>No, he was the worst. Only Palestinian Authority and Taliban are close, IMO.
Ummm... how about Iran, Syria/Lebanon, SA? Bush himself described Saddam the other day as "one of the worst dictators in the Middle East." "one of the"
>I think it is a little condescending to say that. It has been said about many countries that they are not ready for democracy, that there is no democratic tradition. Well, start one! Europe is now all democratic, with some problematic areas such as Ukraine, Belarus, even Russia, but it is a long way from where it was 20 years ago. The start is to overthrow the dictatorship, and then let things work out themselves. In many cases the do.
The Arab world is different. I may sound racist, but there are two important factors: first off, the "countries" are artificial imperial creations; the countries of the former Soviet Union broke apart, for the most part, into countries that made ethnic sense. Second, there's this whole "culture of death" and widespread fundamentalism.
My gut feeling just isn't positive.
>THe multi-ethnic nature of Iraq is a big problem. Maybe partition will happen. It happened in Soviet Union, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, with very successful results. Why not Iraq?
Because there are way too many parties who have an interest in that not happening. Lotsa forces at work here.
>I wish we had done a better job at preparing Iraqis to take over.
Agreed.
-Z |
