(December 1, 2018 at 3:11 pm)Anomalocaris Wrote:(December 1, 2018 at 3:03 pm)Cherub786 Wrote: I disagree. The Iraqis gave themselves this war and chaos. They could have taken advantage of the golden opportunity that was presented to them, the first Arab country to have the gift of democracy. Instead they chose to launch an insurgency, start a sectarian civil war, ethnically cleanse each other, bomb each other's shrines and mosques, and elect corrupt politicians (Nouri al-Maliki) to loot their coffers.
Of course a lot of the blame lies on external actors. The Saudis, Syrians and Iranians did not want Iraq to succeed from day 1. They infiltrated the country with their proxies to destabilize it. Why? They knew if Iraq becomes a successful democracy, their own people will want the same thing and their autocratic and corrupt rule will be in jeopardy.
You still don’t understand you can not give democracy as a gift.
The best you can do is try to give the facade and the institutions of democracy as a gift.
Facade and Instititution of democracy does not equal democracy.
For many societies, the fact that the facade and institution of democracy is a terrible curse that will wreck the society without giving birth to actual democracy is something they understand because of their on-the-ground experience of their societal world view and deeper societal power structure, but we in our airy conceit can not see from 80,000 feet nor fathom or imagine in our doctrinarian mind.
Democractic facade or institution has either failed or is on life support everywhere in the Middle East. It has never ever midwifed any democracy in that part of the world.
Again I disagree. The basic foundation of democracy is free and fair elections. Those are held regularly in Iraq. Just recently a government was formed. Say what you want about Iraq's domestic problems, it is a functioning democracy no matter how little confidence the people have in the state.
The point is, would Iraq have these free and fair elections and these peaceful transitions of power if Saddam was not removed? I suspect not.
It is to be expected that the road to becoming a functioning democracy will be turbulent. With all the obstacles in the way of Iraq, the fact that it is still a functioning democracy - there is much to say for that. It is a young state, just 15 years old.
And once the rest of the Arabs saw Iraq given the gift of democracy, they launched their own revolutions (Arab Spring). But since they didn't have the advantage of American troops on their soil to guarantee the process went forward, the Arab Spring quickly became the Arab Winter when the dictators strike back. Tunisia was the only relative success - while the Arab Spring failed in Egypt, Libya, Yemen, Bahrain and Syria.
America's invasion of Iraq and removal of a dictator in 2003 was what triggered the ordinary Arab's imagination that yes we too can have democracy and we too have the right to it.
