#3 "Six years after 9/11, throughout the Muslim world political Islam is on the march; the surprise is that its rise is happening democratically - not through the bomb, but the ballot box.
I don't think Karzai or Maliki are terrorists. They were elected through a democratic process, with only minimal intimidation and vote-rigging. We're beginning to see truly democratic reform taking place in Iraq, with the Sunnis turning on Al Qaeda and deciding they need to take part in the political process. The Kurds have been on board from the beginning. Some Shia tribal leaders are beginning to figure out that any government NOT based on power-sharing and democratic principles will result in another tyranny, and are cooperating with the Maliki government.
Democracy is not the antidote to the Islamists the neocons once fondly believed it would be.
It takes time for ideas to settle in and people to get comfortable with them. It's only been six years. The United States government tried one form of government (Articles of Confederation), and found it didn't work. The Constitution of the United States, creating a Federal government, wasn't accepted until 1789. Why should we expect the Iraqis to "get it right" in only about three years, in the midst of constant war?
Since the US invaded Afghanistan and Iraq, there has been a consistent response from voters wherever Muslims have had the right to vote. In Lebanon, Iran, Iraq, Palestine, Pakistan, Egypt, Turkey and Algeria they have voted en masse for religious parties in a way they have never done before.
The Lebanese government has been a "work in progress" for the last 70 years. Most of its problems are caused by manipulation by Syria and Iran, a "refugee" population of almost a half-million people, and an active insurgency by Hezbollah. Iran, Pakistan, Egypt, and Algeria cannot be called "democratic" by anyone with two operational brain cells. Iraq has NOT elected a totalitarian or strictly religious government, although religious meddling has played a major part in its current situation. Turkey is in the midst of learning what happens when you let mullahs have unlimited power to undermine your secular government. They have a choice to make. We'll have to wait and see how THAT turns out.
Where governments have been most closely linked to the US, political IslamÂ’s rise has been most marked."
It's not only POLITICAL Islam, but also RELIGIOUS Islam that is causing the problems. When mullahs stand in the pulpit and declare the only form of government that is acceptable to muslim believers is a theocracy run by the mullahs, there's going to be a problem. There MUST be separation of Church and State for secular governments to survive. If the State is run by the Church, the church leaders have "divine powers" to declare how people should vote, as well as how they will live. That's the major drawback to Islam as a religion - it demands obedience to the clerics at the price of personal freedom. When you're told HOW to vote by the clerics, with the threat of death for not following orders, it's kind of hard for democracy to take root. The biggest mistake we made in Iraq was in not capping the more radical clerics at the very beginning. Our continued mistake is in letting the more obnoxious clerics live, both in Iraq and in Iran. |
An anti-Taliban commander who fought alongside US forces during the 2001 invasion predicted that proposed peace talks would be a "long and complex process" but likely would be snubbed by hard-liners and foreign fighters in the Islamic militia.