USIP: Constitutional Reform in Iraq: Improving Prospects, Political Decisions Needed

[marct]

I think this really illustrates some of the points I was making. Have fun...

Marc

[Tom Odom]

I would certainly have to agree with this. A lot of the difficulties I have seen in both Afghanistan and Iraq stem from what I have to characterize as an amazingly naive assumption about what politics "should be". Some of my more left wing colleagues would describe it as the "imposition of American Hegemony" but, personally, I am more inclined to assume ignorance than malice .

Marc,

While I would perhaps agree on a lack of malice, I would have to say the the degree of determined ignorance well exceeded the threshold for outright stupidity, the classic case being of course Paul Wolfowitz statement that there were no ethnic divisions in Iraq as in the Balkans. The real issue of course is whether reality has set in; I guess that it has, given that we are now hailing tribalism as an element of emerging democracy, an true oxymoron if there ever was one.

Best

Tom