of the realists is how long will it take for Iraq to return to a theocracy. Of course I suppose if it's popularly elected you'll have no problem with it?

I also notice for some reason you chose not to address the historical references refuting your tired talking points. Perhaps in your next post you could do something about that, although I doubt it.

I do hope Iraq eventually becomes a Republic, not a democracy. I don't hold much hope for it, especially after speaking to several friends who have returned from Iraq in the past few weeks. If they do eventually morph into one, it will not be because of US involvement but because the Iraqis choose it. The best possible solution would be to split the region into three parts. One for the Kurds, one for the Sunnis, and one for the Shiites. And that very well may eventually happen on it's own. Everything else instituted in that nation by Western countries in the past century has fallen apart, why shouldn't that too?

[Congressman Billybob]

One word refutes all that you argue.

Athens.

The City-State of Athens, birthplace of democracy in the Western World, created its successful democratic republic in a single generation. It did that out of whole cloth, from a long-time, previously existing dictatorship.

Or, another example: Kemal Ataturk.

He was an absolute dictator who left power and transformed Turkey instantaneously into a successful, secular democratic republic.

I'll give you a third example: Alexander Kerensky (whom I had the honor to meet):

For just a year, he transformed the Czarist dictatorship of Russia into a democratic republic, until the Bolsheviks took over by force. (Bolsheviks, by the way, means only "majority," which they never had during their entire regime.)

To repeat, all your prattle about "culture" amounts to an argument that serfdom, monarchies, tyrannies, are all genetic. If you are born into that, you cannot survive in another form of government.

And apparently, you do not understand the provisions of the new Iraqi constitution. It does create a regional, federal democracy not unlike the Cantons of Switzerland, which was a necessary accommodation to its four different linguistic groups, and has survived for 500 years, give or take a few decades.

You have trouble understanding the necessary consequences of your own arguments about "culture" determining the politics of the next generation. When you do not understand your own argument, it is a fatal defect to your participation in a productive debate.

John / Billybob