[wardaddy]

actually I agree with Omar here.

some cultures are either not ready or don’t want democracy

it’s not by accident it’s a form of government rarely practiced like our’s

many democracies and republics today are anything but

it worked here for a while but will ultimately fail due to it’s own largess

you give those who don’t contribute the same power as those that do and it can’t last

toss in deconstruction of the very culture that made the nation great to begin with and you can turn off the lights

which will happen here baring a cataclysm

[Cyropaedia]

The one “democracy” among Islamic countries that everyone holds up as a model is, of course, Turkey. But Turkey is not an actual “democracy”. It is the military that wields the true power in that country, and that is by design.

[E. Cartman]

actually I agree with Omar here

I do too. Sharif is right. Democracy is the exception and there must be certain social/cultural antecedents for it to take root.

Yes, Iraq has had succesful elections. But, will they have them after we leave?

[xkaydet65]

I tend to agree with you, and I think you could add a corollary to Sharif's notion. You could expand it to Hispanic nations. Spain sufered 700 years under the caliphate. Much of what we think of as Spanish culture is really Arab or Islamic. The Spanish concepts of alcalde, caudillo, and jefe speak to the dependence on a strongman for decision making, just as Arab and Berber tribes do also depend.

Ralph Peters has made this point many times and Bob Kaplan, in his wonderful book, Imperial Grunts, quotes a Filipino newspaperman explaining to Kaplan and an Army Special Forces officer the difficulties of developing democracy in the Philippines, by saying " What Spanish culture nation has ever developed real democracy" I think Sharif's spot on here and i think it's something we should have considered in our warplanning.