Re: "The point is that democracy cannot be created by an outside force."
I agree.
Likely Dictatorships can be imposed --- at the point of a gun --- but Democracy needs to have strong, and local, roots for it to take.
(The good news, I suppose, is that Dictatorships are not the longest-lived of government structures. They are ever prone to collapse... so any fundamental and strong local desire for Democracy will always have chances to actualize, given time.)
Re: "I believe that every human yearns to be free."
In that fact lies the hope of mankind....
Re: "I am beginning to see certain similarities between the fight to keep Vietnam free, The Soviet attempt to occupy Afghanistan and Iranian supplied Iraqi terrorists."
Good --- for there are many similarities, many things to be learned. (One quibble though regarding Vietnam: how can one 'fight to keep free something that isn't free? Promoting 'elections' with only ONE CANDIDATE on the line for 'President' is hardly my conception of a 'free' Democracy... except perhaps for Mexico or Belarus, etc., etc., where that sort of chicanery was made into an art form.) If you had instead said that we desired to 'make Vietnam free'... I would not have questioned your statement, or our motives....
Re: "The presence of a state sponsor makes the anti government forces more resilient."
No doubt about that!
Which is why I personally believe that the Iraqi civil war could become such a clarifying event for the entire region, given time, and ultimately would produce beneficial results for 'Western' strategic goals.
Our military has already commented upon the fact that the Sunni insurgents are receiving an 'unlimited amount of resupply'... both financing and material, from their neighboring Sunni-dominant governments (Saudi Arabia, Gulf Monarchies, Jordan, etc.)
And much has been said about support flowing to the Shi'a militias (Badr Brigades, etc.), and to the Shi'a dominated Iraqi government, coming from the Iranian government, or some of their semi-official organizations, or from Syria. And of course there is the matter of the DEFENSE PACT signed by Iraq and Iran.
Once the US is out of the middle of the civil war (where unfortunately *both* sides are taking pot shots at us, and blaming us for all their problems and failures...) I expect the civil war to 'hot up' fairly quickly, the combattants supported by their respective Sunni or Shi'a blocs... and the process of 'ethnic cleansing' that is already much underway (where people of one faith or ethnicity or another move to where they feel safer --- among their 'own') will accelerate.
It is also notable to mention that most of the oil rich Gulf nations (such as Saudi Arabia & Kuwait) are pumping oil from areas with downtrodden local Shiite majority populations....
(Already I understand their are 'organizations' that 'match properties' behind Sunni or Shi'a lines --- allowing families to swap properties with others who want to 'get out while the getting is good'.)
Of course, 'terrorists' of one stripe or another will be pitted against other terrorists... (for example: al Qaeda, a SUNNI organization, is *already* pitted against Shiites --- most of the bombings of Shi'a religious sites, markets in Shi'a neighborhoods are claimed by them --- while the dozens of Shi'a militias are believed responsible for the many hundreds of kidnappings and executions of Sunnis that happen every month now. Already Sunnis are departing Basra and it's environs en-masse, and fleeing many Baghdad neighborhoods where Shi'a are the majority.
The 'sides' are evenly enough matched that likely there will be no ultimate 'victor' --- just clarification of the spheres of influence, most likely resulting in two or three 'new' States forming and, of course... the conflict for mutual self-determination will likely occupy the entire Islamic 'world' for a considerable period of time.
Ultimately the proxy civil war between the Sunni Islamic nations (Saudi Arabia and it's W'habbist extremists / al Qaeda types, Pakistan, regressive Gulf monarchies, etc.) and the Shiite Islamic nations (Iran and it's radical Islamicists, the majority Shiite 'nation' of Iraq, minorities elsewhere, etc.) will resolve itself (and the US would be *most wise* to not involve ourselves or choose sides in any way... other then to support what we always claim to support: freedom, liberty, rule of law, the right of self-determination, Democracy, and Capitalism....)
Radicalism will be turned on radicalism (& AWAY from US!)... until the radicals on both sides are ultimately killed off, purged, discredited, rejected by their publics.
The long-delayed Islamic Reformation will perhaps finally be birthed. |
