Was It Inevitable?

[Bodhiman]

So, we're not, necessarily unhappy to see the revolutions taking place in Tunisia, Bahrain, Egypt etc. But I'm wondering about Iraq, now.
Multiple options are available but you must explain your reasons.
Choices 3 and 4 seem similar, but are not.
Choice #3 means the "revolution in Iraq" is just a sympathetic reaction. It will die down and things will go back to whatever they are now.
Choice #4 means what it says. This will end in a sort of democracy which is what the U.S. has been trying to instill.
Thanks.

[Colonel Plink]

I'm reminded of the Immortal Words of The Great British Poet, Pete Townsend, who wrote;

"Meet the new Boss. Same as the old Boss."

[Uthrecht]

I spread my votes a bit, partly because I think there's a bit of a crapshoot involved, and partly because I think each nation having a revolution/regime change/what-have-you is a bit different in terms of what kind of governance was left over.

I think Libya is looking like it's gonna be rough sailing for a little while, particularly the longer Gadhafi holds out. Egypt, on the other hand, could possibly end up with something that'll work as a legit democracy - if the current military authority doesn't scuttle it. Which is where the crapshoot comes into play. But I think the more stable the nation was overall beforehand, and the more stable it was left after the change of power, the better the chances would be. I mean, you can have a functioning, overall happy, stable and prosperous nation with no democratic underpinnings; I mean, Egypt was doing fairly well for itself. So some folks that are well-off now may not want to gamble for better stakes by letting it open up further without a fight. On the other hand, they are getting a good look at what happens when you keep the lid down too long.

As an aside, I'd note that the American Revolution in many ways didn't result in the democracy we sought; it resulted in the Articles of Confederation that left the government in a bit of a sloppy mess for a while. Not to derail with a discussion of that, just wanted to point out that this kind of thing can take a couple of cycles even when you end up with pretty good results.

[mswas]

I think it will be an incremental step toward Democracy. If what ends up in Egypt is a protest culture that is not shut down by the ruling class, and Presidents that actually leave when they are voted out of office, they'll have a Democracy.

[Fish]

I agree that it's difficult to predict absolutely that these revolutions will result in democractic- or republic-type governments. The people at the bottom seem to crave democracy and despise nepotism, corruption, and autocracy, but apart from expressing their anger they don't have the means to actually install a democratic system. That authority comes from the people already at the top: landowners, business leaders, generals, previous government officials, and the rich (basically, exactly the sort of people that ran the American Revolution too). Any time there's a power vacuum it's difficult to say exactly what will result. These revolutions may simply be trading one patrician for another, or a so-called populares who turns out to be an optimates in disguise.

Once you get your hands on power, it's hard not to want to spread it around to your friends and allies and withhold it from those you dislike. Right now the liberated areas of Libya are running on fumes and inertia. The people are doing people things like baking bread and fixing cars. When the oligarchs carve the new constitution into shape, the people who made it possible won't be at the table.

[Bodhiman]

All good points, but I was more looking for input about Iraq, specifically, since that's where we've been fighting/dying in the name of democracy for the past decade. As many said at the beginning of this whole shebang, what's the point? Did we just allow thousands of our servicemen and others die so one dick-tater can be replaced with another in some "revolution" we should have seen coming anyway?

[Anacanapuna]

What makes any kind of electorate-driven democracy hard in many parts of the world is that the people are hard-wired to put tribal/ethnic loyalties ahead of nationalism. We Americans have been raised on a steady diet of flag-waving and America-the-greatest-country-on-earth, and while that can get silly, overblown, and sometimes downright dangerous, it has allowed us to transcend our regionalism and other petite loyalties for the greater loyalty to our nation. It's what makes us successful as a unified nation of diverse cultures.

That's hard to do in an area where those diverse cultures have been conquering, raping, and massacreing each other for hundreds and even thousands of years. Hatreds are bred into the people; children are taught to hate and fear as soon as they are born. A Shiite doesn't see a Sunni as some theologically misguided fool, but as an affront to God's very being and something that just needs to be erased. If you are not from his tribe, his clan, you cannot be trusted. Only blood counts, and if you don't share his blood, you probably should be killed at the first opportunity. Certainly, you are not worth any empathy as a human being.

