Just out of curiousity, how does Afghanistan now relate to Israel. It isn’t an Arab country, and not quite close to Israel - but I gather that while their new government is heavily linked (understatement) to American policy, it does have a shred of independence here and there. (Relations with Iran for instance).
I would bet, if the Bush administration was smart about this - the new Iraqi government would basically take a position similar to Morocco’s long standing Israel policy (which may have changed in recent times). No legal recognition, but no openly stated government hostility either.
Perhaps the most that can be hoped for is the reduction of the glorification of the Palestinian suicide bombers through financial incentives given their families by the Iraqi government.
One very unfortunate potential outcome of this war will be if Iraqi does become a democracy and then, via the will of the people, turns into another Islamic fundamentalist state. Afghanistan, Algeria, and Iran were all secular dictatorships like Iraq and when the ruling regimes were overthrown the mullahs stepped in.
Correction: Algeria is still a ‘secular dictatorship’ and always has been - They’ve yet to be overthrown.
I’d also add that IMHO the circumstances surrounding all three nations and their relationships to various stripes of Islamism have as many or more dissimilarities than similarities.
From everything I’ve read I don’t think there is a strong strain of fundamentalism in Iraq as a whole. Of course that could change :(.
You are right, of course. However, I think you’ll agree that Algeria does conform to the general pattern of my post. The country was moving away from a secular military dictatorship towards democracy. However, when it was clear that an upcoming election was going to place a fundamentalist regime in power, the military reversed itself and ended the democratic reforms. Ironically, most western democracies supported them in this.
It’d be amazing if there was. One thing you must give Saddam Hussein credit for is being very effective in eliminating any potential domestic rivals for power. An active independent clergy would certainly have been eliminated long ago.