The laudable Bush project of democratizing the Middle East took a major hit when, in January 2006, the Palestinians elected the Islamist movement Hamas to lead their government. Given the choice of free elections for the first time in their lives, they chose what amounts to the repressive religious war party. Granted, their other choice was terrorist Fatah, but they chose the more radical option. It was just five months later that Iraqis, freed from secular despotism by American arms, wrote Islamic sharia law into their constitution. In their 2005 and subsequent elections, Iraqis have chosen to empower Islamist political parties. The Islamists don’t have absolute or even majority control in Iraq, and as long as American troops are in country they will not. But our trajectory there is to draw our troops out. What will Iraqis choose when we leave?
One of the core ideas of the Bush democratization project, a project with which I was fully on board at the time, is that people everywhere yearn to be free. That humans are all liberty minded at heart. That’s a nice idea, but the paragraph above suggests that there are at least two fundamental ideas at constant war in the human soul. One, true, is a longing for freedom. But another is a longing for something else. Call it the longing for acceptance, or the need to be right, or the hope to belong — to something greater than the self. In most times and in most places, that longing produces mostly humane outcomes. The drive for acceptance leads to mainstream and productive individual behavior even when the individual is free to do what they like. The hope for acceptance causes us to want to find ways to please or help others. It can create pure-hearted altruism and genuine selflessness. If your belief system holds individual conscience and freedom at its core, the system is likelier than not to foster productive behavior among its adherents whether they are free or enslaved. But not all belief systems hold the same view of individual autonomy.
This drive to be right can also create a dynamic in which the individual subordinates their drive for freedom to the hope for acceptance. What the individual does with that depends on the nature of the one doing the accepting. The individual wants to be free, but not as much as they want to be right, so that they will be acceptable. And in the case of a religio-political ideology like Islam, it appears to create the very environment in which people choose with their vote to give up freedom and empower radicals they believe to be holy or spiritually driven, even when the choice means a loss of personal freedom and increases the chances of war and death. The past five years have been quite instructive on this point: Honor killings in the free West, the creep of sharia worldwide, the empowerment of Hamas in Palestine, the slow but steady Islamization of Europe and Canada, and so forth. People who have been fed a steady diet of this religio-political ideology will not suddenly turn into Jeffersonians in a snap. It hasn’t happened in London; where is the evidence it will happen in Cairo?
Islam has wielded its totalitarian sword for 1400 years. According to the Wilson-Lumsden mathematical model of the genetic evolution of behavioral traits in response to cultural conditions, 1000 years is sufficient time for substantial genetic (and behavioral) change as adaptation to new cultural conditions. They termed this model the Thousand Year Rule.
Considering the extreme cost of apostasy in Islamic culture, one could imagine that, in regard to enhancing the degree of conformity/submissiveness, natural selection would be even more effective than was assumed in the Wilson-Lumsden generalized model, and that the psychological impulse to conform would be much stronger in Arab populations than we can readily visualize. If this is the case, all non-Muslims should expect to live under Dar al-Harb until we are forced to employ more effective measures than democratization.
Interesting.
I had maintained that Democratization will not work in most Islamic societies, because they have a fundamentally flawed view of the rule of law than we do.
In the US, we may have criminals, certainly, but we dont appear to have the tendency towards casual violence over petty, inconsequential things among the general population. There, its practically a requirement.
democracy will not take hold in egypt. it will be a mulim brotherhood playground.
And this President and the Democrats are aiding and abetting a disaster in Egypt. What a golden opportunity for them to further damage America.
If Egypt becomes an Islamist state, prepare for a major war in the Middle East.
In theory, one can have honest, competent, fair Islamic government in most of the Islamic countries. Several things are required to make this happen, but I do not think any nation is going to do these things for themselves, and no nation is going to do them to another nation for long. The measures include:
1. Enabling and strongly encouraging non-religious education for both genders, even in poor, remote villages.
2. Setting economic policies that promote capitalism and entrepreneurialism.
3. Breaking the chain of poverty, so that a stable middle class grows.
4. Stopping the continuous dishonest indoctrination in the local and national media, allowing hate and tribalism to simmer down.
