Hi Tequila,

Quote Originally Posted by tequila View Post
This is interesting to me, since I think a review of the history will show that direct elections and the rapid democratic transition in Iraq were in fact "imposed" on the U.S. by the Shia political parties and massive public demonstrations ordered by Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani --- the original CPA plan proposed by Bremer called for "caucuses" where voters would choose from a CPA-approved slate of candidates (similar to Iranian-style elections). In fact, I have a hard time finding any sort of "anti-democratic" rhetoric coming from any Iraqi political figure outside the jihadi/ISI ranks - even Sunni politicians and groups like the Association of Muslim Scholars do not discount elections as a means of legitimate government.
I certainly don't deny that "democracy" was being hailed by many Iraqis. But, I would have to ask, democracy to what end? First off, the Iraqi leaders are well aware that any rhetoric opposing democracy would be a failure - they're not stupid . There is no doubt in my mind that "democracy" is to the current world what the divine right of kings was to the 15th century - the generally accepted way of getting a government.

Still and all, Hamas was democratically elected, the current Iranian government was democratically elected as were Hitler, Stalin, Idi Amin and Pol Pot. And, as I think we all know, every tin pot dictator running around for the past 50 years has been "democratically" elected. My comments were aimed more at the difference between the form of legitimacy and the reality of power. The Western forms of democracy all have some connection between the form and the exercise of power. This is, in part, a result of certain cultural assumptions that exist in our background. That "should be" I used was a way to point towards that.

The naivety that I was talking about was the blythe assumption that such a series of assumptions either existed or where strong enough within Iraq and Afghanistan to allow for a republican form of government that would work in the ways they do in the west.

Marc