Invade Iran?

[Mike_Rupp]

Kris, for fuck's sake. You are taking about a split second in the history of the middle-east. Do you honestly think that there will be a long lasting democracy in Egypt or Libya?

http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/10/12/2451208/libyan-rebels-abuse-torture-prisoners.html Blacks are being rounded up and tortured in Libya. Does that sound like democracy to you?

 

[apg]

Which is precisely why Bush's father didn't go after Saddam after he kicked his ass out of Kuwait. I know that most people here are too young to remember the Iran / Iraq war, but both countries hate each other with a vengeance. Even though Saddam was a thug, he had a rational mind. He was able to stay in power for decades by being rational about reading between the lines. A little poke once in a while would have been all it took to keep him in place.

Now we have the void in Iraq as a power base to counter Iran. The result: Syria and Hezbollah have become much stronger.

Again, total agreement....

The problem with neo-cons is that they have their utopian wet dreams just like liberal democrats. Rather than having a dream about income equality, Bush honestly believed that there was an actual possibility of setting up a democracy in the middle east, even though a few thousand years of history showed otherwise.

Them damn neo-cons.... The problem - other than the fact that the decision to invade Iraq was made before the election and every reason given to justify the invasion has been demonstrably proven to be totally and completely false - was the execution of the invasion. Not the military tactics - they were almost flawless - but the civil strategy ...if you can call a total FUBAR "strategy." Hire twenty-somethings with but one qualification: political loyalty. Watch the ineptitude as literally tons of greenbacks simply disappear. Fire all the Arab speakers for being (supposedly) gay. The only 'asset' in Baghdad that was protected after the invasion, and indeed wasn't touched in the "shock and awe" run-up to the invasion, was the oil ministry. Museums and ammo dumps were free for the pickin'. Yeah, Bush and the neo-con dim-bulbs at the Heritage Group just expected democracy to simply spring forth from the rubble, yet after one (or two) trillion dollars, the place is worse than before. What say the next time we go to war for oil, we actually get some.

And while attention and military assets were diverted to Iraq, the real problem of Afghanistan didn't receive the 'attention' it deserved. Hell, we even 'outsourced' the hunt for Osama.... There was a time immediately after the invasion of the 'stan that things could have turned out completely differently. But the 'stan doesn't have any resources to speak of (other than opium and hard-rock minerals like iron). Iraq has lotsa oil and both Bush and Cheney were in the "erl bidness". It was a no-brainer.... I've lived and worked in an Arab country in a time of war. Iraq was a neo-con policy and strategy failure.

 

[Mike_Rupp]

APG, since we are in the rare position of agreeing with each other and the fact that you lived in an Arab country, give me your take on these "democratic" movements in Libya and Egypt. Are the democracies just a transition to another totalitarian regime? I can't imagine that the result of these revolutions will result in anything that results in a democracy.

 

[paxton]

Doesn't anyone remember the most important piece of wisdom imparted in the film "The Princess Bride"?

"Ha ha! You fool! You fell victim to one of the classic blunders - The most famous of which is 'never get involved in a land war in Asia'..."

If Vizzini had been the Secretary of Defense instead of Rumsfeld we wouldn't be in either Iraq or Afghanistan. Then again, if Vizzini had been Secretary of Defense then Dick Cheney would have tricked him into drinking the wine with iocane powder.

Ha! You win three internets. Well done!
:applause:

 

[knewsom]

Kris, for fuck's sake. You are taking about a split second in the history of the middle-east. Do you honestly think that there will be a long lasting democracy in Egypt or Libya?

http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/10/12/2451208/libyan-rebels-abuse-torture-prisoners.html Blacks are being rounded up and tortured in Libya. Does that sound like democracy to you?

If you look at the majority of the history of OUR "democracy", then yes.

 

[SGaynor]

APG, since we are in the rare position of agreeing with each other and the fact that you lived in an Arab country, give me your take on these "democratic" movements in Libya and Egypt. Are the democracies just a transition to another totalitarian regime? I can't imagine that the result of these revolutions will result in anything that results in a democracy.

I'd say the majority of the people in those countries do what a democracy (where their leaders are elected). However, the powers that be, and those that have a lot to loose (ie, the military in Egypt)...well, that may be another story. 60 Minutes just did a piece about Egypt and how the military (which runs the country, and promised to hold free elections) is dragging their feet, and reverting to normal under Mubarak (rounding up protesters, torture, etc.).

It really takes the will of the people to die for their freedom. Will that occur in the MIddle East? Maybe. One of the refrains I keep hearing in interviews with the "protesters" is that they rose up because they were no longer willing to be afraid.

What happened in the USA 225 years ago, was an anomaly - someone in power, freely giving it up (Washington, Adams after loosing to Jefferson). It generally takes decades for a country to shift away from a (psuedo)dictatorship to a true (representative) democracy, and usually under the control of a benevolent dictator (examples: England, Chile, Japan (under MacAurthur), or single ruling party/class (examples: Mexico, Turkey, Japan). This allows time for the establishment of democratic institutions (courts, middle class, press, etc.) in those societies.

That is why nation building is so hard - it takes decades to create those institutions vital to the success of a democracy.

 

[Mike_Rupp]

Who are the benevolent dictators in Egypt? The Muslim Brotherhood?

To be completely simplistic, there isn't a struggle between good guys and bad guys. Take France as an example. They were seesawing back and forth from a republic and a monarchy. In the end, they set the monarchy aside and became a republic. It was essentially a struggle between freedom and oppression.

Who knows what will happen in Egypt? My guess is that it won't be anything remotely democratic like the people on the left in this country envision.

