The Warden Collection (merged thread)

[TheCurmudgeon]

I respectfully disagree on this point. Saddam Hussein ruthlessly suppressed everyone and his government included a large number of high ranking Shias. The absence of sectarian conflict is what enabled the Hussein government to function. This false narrative is part of the current problem in formulating an effective response and it's part of the cause of Iraq's instability in the first place since the US administration actively institutionalized sectarian differences in the post-Hussein political system. Sustainable democratic governance is not created through active division of the population.

AP, you could be right. However, I think that history has demonstrated in Iraq, Syria, and even places like Kosovo that, in places where there are traditional sectarian differences that have been suppressed via extreme cohesion, once that suppressive force is released those old hatreds surface with a vengeance. Until they are properly addressed, there will be no peace.

However, I will argue against your ideas that sustainable democratic governance is not created through active division of the population. I believe that democracy is easier to achieve where there are bonds that hold the target population together. The idea of power sharing is easier to accept where there is not already a strong distrust. There is trust among homogenous groups. I believe that democracy is actually easier to achieve in a homogenous population than in a sectarian one. I believe the research on the matter will back me up. Again, see http://warontherocks.com/2014/05/dem...obayashi-maru/.

[AmericanPride]

AP, you could be right. However, I think that history has demonstrated in Iraq, Syria, and even places like Kosovo that, in places where there are traditional sectarian differences that have been suppressed via extreme cohesion, once that suppressive force is released those old hatreds surface with a vengeance. Until they are properly addressed, there will be no peace.

That's true to an extent. But "traditional sectarian differences" implies that they not inherent and that they are mutable. The escalation and descalation of conflict goes through phases over time and across generations; some time periods better or worse than others. Each of those countries you cited have long periods of both, and in the eras of peaceful co-existence normalcy consisted of mixed neighborhoods and marriages, and significant cross-cultural polination. Ethnicity is a specific frame not always correctly selected and accurately applied, and sometimes, like the recent conflict in Iraq, it takes on a life of its own after some instigatation. This is actually true in nearly all instances of intensifying inter-ethnic conflict, including cases of genocide. Once one group decides to seize power for itself (or is placed into power by an external force), the situation compels all other groups to act accordingly. Identifying division is an act of alienation in itself, and institutionalizing it in the political system invariably leads to conflict since someone is always the out-group. This is what the United States did in Iraq by attempting legitimize in law the religious differences of the population. It's a structural problem, not a cultural one.

"Those old hatreds" did not "surface with a vengeance" in Syria, Iraq, and Kosovo until instigated by intervention. In the case of Iraq, it was the failure of the Bush administration to replace the Hussein regime with an effective government - instead, the CPA dismantled government entirely starting with the security forces and administration. And we held on to the narrative of Baathists = Sunnis = repressive minority to justify their legal alienation in the new political system. And in Syria, it was the instigation of armed groups through US allies while the US itself worked diligently to destablize the Assad regime, obstructing Syria's ability to actually keep its civil society together.

There's a reason why the West has generally abolished laws distinguishing rights and priveleges on the basis of race or religion.

[AmericanPride]

However, I will argue against your ideas that sustainable democratic governance is not created through active division of the population. I believe that democracy is easier to achieve where there are bonds that hold the target population together. The idea of power sharing is easier to accept where there is not already a strong distrust. There is trust among homogenous groups. I believe that democracy is actually easier to achieve in a homogenous population than in a sectarian one. I believe the research on the matter will back me up. Again, see http://warontherocks.com/2014/05/dem...obayashi-maru/.

The "bonds" do not necessarily have to be cultural or ethnic. This is a narrative imposed on the majority on the minority to justify the exclusion of the minority from the political process. Those in power do not want to share and deliberately create filters through which to distribute power - this often comes down to ethnicity, religion, race, and so on. The power of a democratic society is not created by its homogenieity but through its plurality in which all groups (or alliance of groups) have similar levels of power and access to power. This is why successful power sharing agreements distribute power rather than separate those seeking it.

Maliki's refusal to share power is invitation by other groups to contest it. The problem is complicated because the most empowered opponents have been so radicalized by the trauma of the War in Iraq, the Arab Spring, and the War in Syria, that the two sides are light years apart in their political positions. Our policy in Iraq and Syria has more or less propelled Al Qaeda from a marginal terrorist threat to one of the most robust movements in the Middle East in decades. It was not sectarian differences that created this problem, but the many years of violence and instability by our failure to create a stable government in Iraq in 2003.

[TheCurmudgeon]

Our policy in Iraq and Syria has more or less propelled Al Qaeda from a marginal terrorist threat to one of the most robust movements in the Middle East in decades. It was not sectarian differences that created this problem, but the many years of violence and instability by our failure to create a stable government in Iraq in 2003.

I disagree in general, but this comment I find odd. The key players now, ISIS, are not AQ. They have deliberately separated themselves from that organization, which probably had it height of power in 2006 and has been on the decline ever since. I am not sure our policy (other than our occupation of traditional Islamic lands) has done much to alter that groups opinion of us.

We might have been able to create a stable government in Iraq, but it would not have been democratic. The odds against that were 1725 to 1, and estimates were that it would've taken 50 years of active support. I think it was a pipe dream that we could recreate the middle east in our own likeness. Worse, it was not even a well thought out pipe dream. It was stupidity on the highest level. A massive waste of blood and treasure. The best thing we did was leave that country. It is folly now to think that we are going to save it.

We destroyed Iraq. Humpty-Dumpty cannot be put back together again. Perhaps we only accelerated what would have happened eventually. I cannot say. But I think that better tactics in targeting or a more effective aerial bombing campaign is not going to fix the political realities on the ground.