Is it realistic to expect the majority of people in Iraq to embrace freedom and democracy within 10 years?

Question

Arn't cultures the way they are for a good reason? Maybe some cultures are not suited for freedom and democracy. If their culture embraces a religion that suppresses freedom of expression and demands submission how is it realisitic to expect them to change within our lifetime?

Answer 1

No. Iraq has three major cutural/religious groups (Shiite Muslims, Sunni Muslims, and Kurds) with a long history of wanting each other dead, and oppressing each other. There's no way that the Muslim majority is going to let the Kurds live in peace, or that the Kurds are going to simply accept Muslim rule, but we (the US) can't allow the Kurds to form an independent state because there's a large Kurdish population in Turkey that also wants independence, but Turkey wants to hold on to what's left of the former Ottoman Empire, not to mention that there are several other ethnic groups in Turkey that would also want independence. Since Turkey is our ally, we can't let there be an independent Kurdish state in the remnants of Iraq.

Furthermore, the Sunni minority has held the major share of political power, as well as financial wealth, in the country for quite some time, and has tended to oppress and mistreat the impovrished Shiite majority. The Shiite majority wants power, but the Sunni elite is none to eager to give it up.

There are far more sources of tension that I'm not going to go into here, mainly because it's been quite a while since I studied this so I'll probably mix up the details.

All in all, it's a total mess. The region is far too divided to be united under a single democratic rule. The only thing holding Iraq together as a single nation was military dicatorship, and give the political and ethnic tensions in the region it's unlikely to be able to support a stable democracy in the forseeable future.

Of course, all of this was already obvious to many of us long before the decision was made to invade.

We're not liberating the Iraqi people, we're liberating the Iraqi oil.

Answer 2

I believe that area of the world will never embrace western values. The problems in the middle east started when in the spoils of world War 2, that Israel was founded.

For most people in that area, the Middle East is sacred and only meant for their own culture and other cultures meddling with this sacred territory is a sacrilege or grave insult to them.

It has been historically over there very bloodthirsty, and one would have to argue that they are a bloodthirsty set of cultures. Suicide bombing is an extreme act to get your message across.

Democracy has been around over 300 years, and freedom even longer. If these cultures have not learn't and adopted these systems, I don't see that enforcement will work.

From what little coverage I have seen, Iraq is a divided nation, and the differing cultures are in a civil war with each other.

The Iraqi nation without external interference needs to build its political future and if that means another dictator, the rest of the world should learn from it.

It is highly probable that the democracy will fail in Iraq as soon as the "coalition of the willing" withdraw from Iraq,

Answer 3

The big difficulty is that Iraqis are divided toward supporting the cause of freedom and their terrorist brethren. They just are not motivated to strongly pursue freedom. So it is not realistic to expect democracy working in 10 years, maybe in 20 years once the next generation grows up and decides that terrorism is not a useful way to invest their lives. This change will take time.

Answer 4

It all depends on your definition of freedom. The apparently have embraced the freedom to wantonly kill - especially people who don't excactly think the way they do.

For middle-easterners to embrace democracy will take a long time, and a lot of patience.

This is a tribal society (even in cities,) and the move from tribal authority to a central government is going to be slow, especially since the concept of a central government so far, has been associated with colonialism and dictatorship.

Answer 5

Eventually they will. Technological capitalism will make them---whether they like it or not. Al Queada is actually the last gasp of a soon to be marginalized religion and culture. All hail to the god of materialism and his heaven of technological utopianism! Don't believe me??!! Go to a mall just before Christmas. Better yet, just for laughs; try convincing someone to stop watching TV for a week. You'd think they were a crackhead jonesing for a rock!

Answer 6

Iraq will have freedom in 10 seconds because the have a great model to learn from: THE MASONIC CHRISTIAN UNITED STATES. they can learn from Abeu Jarib prison how civilized Christians treat animals. Guantanamo, people held in cages without courts, how lovely. they can become as democratic and clever as the Americans, when both parties belong to the same masonic lodge. both bush and Kerry were in skulls and bones.

democracy in Greek language meant the authority of the fools.

Answer 7

Now lookey here boy Iraqis live without beer, elevated pick up trucks, and rodeos. It aint right, and if it aint american It damn well should be. Now dont cut and run, stay the course and you will be allright.

No, but seriously its not realistic at all to bomb and invade people and say we know what whats best for you. Our main interest in Iraq is not the liberation of Iraqis, anybody who cant see that is blind. I suggest a funny movie for you to watch "Team America."

Answer 8

Not at all. Democracy has been forced upon a region that isn't ready for it and has no history of such a way of life. If the past few thousand years are any indication, then the answer is no.

Answer 9

Woth all due understand, i might take undertaking with the advice that the US grew to become into "the 1st democracy" or that Iraq unearths itself interior the comparable place as our forefathers did interior the founding of our united states, i might recommend, rather, that it quite is valid to question the thought Iraq ought to without notice arise and grow to be a comparably functioning "democratic government" given their situations. The arbitrary (or perchance intentional) national borders imposed on the populous after the autumn of the Ottoman empire, with the help of layout i think, certain mutually disparate communities (tribes) of people who had traditionally been at odds with one yet another. Their united states grew to become into not defined based upon their own decision (as united statesa. grew to become into.) To assume those different communities to without notice hit upon a feeling of 'national objective', decrease than the situations, continually strikes me as quite naive. i might in uncomplicated terms wish that people who 'lead' us will by some skill come to grips with this actuality and start to dictate 'national coverage' with a greater decerning point of view...reward

Answer 10

Not realistic at all, those people are crazy as a sh!t house rat. Now we see why Hussein ruled the way he did, it was the only way to keep those people under control!