We just don't understand that kind of tribalism, but it is the overwhelming reality in much of the Middle East. I don't have an answer for your specific question, but I think whatever happens, we haven't seen the end of bloodshed there. The people there are just biding their time because they know we're going to be leaving soon. I predict something similar to our withdrawal from Vietnam -- there will be a decent interval, then there will be a bloodbath, and then the least desirable (in terms of U.S. special interests) elements will take over.

[mswas]

Originally Posted by Bodhiman

All good points, but I was more looking for input about Iraq, specifically, since that's where we've been fighting/dying in the name of democracy for the past decade. As many said at the beginning of this whole shebang, what's the point? Did we just allow thousands of our servicemen and others die so one dick-tater can be replaced with another in some "revolution" we should have seen coming anyway?

Who's to say it would have been inevitable without the past decades worth of action in the Middle-East?

[Lounsbury]

Originally Posted by Bodhiman

All good points, but I was more looking for input about Iraq, specifically, since that's where we've been fighting/dying in the name of democracy for the past decade. ...

Your poll and OP were staggeringly unclear.

In any case, Iraq has not been on a path to proper democracy at all, whatever the delusions of the American government.

[Bodhiman]

Originally Posted by Lounsbury

Your poll and OP were staggeringly unclear.

And yet you managed to answer the question.

I'm afraid tying to clarify would only further obfuscate.

[Fish]

The general points about democracy, tribalism, and the power of the individual people to install the one and defeat the other are still valid, no matter where in the world you're speaking of. That it is Iraq particularly doesn't make them immune to the forces of nepotism and my-tribe-comes-first behavior. The number of successful revolutions into democratic states are outnumbered by the revolutions that lead to feeble in-name-only democratic regimes with fixed elections a la Mubarak, Ahmedinejad, etc.

[Lounsbury]

Originally Posted by Bodhiman

And yet you managed to answer the question.

Actually I only responded after you indicated you were thinking of Iraq, a point that was not clear at all.

Originally Posted by Fish

The general points about democracy, tribalism, and the power of the individual people to install the one and defeat the other are still valid, no matter where in the world you're speaking of. That it is Iraq particularly doesn't make them immune to the forces of nepotism and my-tribe-comes-first behavior. The number of successful revolutions into democratic states are outnumbered by the revolutions that lead to feeble in-name-only democratic regimes with fixed elections a la Mubarak, Ahmedinejad, etc.

For Iraq you have a double layer of problems.

First there is the Sunni - Shia divide; Sunni includes the Kurds, although that gets glossed over in the popular press. the Kurdish leadership at present is less religiously identify oriented than ethnic, as that's their best means to power (despite easy talk about Kurdish democracy, in fact the Kurdish regions are run as corrupt oligarchies), but that is not a permanent fact. Historically the Kurds were Sunni supremacy champions. The idiocies of Arab nationalism turned them towards ethnic identity - rather as Turkish ethnic nationalism did in Turkey after the Ottoman state.

That division is profound, although the Dictatorship of Sadaam managed to tamp it down - rather as Yugoslavia's system managed to suppress religious / ethnic division temporarily. Who knows, if those dictatorships had not been crippling incompetent in fields economic, they might have achieved something.

Regardless, the achievements were unstable and the moderate position is not a strong one in the current state of Iraq, people when threatened turn to identity groups for protection...

Second, underlying the religious divide are both the ethnic divides and the tribe / regional group divides (in some ways synonymous). Kurds versus Arabs (or better, Kurds versus everyone else), regional tribes against others (the religious component of identity mixing in here).

As Fish notes, this has an impact. It was sheer fantasy, the American expectations for Iraq c. 2002-2003. Iraq was and is not a strong state, nor nation. That is not the same as saying Democracy can't work in the MENA region, it is merely recognising that in particular in the Levant / Mesopotamia, the ingredients are largely missing.