5. Minimizing corruption in the economy and in the government.
6. Strongly discouraging tribalism and social class systems.
The strongest thing that can improve any society is to teach the children healthy, moral, stable, hate-free attitudes. Once a childs attitudes are set, no internal or external government can change them. Children can be taught not to think that women are second class citizens, not to believe in conspiracies and wild rumors, not to have a fierce and perpetual hatred towards other tribes and religions, not to tolerate corruption as a normal and inevitable thing, and to expect that their children and grandchildren will have better lives than they had.
Please forward points 2, 4, 5 and 6 to the Obama administration. Maybe we can get these things here in the USA also.
Yes, I do agree with you that there are at least two fundamental ideas at constant war in the human soul.
But, though they also exist and are important, I wouldnt say that One, true, is a longing for freedom. But another is a longing for something else. Call it the longing for acceptance, or the need to be right, or the hope to belong — to something greater than the self.
Id formulate the two opposite drives thus: on one hand, people want to live and let live, mind their own business; but on the other, they want to meddle in and eventually control other peoples lives.
For those who feel the latter urge as the dominant one, it is not enough, for instance, not to watch a film one wouldnt like or even to tell friends that theyd probably dislike it; for these people, if they dislike a film (a song, a habit, America, democracy, the Jews etc.), it should be banned, destroyed, and both those responsible for it and those who liked it (or didnt dislike it enough) should be publicly hanged (shot, stoned, beheaded etc.).
The need to be right or to belong doesnt necessarily imply forcing ones rightness on others. One can, for instance, believe in God or be an atheist and still leave those who think differently alone, while being happy to be among those (the happy few) who are right and simply deploring or pitying those who are wrong.
The basic problem about Islam –any and all of its varieties– is that it takes disagreement as absolutely offensive, as an existential agression. And, by the way, it clearly and openly declares that its mission (its war, the greater jihad) will only be thoroughly accomplished when all living human beings accept, openly declare and always repeat that only Allah is God and Mohammed his prophet. This is whats most dangerous about Islam, and (since its part of its DNA) I dont think it can be changed.
To gain a greater perspective one should not limit the involvement of the U.S. in nation building to only the most recent years and the Nations of Islam. It all began post WWII and one will have to live longer than I will, to potentially find a democratic, capitalistic system that mirrors the U.S. from our efforts and will upon them. At best, most transitioned to, or remain socialist, communistic or theocracies. A few are attempting to evolve into socialist capitalists….including the U.S. itself.
Hopefully, one day soon, the U.S. will re-evaluate its global democratization strategy in light of the long string of failures post WWII. Global peace much less real democratization as defined and wished for by the U.S., is simply not within the grasp of human/laws of nature….especially in the reality of historic global social, political and theological differentials.
I agree with you, but I would point out that U.S. efforts at “nation building” long predate the Second World War.
The Mexican War of 1847-48 was probably our first effort along those lines, in which we ended up taking Mexico City; the line “From the Halls of Montezuma” in the Marines Corps Hymn references the storming of Chapultepec Palace by the Marines. (Mexico would see U.S. troops again 68 years later. And may yet again, for that matter.)
The Spanish-American War of 1898, with the U.S, “acquiring” Cuba, the Philippines, Dominican Republic, etc., from Spain was a nation-building exercise on a large scale. The Philippine Insurrection (1899-1910) which followed it in many ways parallels our experiences thus far in Iraq, right down to the OPFOR. The Moros were, and are, hardcore fundamentalist Muslims, and the last time I looked, we still have a military mission in-country helping the government deal with them. (The Moro “mission statement” is simple; Death To All Infidels. And it hasn’t changed in over a century.) Without the Philippines, odds are no one would ever have heard of an Army officer named MacArthur.
The Punitive Expedition in Mexico in 1916 was in many ways a “nation building” exercise, in that we were attempting to help the Mexican government suppress a guerrilla army that had spilled across our own borders. It probably would have lasted longer than it did, except that the German Foreign Ministry, with amazing ineptitude, sent a certain telegram signed by an official named Zimmermann to the Mexican government proposing an alliance between Germany and Mexico against the U.S. At which point, Pershing & Co. were pulled out of Mexico, and sent to Europe to register our complaints with the Kaiser’s boys in person.
