{"id":544,"date":"2005-07-01T22:25:00","date_gmt":"2005-07-01T22:25:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/2005\/07\/01\/544\/"},"modified":"2005-07-01T22:25:00","modified_gmt":"2005-07-01T22:25:00","slug":"544","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/?p=544","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

The people of America are having a lot of second thoughts about the war in Iraq these days. We\u2019re long past the issue of finding weapons of mass destruction<\/span> (remember that one?). The question today is whether the Iraqis are gonna dance to the tune of constitutional democracy and demonstrate to the Islamic world that a government modeled on the values and experiences of the West can work there.<\/p>\n

The success of the election in January shows that the Iraqis are definitely interested<\/span> in such a state. After what they went thru under Saddam Hussein, they\u2019ve got to be open to most anything. But I really wonder if they have the passion for it. They\u2019re up against a regressive faction from Iraq\u2019s bad old days, which has teamed up with foreign fighters carrying out a violent dream of religious jihad. In order to overcome both this insurgency<\/span> and the fractured ethnic and regional tensions existing within Iraq, the pro-democracy groups are going to have to show some passion<\/span>. But thus far, I haven\u2019t heard or read of any signs of democratic passion amidst the Iraqis. The Kurds want to be left alone with their oil up in the northern mountains, and the Shiites in the south (near Basra) are now talking about forming their own autonomous zone (which would also have a lot of oil resources within it). Iraq is starting to sound like the Middle-Eastern version of Yugoslavia<\/span>, a conglomeration of tribes that was only stable when a powerful dictator ruled it. Just as Yugoslavia split up into three or four warring countries after Marshall Tito died, I can\u2019t help but wonder if Iraq is one of those nations that just wasn\u2019t meant to be.<\/p>\n

The recent Presidential election in Iran, which was won by a landslide by a fundamentalist hard-liner (Mahmoud Ahmadinejad), shows the strength of support for anti-western Islamic fundamentalism<\/span> outside of the cities. A lot of people in the deserts, pastures and poor mountain villages in Persia must believe that the only way to improve their lot is through strict theocratic rule by the mullahs and their lackeys (which Mr. Ahmadinejad is alleged to be). It\u2019s hard for Americans to understand and accept this, just as it was hard in 1968 for U.S. authorities to understand why so many poor Vietnamese in the flooded deltas and mountain passes preferred a nationalistic movement based on regimented socialism over free markets and rule-of-law democracy.<\/p>\n

Is Iraq so much different? Is it cosmopolitan enough to believe in and fight for constitutional freedoms, to put aside its regional, ethnic and religious differences and come together as a nation<\/span>? To be honest, I just don\u2019t see it. I apologize for any possible Terry Schiavo reference, but the situation in Iraq today seems somewhat like a body on artificial support, without a brain willing and able to keep itself alive. I hope that Mr. Bush and the U.S. armed forces, which are struggling so valiantly and professionally in Iraq, will prove me wrong. And although I didn\u2019t necessarily support pulling the plug on Ms. Schiavo, I think that at some point the people of America need to pull the plug on our \u201cIraqi respirator\u201d. But right now, I think we should give the Iraqis a bit more time to make up their minds; even though that clearly means the death of a couple hundred more American soldiers and marines.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The people of America are having a lot of second thoughts about the war in Iraq these days. We\u2019re long past the issue of finding weapons of mass destruction (remember that one?). The question today is whether the Iraqis are gonna dance to the tune of constitutional democracy and demonstrate to the Islamic world that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/544"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=544"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/544\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=544"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=544"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=544"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}