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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: i-node who wrote (181501)	1/25/2004 9:40:34 AM
From: Road Walker	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1574096

DR, worth reading: Why democracy will fail in Iraq BLUMNER -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- E-mail: Click here -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Archive By ROBYN E. BLUMNER, Times Perspective Columnist Published January 25, 2004 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Nineteenth century French writer and statesman Alexis de Tocqueville said, "The most dangerous moment for a bad government is when it begins to reform." He could have been talking about today's Iraq. President Bush dragged our nation into this hornets' nest by misleading us over weapons of mass destruction and Saddam Hussein's connection to terrorism; now all he has left as a justification for 500 dead American soldiers is Iraq's democratization. But bringing representative self-government to a place steeped in religious, tribal and ethnic rivalries - a place with no national tradition of political participation or trust toward one's fellow countrymen, and little experience in tolerance toward minorities - is going to be a high-wire act worthy of the Flying Wallendas. Putting aside the troubles L. Paul Bremer III is having with Shiite cleric Ayatollah Sistani on how and when the United States is to transfer sovereignty back to Iraqis, the real question is whether there are any plausible near-term prospects for the creation of a liberal democracy in Iraq. To answer that, one needs to plumb what is required for one. Are democracies created through the top-down development of political structures and institutions? Will an overlay of a constitution, some form of representative legislature and the establishment of elections be enough to turn Iraq into a democracy, or are there intangible barriers that make it ridiculous to think that five and a half months from now Iraq will be a model of self-rule? My money's on ridiculous. Democracy in Iraq isn't a rational goal within two decades, according to Cato Institute senior fellow Patrick Basham. In a policy analysis released earlier this month, Basham argues that it is normative culture and not mechanics such as parties and elections that determine whether democracy will succeed. "Four cultural factors play an essential, collective role in stimulating and reinforcing a stable democratic political system," Basham writes. "The first is political trust. The second factor is social tolerance. The third is a widespread recognition of the importance of basic political liberties. The fourth is popular support for gender equality." Iraq has none of these. What Iraq does have is tribes, 150 of them. Its 25-million people are not only divided along religious and ethnic lines, 75 percent of the population is also connected to a tribe as a base allegiance. Tribal societies - contrary to the democratic ideal of autonomous actors, each operating on behalf of the social good - tend to be less individualistic, viewing the world from an "us versus them" vantage. When 100,000 Iraqi Shiites took to the streets last week demanding direct elections, they were not agitating for Western democratic values. They want the political and economic power that has eluded the strict Islamic sect since Iraq's creation by the British in 1920. Iraq is 60 percent Shiite. As a decided majority, they know an electoral democracy will serve their interests. But it won't serve much else. Forget political meritocracy, forget women's rights, forget the separation of church and state; an Iraq under Shiite rule will more closely resemble Iran than secular Europe. Is this the kind of "freedom" we have sacrificed 500 Americans for? During his initial presidential campaign Bush said he would steer clear of nation-building. Too bad he didn't stick to that, because he stinks at it. By diverting our attentions from Afghanistan to Iraq, he has allowed the terrorist incubator to devolve into a nation of fiefdoms controlled by warlords and revived elements of the Taliban. Iraq will be another failure. We are transferring power back to Iraqis on a schedule that makes a lot of sense for Bush-Cheney 2004 but not much for the country's future as a durable liberal democracy. There is a reason political pluralism, individual liberty and self-rule do not exist in any of the 16 Arab nations in the Middle East. Cultural traditions there tend toward anti-intellectualism, religious zealotry and patriarchy, values which provide little fertile ground for progressive thinking. The U.N. Arab Human Development Report of 2002 noted that the Arab world translates only about 330 books annually. As laid down in his 2002 pre-emption strategy, Bush pledged to use "every tool in our arsenal" to promote a "single sustainable model for national success: freedom, democracy and free enterprise." He followed through by using military force to export the Enlightenment to a part of the world that has none of the component parts needed to embrace or sustain it. A "dangerous moment" doesn't begin to describe it.

To: i-node who wrote (181501)	1/25/2004 6:56:19 PM
From: tejek	Respond to of 1574096

abcnews.go.com Iran Hard-Liners Veto Election Bill Iran's Hard-Line Guardian Council Vetoes Bill to Reverse Disqualification of Reform Candidates The Associated Press TEHRAN, Iran Jan. 25 — Iran's hard-line Guardian Council has vetoed a bill that sought to reverse the disqualification of thousands of reformist electoral candidates, a leading legislator said Sunday night. The move is part of an escalating battle between reform-minded lawmakers and religious conservatives who dominate the most powerful branches of the government. "We've been informed that the Guardian Council has vetoed the legislation on the grounds that it contradicted the constitution and Sharia (Islamic) law," Mohsen Mirdamadi told The Associated Press. Mirdamadi heads the National Security and Foreign Policy Committee of the parliament and is one of the lawmakers disqualified. The bill sought to overturn the disqualification of more than a third of the 8,200 candidates who registered for the Feb. 20 elections. Members of the Guardian Council could not immediately reached for comment. The veto is considered likely to provoke a boycott of the elections by reformist parties and politicians, who dominate the current 290-seat parliament. Reformists had condemned the disqualifications as an attempt by the hard-liners to skew the elections in their favor. The legislators had passed the bill earlier Sunday in a session broadcast live on state radio. They categorized it as "triple-urgent," meaning highest priority. It was the first time since Iran's 1979 Islamic revolution that parliament had approved a triple-urgency bill. The bill would have amended the National Elections law to force the Guardian Council, which oversees elections, to reinstate all candidates unless there is legal documentation to prove them unfit for parliament. The council's members are chosen by Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has asked the body to reconsider its disqualifications. The council has reinstated only a few hundred candidates. Its slow response has angered reformists, who say it does not act without the supreme leader's approval. After the bill was passed, and before it was vetoed, lawmaker Rajabali Mazrouei said the crisis would determine in which direction Iran moves: toward dictatorship or democracy. He said rejection of the bill would mean the council was "publicly revealing its true objective of imposing brazen dictatorship." "The rejection will mean that all options to avert an exacerbation of the crisis are finished," Mazrouei added. Reformist political parties have threatened to boycott the elections if the disqualifications are not overturned. Members of Khatami's government have said they will not hold what would be "sham elections." On Friday, Khatami and parliamentary speaker Mahdi Karroubi warned that unless the disqualifications were withdrawn, there would be no liberal candidates in more than two-thirds of the electoral districts. The battle over who can run on Feb. 20 has turned into Iran's worst political crisis in years. Reformers believe the conservatives are trying to tilt the elections so they will regain control of the 290-seat parliament. In the 2000 polls, the hard-liners lost the majority in the assembly for the first time since the 1979 revolution. Hard-liners claim the disqualified candidates including more than 80 sitting lawmakers failed to meet legal requirements to run. Copyright 2004 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.