The U.S. intervened in Nicaragua in the 1920s- exactly why is still a subject for debate, as the whole “United Fruit” theory is dubious at best. U.S. Marines were still there in an “advisory capacity” (well, that’s what the State Department called it- to the Marines it looked a lot more like being shot at and returning the favor with interest) on 7 December 1941. After which, the Corps, like the nation as a whole, had other, more important targets to service.
It could even be argued that the entire opening of the Western Frontier on this continent was a “nation building” exercise, right down to dealing with “indigenous peoples” (the Native American nations) who didn’t really care much for having our forces trying to build a nation on what they (pretty accurately) regarded as their real estate. I’ve long thought that if those tribal nations could have just stopped arguing with each other long enough to join forces for some campaigns longer than, say, the Little Big Horn, and done it early enough (about the mid-1500s), the Europeans wouldn’t have gotten a foothold in the Americas to begin with.
“Foreign intervention” and “nation building” are an old story with the U.S. government, going back long before VJ Day. Whether or not it is a good idea is another issue altogether.
I’ll be very surprised if we don’t have to try it again, whether we want to or not. In Mexico. Again.
(If we have to take Chapultepec Palace again, I recommend that this time, we don’t give the darned thing back.)
cheers
eon
I don’t share this pessimism….if all humans aren’t genetically fit for Democracy, then why did our fairly healthy, robust Democracy take root here in the wilds of America, transplanted, of a sort, from Britain? Looking back, why then did this “Democracy” take root in Athens? How did that “Enlightenment” take root in Europe?
Isn’t there some sort of major discontinuity somewhere in our more than one thousand years’ separation from Athenian Democracy…..to make those of us who think that we seek Democracy, then turn around and vote Islam/Sharia upon ourselves…?
I don’t understand the logic presented here. What connection am I missing?
I submit that those who happen to live in that viral environment of Islam simply aren’t “wired” the same way as we of European stock…..
and….I don’t want to hear any knee-jerk charges of so-called “racism” here….let’s agree that we Westerners are actually different.
What’s the matter with that? Why can’t we humans agree to disagree, and not try to slit the throats of those who may not want Sharia? My personal need to be “right” with Capitalism or Christianity does not lead me to want to behead or slit the throats of those who disagree with my thinking….I’d expect to go to jail if I slit someone’s throat here.
That’s the insanity of Islam in my Christian way of development from my rather routine childhood here in America.
“In January 2006, the Palestinians elected the Islamist movement Hamas to lead their government.”
Always, always, remember, there is not one single functioning Arab or Islamic democracy in the Middle East. Not one. And once the US Army leaves Iraq this year, Iraq will probably descend into a civil war, with some radical Islamic Shia mullahs taking over the nation. The only people with a shot at some sort of indepedence in Iraq are probably the Kurds. Other than that, the Shia majority will simply take over after another bloody civil war.
Also, always, always, remember that Hitler was ELECTED to power, like Hamas was. Niether of them had to seize power. And once they got this power, they simply kept it. I’m sorry for sounding so negative, but there is absolutely NOTHING in arab history to show that they will be receptive to any form of democratic government. And the Muslim Brotherhood has already called for war with Israel once Mubarak is thrown out. No, seeing Mubarak leave in chaos is the worst thing that could happen to Egypt, as the world will soon find out.
If the Muslim Brotherhood is elected to power in Egypt, any following election will be rigged in their favor, just as the last elections in Iran. Mubarak and the army, need to move against the Muslim Brotherhood now, and finish them off once and for all. Any failure to do so, will ulitmately lead to a major, possibly nuclear, war in the Middle East. If ever we had the wrong President at the wrong time, this is that time.
“Hopefully, one day soon, the U.S. will re-evaluate its global democratization strategy in light of the long string of failures post WWII.”
Hopefully, the ludicrous–the exactly stupid–idea that the policy of democratization has been a failure will die. From Germany to Japan, hundreds of millions agree.
