As we all know the Iraq elections were a spectacular success, afterall under fifty people died! But once the euphoria of this experiment in democracy began to wear off some unsettling news trickled in. It turns out that Allawis party is behind, far behind, in the polls. The Religious Shia 'slate' is beating the pants off him, obama style. This means that Iraq's constitution is going to reflect the Shia's deeply held religious views. This means that women are not going to be treated well at all, and that the law is the Koran. People will prolly be judged by a council of mullahs, and Iraq will have strong ties with Iran. Before the first gulf war, we were tickled pink about Saddam. You see, he wasn't a muslim extremist like the Iranians. He was a modern-thinking, secular sunni. Religious minorites weren't persecuted (aside from when he would go genocidal against some rebelling people), and women were educated. I believe i heard somehwhere that Iraq had the highest rate of educated women, and women in the workplace out of any predominently muslim nation. that, and he hated Iran. So, if a religious strongman rises out of this mess and takes control of Iraq, we could arguably be worse off than with a secular strongman like before.
I can't see how there will be much of an improvement... it seems like the right is expecting them to function in the same type of democracy as the US and that just isn't feasible. My guess is that they are still going to be corrupted, and their infrastructure is definitely still going to be in shambles by the time the US pulls out.
I don't think so. First of all, look at your comment: Aside from the genocides? That's a pretty big exception. The fact that Sistani is a cleric doesn't mean he is a rabid extremist that wants to run the country. In fact he seems to have relatively moderate views, particularly on the role of clerics in the governments. He also has shown no signs of being friendly to Iran. Get to know Sistani: http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/front/la-fg-sistani6feb06,1,5585849.story?coll=la-headlines-frontpage
I read recently that the hardliners in Iran are very worried that a democratic Shiite movement in Iraq might embolden the Iranian dissident movement.
Well they've already said they won't leave Iraq under the power of one specific religion... but... Our govt. is so incompetent.
awfully arrogant to attempt to institute a democratic government into a culture that has no historic precedent for such a system. worse off, no, but both governments were equally illegitimate.
Please explain how both governments are illegitimate, maybe in the 1st 4 years of Bush you could definitly argue that, but how is the Iraqi and now American government illegit.
in both cases, i was referring to the iraqi government. i wouldn't go so far as to call our government illegitimate. with saddam, iraq's govt. was obviously a dictatorial tyranny, refusing to respect the natural rights of it's citizens. breach of social contract. current iraqi govt. was instituted without the consent of the iraqi people.