 

[Eliot]

The MB is aiming for a soft coup through the ballot box.

 

[apg]

APG, since we are in the rare position of agreeing with each other and the fact that you lived in an Arab country, give me your take on these "democratic" movements in Libya and Egypt. Are the democracies just a transition to another totalitarian regime? I can't imagine that the result of these revolutions will result in anything that results in a democracy.

The only one I can comment on is Tunisia, which is where the "Arab spring" began. In fact, I've been in the town square of Sidibou Said (the name has since changed slightly) where the original events actually happened, ironically, with a broke-down Land-Rover. (Three of our six tires were marginal....) I had a diesel 88" to drive over there, but I had mine back here first.

Tunisia had a well-educated middle class. The president-for-life, Habib Bourghiba was on a George Washington, father-of-his-country sort of trip...women could vote, there was universal education, and no corruption to speak of. There was also no oil - save for olive oil. No oil cartels, no theft and graft by foreign companies. Indeed, the only mineral resource was phosphate rock. Ain't no phosphate cartels.... Tunisia used to be Carthage and later Rome's breadbasket; there was a well-established wine (and beer) industry since antiquity. In that regard, the Tunisians were pretty poor Muslims: they drank like fishes. As did we....

Education to me is the antithesis of radical Islam, and Tunisians were rather well educated. Sometimes were would get heat from the local clerics for what we were doing: renovating water wells (most dug by the Romans) and giving the townfolk their first safe water - ever. But dying of bad water is like the third holiest way to die in Islam. Die of bad water on the way to Mecca while on jihad, you've hit the muslim trifecta and get 72 virgins cubed in the afterlife.:smilelol: The locals preferred the safe water.

Libya was right next door, but we couldn't go there. But there are a lot of cultural similarities. Because of their environments, North African countries are a lot less tribal. They've been merchants and traders for centuries, so the tribe isn't as important as in Yemen or Saudi for that fact. Kadafi seemed to be interested in educating his people, but then all that oil wealth has a mighty corrupting influence.

I think Tunisia and Libya will do well, democratically speaking. Egypt, I'm not so sure. That's because it is a large and poor country that has been ruled by an oligarchy for, well, forever. Education is lacking and poverty is fertile ground for recruiting radical Islamists.

There actually was a democratic "revolution" in Iran circa 1954. A democratically-elected president who was going to tax the foreign oil companies. That didn't sit well with the Republican administration at that time, so the CIA stepped in. (Google it....) In the end, the Shah was put on the throne, 'cause he was much more friendly to the oil companies. His excesses (and prisons) brought about the Iranian revolution in 1979. How different the middle east might be if US hadn't been acting as a thug for the oil companies.

 

[SGaynor]

Who are the benevolent dictators in Egypt? The Muslim Brotherhood?

To be completely simplistic, there isn't a struggle between good guys and bad guys. Take France as an example. They were seesawing back and forth from a republic and a monarchy. In the end, they set the monarchy aside and became a republic. It was essentially a struggle between freedom and oppression.

Who knows what will happen in Egypt? My guess is that it won't be anything remotely democratic like the people on the left in this country envision.

I was thinking of France, too. My thoughts exactly, although I wonder if the people in Egypt are willing to trade one dictator for another (military or MB). I really don't think anyone knows the answer to that question. Syria is a similar boat.

My gut says this is a pivot in history, I just don't know which way it will go. I hope for democracies in the middle east, but fear otherwise. But like France, this may take a while to play out (what, almost 100 years for France?).

 

[SGaynor]

I think Tunisia and Libya will do well, democratically speaking. Egypt, I'm not so sure. That's because it is a large and poor country that has been ruled by an oligarchy for, well, forever. Education is lacking and poverty is fertile ground for recruiting radical Islamists.

I thought Egypt had a large university educated population? (I realize it does have a large underclass.)

I also thought Libya was largely (nomadic) tribal? (a quick google lists it as the most tribal Arabic nation.)

 

[Eliot]

The Muslim Brotherhood is the only organized opposition in the entire country and organization wins elections. They'll sweep the boards for that reason alone.

 

[Paul Grant]

There actually was a democratic "revolution" in Iran circa 1954. A democratically-elected president who was going to tax the foreign oil companies. That didn't sit well with the Republican administration at that time, so the CIA stepped in. (Google it....) In the end, the Shah was put on the throne, 'cause he was much more friendly to the oil companies. His excesses (and prisons) brought about the Iranian revolution in 1979. How different the middle east might be if US hadn't been acting as a thug for the oil companies.

It was Teddy Roosevelt's grandson who, working with the British accomplished the overthrow of Mosaddegh in 1953. The British didn't like the nationalization of BP's oil wells. Nobody in this country is even aware of it let alone able to comprehend the coup's ramifications. If only people in this country got a real education in world history.

 

[apg]

I thought Egypt had a large university educated population? (I realize it does have a large underclass.)

Big number of college grads....unemployed college grad these dayss. But a huge population for the arab world.

I also thought Libya was largely (nomadic) tribal? (a quick google lists it as the most tribal Arabic nation.

That may be today...I got a different read back in '74. Perhaps tribal 'competition' was one of Kadafi's ways of keeping everybody down. Tribe vs. tribe so anybody won't be vs. him. Smart actually...and cheap, too..... Clever fuck.

No wonder we are having troubles finding/whacking his ass.

 

[apg]

The Muslim Brotherhood is the only organized opposition in the entire country and organization wins elections. They'll sweep the boards for that reason alone.

Bingo. That pretty much sums it up...and why I worry.