Military action is at best a necessary holding action to protect ourselves until Moslem Arab society fixes itself. I have hope that the 2011 Arab Spring has broken the traditional choice of religion-based autocracy or religious dictatorship for Arab Moslems to live under. We can't expect immediate results and we shouldn't be discouraged so much that we go back to the old choice and hope Arabs choose the religion-based autocracy as the lesser of two evils. On that path lies nuclear jihad one day.
This is the problem:
Because of this bloody history of brutal ruling techniques, many, inside and outside the Arab world, insist that Arabs cannot be ruled as a democracy. The Kurds and Shia Arabs of Iraq disagreed with this after 2003, as have many Sunni Arabs after 2011. But post-2003 Iraq was the first real Arab democracy in the region, and the continued brutal Sunni Arab resistance to this puts the new democracy to a harsh test. Every democracy is different, and the Iraqi government that was democratically elected in 2005 did indeed apply some traditional Arab solutions to the continued problems with dissident Sunni Arab terrorists. The democratic government in Iraq did use force, decisively and effectively against Shia rebels. But against the Sunni Arab rebels it took more American troops and an American brokered peace deal with the Sunni tribes. This involved promises to tribal and religious leaders and payments of cash and government jobs for Sunni Arabs. Al Qaeda was not interested in this kind of deal, but by 2007 al Qaeda was widely hated by all Iraqis and only tolerated by Sunni Arabs because al Qaeda suicide bomb attacks were seen as the only effective weapons the Sunnis had. But the Sunni Arabs were losing their war and once the majority of Sunni Arabs made their deals, al Qaeda had no place to hide. The Sunni Arabs understood that the alternative was annihilation, a fate that was rare, but not unknown in Arab history. That sort of end game is common elsewhere. Americans forget that during the American Revolution a third of the population still supported the king. At the end of the revolution, over five percent of the Americans, those loyalists who would not tolerate this new democracy, were killed or driven into exile. Large chunks of the pre-revolution American culture simply disappeared from what is now the United States. These people were not only gone, but largely disappeared from the historical record as well.
This reluctance to compromise, despite a Middle Eastern tradition of haggling at the market place, has led to many locals and foreigners believing that democracy does not work for the Arabs and no matter how many revolutions there are another dictator will arise. A similar situation arose after the American Revolution, when George Washington was proposed as king of the United States (which were not nearly as united as they are now.) Washington refused and backed giving democracy a try. It was rough going for several generations culminating in a bloody civil war. Not all new democracies stay democracies. But if people don't try, they'll never know how far they can take it. To most Iraqis, anything's better than Saddam Hussein and his brutal thugs but to some Saddam is still a hero, a hero worth killing and dying for.
Do read the rest.
It was very encouraging to me that in the Arab Spring, Arabs called for democracy as an alternative to mullahcracy or autocracy. They didn't have an understanding of "democracy" and what it entails, but at least they wanted something different and looked to the West.
It is up to us to help them both understand and reach democracy and all that it means. If they decide they don't want it--or if forces within states block it--that's another matter. But we should try to see how far they can take their aspiration for democracy.
Of course, this is why I wanted us to keep 25,000 troops in Iraq after 2011--including three combat brigades kept on bases for training and deterrence.
We should have stayed to get Iraqis used to compromise and haggling in politics, secure in the knowledge that American troops would prevent the use of violence to settle political differences. We could have helped cultivate rule of law. South Korea, Japan, Germany, and Italy are better for our long presence. (I guess these states are lucky we kept troops in place to confront an external threat and provided a bonus side effect.)
We made a mistake in not busting a gut to get to "yes" in our negotiations to keep troops in Iraq. The Iraqis realize they screwed up. But President Obama would never send troops back--even though just intelligence, special forces, and drones would be a great help, I think, out in Anbar.
Not that I assume Iraq is doomed because of our failure to stay. We didn't have help way back when (and even faced a hostile Britain looming over us in Canada), yet we worked it out over time. Iraq could, too. But the chances of failure in Iraq are higher because we are not there in any strength, and the price Iraqis pay in blood will be higher, too, even if it all works out.
And we should try to help them--Iraqis and Arabs, generally. Or do you really want to say that Arabs aren't capable of wanting or carrying out democracy?
And if so, do you really want to endure endless war in a holding action against jihadis who will keep being spawned from a society that does not reform and modernize itself?