Also it cannot be abandoned, unless the goal of freedom and peace here is to be abandoned, in the same way that a house divided cannot stand.
Tom….you state that ["Also it cannot be abandoned, unless the goal of freedom and peace here is to be abandoned, in the same way that a house divided cannot stand."]
If you haven’t lived through the great era’s preceding WWII and the far less great post WWII era of the UN and U.S. “Global” strategies then you’re left to follow the flawed revisionist intellectuals (or as I like to refer to them; intellectual morons) of any ideological side.
The entire concept of the founders new social and political experiment was individual FREEDOM’S FROM A CENTRALIZED FORM OF GOVERNMENT dictating its will upon the people rather than the reverse. My, my how far the U.S. has digressed from that premise! The U.S. has systematically attempted to become the global dictator over other nations and its peoples. Such is a guaranteed recipe for political and social conflict around the world!
We have systematically utilized and threatened with our great military resources, our charity, our economic power, our monetary system and corrupted political influence to “persuade” nations and their people to democratize and fall into line with our perceived values. I submit that it is a flawed arrogance to believe that one nation should have any “supreme authority” over the will of all other nations and its peoples. Neither the God I believe in nor the Constitution I follow grants such authority to man and his chosen governance…though the struggle of man and nations for such an authority has been from the beginnings of time. Just study the “underlying” history of the causation of war and conflict!
Less reliance on the self perceived intellectuals and a large dose of common sense will save America from itself.
right we should just leave all these men alone and let them beat and stone as many women as they wish and rape as many little girls as their lust desires and slaugher as many people as they feel they have the right too
With all due respect your comment is pure emotional poppy-cock!
1. You CANNOT legitimately substantiate your alleged crimes against humanity.
2. America has the highest crimes against persons than any other nation on earth.
Would you be so kind as to direct me to the [authority] you are using to place the U.S. in the position of supreme dictator of social morality and political form, around the world?
Supreme blind arrogance is a strange disease!
Once Sean Penn gets here all will be well.
Indeed.
/sarc
(I’m adding the tag I think you lost.)
It is said that a second marriage is the triumph of hope over experience. Right now, the optimism that I hear from the administration and the MSM in the midst of a very fluid situation sounds very much like the hope for the second marriage.
The problem with the optimism that many are expressing for the revolutions in the Middle East is that, while there are many examples of happy marriages, there are no examples of democratic Islamist regimes. The Middle East was substantially converted to Islam following the dictates and example of Muhammad which spread his rule and religion by the sword. This situation has not changed substantially since Mohammad’s death in 632. Before Mohammad the region was ruled by Romans, king and Pharaohs; after him it was ruled by Caliphs. There is no – zero – example of Democracy in the Middle East with the exception of Israel and a very shaky state – Iraq – which was created, nurtured and shaped by the American military following the invasion under George Bush. To repeat, there is no history or political culture of representative government in the Middle East.
The one unifying factor in the region is Islam, a religion that demands submission to its political and theological dictates on pain of death. Not since Henry the Eight created the English church and became its political head have rulers held such secular and religious power.
It is said that in every human breast there is the desire to be free. Perhaps, but it’s also true that in many human breasts is the desire to force others to our will. To believe what we believe and agree with our ideas. In the dominant culture In America that wish is expressed in the demand that Glenn Beck should be fired, that Rush Limbaugh should be banned and Sarah Palin should shut up. In many Islamic countries it’s expressed in beheading, hanging or stoning.
The Egyptian people have been misruled by Mubarak for decades. But he’s not the first or the worst. The people in the Middle East have been misruled for centuries. If the levelers in America were truly concerned about wealth discrepancies, they would slink away from criticizing American wealth disparities and focus on the truly incredible differences between the rich and the poor in Africa and the Middle East.
With no history of democracy and a culture and religion that disdains individual freedom, the concept that democracy will spring from the revolutions that are now engulfing the region is unrealistic. Remember what we were told about the revolution in China: that Mao was an agrarian reformer. Castro was sold as a freedom fighter. We helped overthrow the Shah to usher in a repressive theocracy despite a population that favors Western values.