If we turn out eyes to North Africa, excepting Libya, which rather more resembles the East, in both the Core Maghreb (Alg, Mor, Tun) and Egypt, you have post-colonial states that in fact have deep historical - pre colonial - roots, and are, more or less nations in their own right. That's not trivial. Recall that of the Arab World population, the majority in fact live West of the Middle East, 80 millions in Egypt, and in the Core Maghreb, ~70 millions.

Although English language media focus on the Gulf, the Levant, and Egypt, in fact the majority of the Arab World live in North Africa, in states that have a decent shot at creating democracies - although I am pessimistic about Egypt at present.

[Bodhiman]

Originally Posted by Bodhiman

So, we're not, necessarily unhappy to see the revolutions taking place in Tunisia, Bahrain, Egypt etc. But I'm wondering about Iraq, now.
Multiple options are available but you must explain your reasons.
Choices 3 and 4 seem similar, but are not.
Choice #3 means the "revolution in Iraq" is just a sympathetic reaction. It will die down and things will go back to whatever they are now.
Choice #4 means what it says. This will end in a sort of democracy which is what the U.S. has been trying to instill.
Thanks.

Just a refresher...

[Lounsbury]

Yeah mate, and virtually no one - as evidenced by the replies above was sure by your phrasing if you meant Iraq alone or generally. You of course can continue to be pointlessly defensive like a small child or not.

[Anacanapuna]

And you can continue to be an asshole or not. It's really painful to watch people who failed to understand an OP's not-very-subtle point continue to harrass the original poster when they realize they glossed right over the OP's thesis statement. Bodhiman's statement, "But I'm wondering about Iraq, now," would be that thesis statement. True, it's not phrased like one, but what I'm wondering is how anyone could have missed that, especially since it had a linky in it.

[Jeff]

What about Iraq? No credible sources are claiming that the uprisings in the other countries have resulted in, or will result in real democracy. A couple of strongmen have been kicked out, that's all. Others are still in a very unresolved state of turmoil. So why would we assume that demonstrations in Iraq would or could achieve this "real democracy"?

[Bodhiman]

Jeff: I agree that we have yet to see any result from these uprisings, much less democracy. There is always the first choice, dictatorship. It would be nice if the three main tribes in Iraq could just get along, but I'm doubting that will happen. That said, it is just as unlikely that we would scale up military operations to the extent we did just to place another dictator in power. If the uprisings in Iraq continue and are not just a bandwagon phase, I'm guessing we'll have another Iran wherein the Ayatollah makes the decisions.

[mswas]

Well Egypt would have something very close to Democracy if they actually had elections where they could get the leader out of office, and if they continue the policy of not shooting protestors.

Part of the stability in Western Democracies comes from the fact that it's really easy to neuter protest movements simply by allowing them to protest. By not resisting them, they get bored, morose and tell each other how useless protesting is.

People like to point out the lack of anti-war protests from the left under Obama. They think this has to do with some sort of hypocrisy. But actually, they decided during the anti-war protests in 2003 that protesting is almost completely useless. There is still a protest culture, and well, it's pretty huge, but there are protests all the time that are larger than the Glenn Beck rally on the Washington Mall that barely even get reported in the news.

People literally do not notice protestors anymore.

I think this is in a way a source of stability. By not shooting protestors, any national government can reduce its tyranny quotient by a great deal, without actually giving anyone anything.

[Watson51]

Originally Posted by Colonel Plink

I'm reminded of the Immortal Words of The Great British Poet, Pete Townsend, who wrote;

"Meet the new Boss. Same as the old Boss."

Are we here to talk about some political issues. I mean there are arising some anarchy in international scenario. And it seems that this flow if persists would bring a lot of destruction if the present world.

[Watson51]

Originally Posted by Watson51

Are we here to talk about some political issues. I mean there are arising some anarchy in international scenario. And it seems that this flow if persists would bring a lot of destruction if the present world.

[mod note]Ironically inevitable. Link broken, spammer banned.[/note]