Re: Iraq unable to have democracy & why SH needed to be brutal to hold the place together

On Saturday 29 November 2003 13:41, Archimedes Plutonium
([EMAIL PROTECTED])  held forth in soc.history
(<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>):

> You know, when you read everything about SH from western presses, they
> never say anything good about SH. Never. Especially when you read or
> hear what Mr. Bush says about SH. I do not know about you, but I was
> taught and I learned that there is some "good" in everyone and
> everything, even though the majority or preponderance is evil. Yes,
> there was a bit of good in SH. I believe it is the fact that the only
> way to glue together or hold together a country like Iraq of its 3 or
> 4 or 5 or higher number of ethnic cultures into one country was to be
> as brutal as SH was. And now that the brutality has disappeared from
> Iraq, that it will go its "natural route of political evolution" and
> that is to dissolve or disintegrate or fracture into 3 or 4 or 5
> separate countries. Democracy is a poor glue to holding together
> diverse peoples. USSR busted up. Yugoslavia busted up.

Nonsense. Explain India then, or for that matter, the US.

Barring PR China and North Korea, the only countries that have shown little
potential to grow up as democracies are in the Islamic world. Maybe it has
something to do with the word root of the word "Islam" (submission).
Islamic countries also have a harder time in truly dealing with religious
diversity (never mind the deafening silence of Western Liberals on this
issue).

As to Saddam Hussein, even though he appears evil in the framework of modern
democratic systems, he was actually an advancement in the Arab system of
governance. He was secular, even if vicious. In a region, where freedom is
totally unknown and Shariat is applied without question, one has to be
mindful of small improvements.
 
I would grant however that the act of "imposing" democracy in a country that
has had little to no experience, is contradictory in terms. When I last
checked, democracy implies will of the people. South Korea (which had no
prior experience with democracy, and hence perhaps partially comparable to
Iraq) for instance, took nearly 30 years of constant American presence to
convert its autocratic capitalist system into a free market democracy.

A democracy in Iraq is not impossible but I seriously doubt that the
policymakers (much like their putative post war plans) have plans to stay
long enough. There is a difference between a representative autocracy
(which is what appears to be the most likely outcome) and a representative
democracy.

Of course, all this ignores the inevitable violation of the UN Charter that
such military interventions imply.