My proposal was to give Allawi a free hand to bring order to the country, much like Attaturk did in Turkey.
History shows it is nearly impossible to bring a backward, tribal society rapidly into modernity without some interim period of benevolent dictatorship.
Every single country that has made this transition successfully in the 20th century has gone through such a period: Chile, Spain, Turkey, South Korea, and Taiwan. There is not a single instance of a country this century doing so without one.
Iran was well on its way, but then we stupidly pulled the plug on the Shah.
History shows it is nearly impossible to bring a backward, tribal society rapidly into modernity without some interim period of benevolent dictatorship.
Iyad Allawi had no legitimacy and fed the Sunni resistance to our defacto occupation. We prefer to think of it as bringing liberty and democracy, but you have to look at it from Sunni's viewpoint. How do you look at the current invasion from Latin America by illegals?
Every single country that has made this transition successfully in the 20th century has gone through such a period: Chile, Spain, Turkey, South Korea, and Taiwan. There is not a single instance of a country this century doing so without one.
All of those examples have a great deal of physical separation from their neighbors by water or mountain ranges. The first three were largely home grown despotisms. The last two had relatively friendly populations with reason to fear the commies.
Iran was well on its way, but then we stupidly pulled the plug on the Shah.
To the extent that the Shah was considered our SOB, I don't know if he could have stopped the Ayatollah and his minions. He was dying of cancer, and didn't have the wherewithal or stomach to put down the revolution. And the Shah wasn't considered a benevolent despot. God knows what the State Dept. of Cyrus Vance told the Shah.