And, God help us, we have a President who really doesn’t like the America he was elected to lead.
I would like to be wrong, but Democracy is a rare flower; repression and authoritarianism is the global rule not the exception. Hoping and wishing that the people of Egypt will throw off the yoke of literally millennia of repression – all by themselves – and usher in the rule of law and a representative government is a believable as the Easter Bunny.
I pray I’m wrong, and would love to have to eat my words in a year. But the odds are loaded heavily in my favor. The problem is, if I’m right, we lose and so do the poor people of the Middle East.
…Thank you….my thoughts also…
There will be neither democracy or Islamic rule. The current regime will continue. It’s like with Michael Ledeen. He keeps saying the regime in Iran is over. Many people assume that just because there are huge demonstrations, the regime will fall. That is naive.
The demonstrations in Cairo are not done in a way that will lead to the fall of the regime. A revolution or a coup is a physical thing. It has to be done right in order to be successful. For instance, you have to attack the parliament. You have to knock down the statues. You have to physically take over the symbols of power. Congesting in one square will lead to nothing. I really cannot imagine a revolution in Europe or south america where they didn’t attack the parliament or presidential palace. The Egyptians are not even holding the demonstrations in front of the Presidential palace or the parliament.
The young demonstrators in Egypt and Iran might have a lot energy, but they suck at being revolutionary.
WHY I STAND WITH MUBARAK
The chaos and violence that’s rocking the streets of Cario is rooted in the Napoleonic invasion of Egypt and the spread of Western values and ideas in that country for 200 years. It is the birth pangs of a new, free Democratic Egypt, a progressive development that could be hijacked in the short term by the regressive forces of radical Islam as has happened in Iran and elsewhere. That mustn’t happen, and Egypt’s current regime headed by the anti-Islamist Hosni Mubarak, dictator of thirty years, is determined to prevent it even if that means using violent and brutal force and alienating the Obama regime. And that is a good thing. We who want democratic change in the Middle East who supported the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan (the overthrow of Saddam and the Taliban) and the Green Revolution in Iran stand with Mubarak against Moslem and secular extremists.
The forces of radicalism now headed by Mohamed El Baradei threatened the use of violence if Mubarak didn’t resign and leave Egypt by Friday. A defiant Mubarak who is for an orderly constitutional transition to democracy via elections (with no interim government) refused to resign or leave. He made the concession of not seeking reelection and allowing elections in September to determine Egypt’s future. But that wasn’t good enough for the radical Mr. El Baradei and his reactionary Islamist allies (who are anti-democratic like their murdering brothers in Gaza) and want a full blown anti-Western Sharia state. THEY WANT POWER AND WANT IT NOW! And called for Mubarak’s overthrow and death. They want to replace the entire government, Parliament, constitution and all, with “a national unity government.” I explained the reason for this here . Under the existing constitution El Baradei is ineligible to run for the presidency (and the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood-rightly banned-cannot form a political party). El Baradei would need to head a political party for at least one year-he doesn’t head any party and elections are seven months away. Understandably El Baradei and the very dangerous jihadist Brotherhood are in a hurry to seize power in Egypt; and Mubarak (God bless him) is willing to fight them to the death to prevent that. He did this before with the Brotherhood-who he almost bludgeoned to death-and will do so again. It’s either Mubarak’s way to a democratic future or the highway-Obama and ElBaradei be damned. And that’s where we are.
Seeing that violence was coming his way-he rightly takes El Baradei’s and the Moslem Brother’s threats seriously-Mubarak struck the first blow hitting the protestor’s preemptively with pro-government forces as the army looked on. The best defense is a good offense and Mubarak rightly took the initiative. If El Baradei and the Islamists (whose ranks are being swelled by outside forces: Hamas, Hezbollah, etc.) want power on their evil, regressive, supremacist terms then they’ll have to take up arms and fight for it-fight for their radical medieval future, fight for their prophet and Islam, fight for oppression and totalitarianism. There is no middle way here. No room for compromise. No concessions to radical Islam. This is a war to the death for the fate of Egypt. And in this war I STAND WITH MUBARAK!
Click my name to read my articles on the present crisis.
