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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Hawkmoon who wrote (48773)	10/2/2002 12:02:31 AM
From: LindyBill	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Stay tuned. Lets see. We can "Market" a "Hashemite Restoration," right after we "Get the Bastards." There, that will send Win off to bed, gibbering. :^)

To: Hawkmoon who wrote (48773)	10/3/2002 12:17:21 AM
From: Eashoa' M'sheekha	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

>Bingo!!.. One more piece to the puzzle coming into place.< Let's keep an eye on that part of the puzzle Hawk. It was out of " left " field for moi. <GG> Have to do some study on that. Maybe you were right! You've been known to have yer moments. heh heh KC

To: Hawkmoon who wrote (48773)	10/4/2002 2:29:46 AM
From: frankw1900	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Hawk, but it provides a framework for government that the Iraqi people can understand; one that is moderate; one that preserves Arab pride; and MORE IMPORTANTLY, one that gives the Hashemites something they've never had before, ownership of tremendous oil wealth that rivals Saudi Arabia. or will the Americans be willing to support the Hashemite dream of regaining the Hijaz and restoring the Caliphate.. a moderate Caliphate that reshapes and order Arab society in a form that might be conducive to an Arab republic. I don't think a Hashemite restoration is in the cards. The Kurds are moving directly to democracy and they have managed fairly well doing this under the US "no fly" umberella. There is evidence that there is direct US involvment in this development. The US State Dept has had people in Northern no fly zone for a while. (Remember the New Yorker article mentioning bombardment of State personnel; also mentioned by Safire. I also came across an article in State Dept website about National Endowment for Democracy work there. There is mention also in the Kurdish website. I'll dig this stff out when I've a moment). My expectation, although I've no evidence, is that there is US presence in the Southern no fly zone, also. It's a reasonable expectation because Saddam's writ isn't very broad there. It's not clear what the US might be doing in the South, but there's no reason to think it would be at odds with what it's doing in the North. The Kurdish bunch have been talking to the folk in the South about what sort of arrangement might work post-Saddam. The relation the two zones have with the part of Iraq Saddam really controls is kind of cold war-ish. (Not too surprising given Saddam's Stalinist fascination). The borders between his controlled areas and the others are porous - folk come and go to see friends/family and for smuggling and espionage. The people living in the free areas are subject to pressure through their families just like the exiles abroad - all very reminiscent of the cold war. Things are going on inside Iraq which are positive for modern institutions. It appears that where Saddam's power is diminished, reasonable, modern institutions can appear and which don't have any direct need for a monarchy. Monarchies tend to get legitimacy through turning up every day - duration. The older the monarchy, the more legitimacy it has. New monarchies haven't got much. In the British tradition, which includes the US, monarchy got its legitimacy by allying itself with the people against the aristocracy through the parliamentary system and establishing the universality of law. In European context what was done in Britain by the end of the 18th century was fabulously subversive - nobility, churches and commoners subject to the same laws and the monarch's powers reduced to appointing the government and mediating constitutional and social crises. The immense, radical, US revolutionary achievement was to invent a government system which replaced the checks and balances of the unwritten British constitution and custom. Since the Americans were overthrowing the British Crown they either had to do this or establish their own monarchy. This blew the doors off the legitimacy of the remaining European governments which had not been moving in the same direction as Britain because it demonstrated Kings, Popes and Dictators were not necessary. A cornerstone, perhaps the cornerstone, of the structure of archaic belief - the ruler is necessary for order - was empirically refuted. Princes either abdicated to role of lynchpin of government system or disappeared. Cutting to the chase (you can fill in the blanks): Archaic belief: the ruler and religion, or disorder. Modern belief: democracy and science, or disorder. - American refinement: formal separation of religion (freedom of religious belief ) and government; replacement of monarchy with elected person sworn to uphold and protect constitution. The two beliefs are ultimately incompatible - they conflict within persons, in societies and between societies. Rearguard action by archaic belief: counter reformation, inquisition, fascism, communism, naziism, islamism, hinduism. Utopian movements, generally. But immediate and continuing result of the American achievement was to make the US the emblem of modernity throughout the world. It also automatically made rulers everywhere enemies of the US, and, It also made the US enemy of rulers everywhere. It went retrograde sometimes in the cold war - this is brought up from time to time by folk who don't understand things have changed and by US enemies. The application to Iraq. Since it hasn't had a monarchy in quite a while (and an imposed one has no legitimacy), and is the victim of vicious one man rule, and citizens there show serious signs of setting up democratic institutions and being modern when they get the chance, why complicate matters by laying an archaic institution like monarchy on them? It will insult the modernist population - they don't need monarchy to get to democracy, and infuriate the archaic thinking population because it's not their archaic institution. Furthermore, since the US is the emblem of modernity, particularly in the ME, it messes up the message both for Iraq and for the other countries there for it to deliver monarchy. A king is not what they need to see in Iraq. What they need to see is a modern government vigorously presiding over universal secular education, honest institutions, clean justice, and a free market economy. In quite a short time this will profoundly unhinge the archaic governments in the area. If it's US folk putting forward the idea of monarchy for Iraq, they should think very clearly about their US tradition and what it should entail when they act abroad. Otherwise, the message they send will not be the one they want to deliver.