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

To: michael97123 who wrote (154564)	12/21/2004 11:40:16 AM
From: carranza2	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

There will undoubtedly be more and more violence until the election. Afterwards, I think the prevailing Shias will settle a few scores. Whether this will result in ethnic cleansing or something equally catastrophic, who knows. But the score-settling is inevitable. It is becoming increasingly clear to me that F. Zakaria was absolutely right in his book, The Future of Freedom. Democracy is not something that can be imposed. It takes a long time, consensus, a relatively stable economy, decent per capita incomes, and, perhaps most importantly, commitment to its principles. Very few if any of these factors are present in today's Iraq. The Sunnis, having been Saddam's henchmen, are correctly afraid that they will lose everything they had built up as a result of a Shia takeover. They are therefore fighting the elections. They are receiving help from any number of other interested parties--AQ, Iranians, etc.--who have no stake in a democratic Iraq. No one said it would be easy. It might not work. What was the alternative? Let Saddam continue on his merry way? In my view, that was not a choice but a sentence. The run-up to the election will give us the worst news. We are in the thick of it. I'll make up my mind on whether the venture was a mistake around June '05, when I think the picture will be much more clear. Until then, there is no choice but to keep the course. In the meantime, this gives me hope: Message 20876810