Revolution is a Sucker’s Game second only to ‘Nation Building’.
Men must be ruled until they can rule themselves, which is,
as noted above, a 1000 year effort when the people involved
are mired in Islamic Fundamentalism.
‘Uplift’ is beyond current human capability, but it may just be
possible, with 21st century technology, to establish and support
rule by the less mad minority, who in return will prevent Jihad.
In Egypt, the power is with the Army, and the struggle will be
between the Muslim Brotherhood and the educated unemployed youth
for the Army’s permission to administer the country.
The MB is organized to use the traditional winning techniques of infiltration and assassination, the EY _could_ be organized to use infrastructure installation and administration; The Army would then have to choose between meeting the psychological or physical needs
of the people.
This has never worked before, but then there has never before existed
the capability to set up a self-organizing wireless mesh of smartphones
which would enable self-organizaton of the EY into a group which could
both defend itself against the MB, and provide immediate and continuing
improvements in the life of the people.
The problem is, many people don’t consciously wish to be free, strictly speaking they don’t understand the ramifications and responsibilities of freedom. Give them their bellyful of food and things to play with and they’re happy. It’s not just the Mid-East or Third World countries, look at the filth we have in the WH, a president who holds his nation and it’s citizens in contempt and hate. Not that this filth has any stature to do so. Yet there are millions who still support the filth. Freedom? It doesn’t cross their feeble minds.
What I find interesting is that the the same leftists who held Bush in contempt because of his effort to implement a democratic government in Iraq are, all of a sudden, big time advocates of democracy for Egypt.
Why, it’s almost as if their lust for democracy rises in concert withthe chances for radical Islam to hijack the process.
Now, one would think that the presence of the American military, the death of the former tyrant, and the dispersal of the tyrant’s minions would enhance the chances of democracy’s success in Iraq; whereas the total lack of any guiding hand for democracy in Egypt, the fact that Mubarak and his thugs are still alive and kicking, and the fact that the Muslim Brotherhood is powerful and powerfully backed by Iran would make the odds of democracy working in Egypt about zero.
So, the plainly obvious facts must not apply…or perhaps our panting little leftist democracy advocates have another agenda.
As long as objective analyses are avoided, trouble is never far away.
How about one Big D? Or is giving an “objective analysis” someone else’s responsibility and your only responsibility is to complain about what others are not doing?
This link gives an excellent and complex look at tribalism and governance. There, sadly, remains good reasons to remain utterly pessimistic about the middle east.
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/014/947kigpp.asp?page=1
the pro Mubarek Egyptians hate us (see Christine Amanpour run for her life)
the pro democracy Egyptians hate us for “not helping them”
we do help and have given money and encouragement to MB- not wanted by either group- both are dismissiveof their power or influence
and of course word on the street-on TV) – THE JEWS DID IT!!
so far hisotry shows the chaos will continue until a “eader” emerges, he will be easily disposed of when aninstant fix is nt found, into that vaccuum will be a miliatry takeover, anohter dictator or an Islamic theocracy.
same old
I do not think the bush idealism was misguided, however ourresponse to the undesirable result was. In particular once the gazans made their determination we should have allowed them to with them consequences such that the US withdraw all support and abandon the peace process
I think the freedom from taking care of oneself and from the responsibility of ones actions are far stronger instincts in most people than any longing for freedom. At least that is how it appears today. Seventy years ago, people in this country were ashamed to take handouts. Today, shame has been eradicated and everyone has their hand out. Most of the rest of the world is even worse.
Dave…Thank you! The newer generations of Americans have developed a blind arrogance and ignorant superiority. It is these generations that have abandoned the traditional values of the truly greatest preceding generations and allowed America to free fall where it is today…..all while casting stones at societies with differing social and political values. Im betting if Americans were to sit down with the most radical of Muslims, or Europeans, Asians, etc., for a meaningful discussion, they (foreigners) would, without hesitation, bestow their admiration for Americas earlier generations.
TT
toasted turd
shut up
Maybe you’ll want to put a facebook icon to your blog. Just bookmarked this site, but I must make it by hand. Just my $.02