# Lounsbury on Iraq & MENA: War, Politics, Economy & Related Questions **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [March 26, 2003, 8:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lounsbury-on-iraq-mena-war-politics-economy-related-questions/164259 "2003-03-26T08:44:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 18
**Author:** ![system](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/original/2X/e/e489c3b7d8fce19c4b355dd4fc3f88cc39c34b87.png) [@system](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/system)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2003, 1:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lounsbury-on-iraq-mena-war-politics-economy-related-questions/164259/341 "2003-04-01T13:11:02Z")
I don’t have time to expand here, but I am afraid I utterly disagree. Much of the Islamist movement contains, in addition to retrograde elements, some elements that might be called ‘progressive in a conservative framework.’ This has been a **key** channel to get beyond the superficial “Bay Watch Effect” which in fact is **not** transformative, to get to see real durable social changes, ones in attitudes and not just some superficial habits. I have thought about this issue for years now, and the more I see, the more I am convinced that my initial observations in North Africa were correct, that only changes rooted in the local society and vocabularly -e.g. Islamic feminism, will lead to more than some superficial shifts in the elite. That perhaps is slightly overstated, but I will argue from my more than a decade of observation (good lord, I am gettin old) that this is largely true. C > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Abe \* > \*\ ***Edwino** , my first objection (even though I wasn’t asked) to the theocracy argument is the case of Iran, which you described as “an example of democracy taking roots in a liberalizing theocracy”. I think the roots of democracy began forming _in spite of_ the theocracy, not because of it. > > Frankly I think that had it not been for popular culture (not just Western but also importantly from the ME region, particularly some of those gorgous pop starlets with sexy clothes and heavy make-up that are coming out of Egypt, Lebanon, etc.) Iran would have made no progress at all with liberalization of political thought or personal freedom. It’s the Baywatch effect. > > I don’t see how a theocracy today (of ANY Judeo-Christian variation, not just Islam) wouldn’t quickly spiral out of control and breed fundamentalism galore, with all its attendant niceties. In Iraq the Sunni-Shi’ite split would probably manifest itself politically sooner or later, bringing more problems and conflict between the two. > > Let me also add that radical measures like Sharia do not exactly breed understanding, tolerance, and the other qualities you would want to see develop in order to have a regime AND a people friendly to the USA. “Egypt II - The Nile on the Euphrates” would still be preferrable to an Iraqi theocracy that unites the major religious groups in their resentment of anyone who doesn’t think like them. Even assuming this could be possible in Iraq. > > IMHO the discussion on what would and wouldn’t work in a landscape that is not even clear yet hinges on too many factors to discuss it here. If you can come up with a set of specific goals for the future Iraq (e.g., reduce tribalistic responses, increase tolerance, facilitate cross-cultural communication) it may be interesting to open a thread dedicated to it. Depending on the requirements and goals set it may be possible to discuss possible solutions… \*\* ---
**Author:** ![Boo\_Boo\_Foo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e274bd/32.png) [@Boo\_Boo\_Foo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boo_Boo_Foo)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2003, 1:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lounsbury-on-iraq-mena-war-politics-economy-related-questions/164259/342 "2003-04-01T13:14:18Z")
**Collounsbury** - many people still debate whether Al Gore would have made a better President than George Bush. Personally, I would prefer to ask this question… if Presidential terms weren’t limited to just 2, would Bill Clinton have made a better President than George Bush? I suspect most people would agree that, for all his faults, certainly the man grew into his role as a statesman near the end of his tenure. ---
**Author:** ![system](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/original/2X/e/e489c3b7d8fce19c4b355dd4fc3f88cc39c34b87.png) [@system](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/system)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2003, 1:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lounsbury-on-iraq-mena-war-politics-economy-related-questions/164259/343 "2003-04-01T13:18:59Z")
Well, I don’t want to engage in what ifs. What is clear to me is this upper level management team is utterly incompetent when it comes to managing long term relations and putting together a coherent, not one off, game plan. That I am categorical on. I am sure one of the Adminsitration’s apologists will come by to bleat about Lefties and all that nonesense, but the facts are the facts. ---
**Author:** ![vanilla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/f19dbf/32.png) [@vanilla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vanilla)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2003, 2:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lounsbury-on-iraq-mena-war-politics-economy-related-questions/164259/344 "2003-04-01T14:22:33Z")
A question about Baghdad: How fast are our troops moving in? They seem to be trying to go really slow, so as to avoid mass casualties. How much of the Iraqi civilian population want to fight back? How many actually support the U.S. action? if any. ---
**Author:** ![system](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/original/2X/e/e489c3b7d8fce19c4b355dd4fc3f88cc39c34b87.png) [@system](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/system)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2003, 2:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lounsbury-on-iraq-mena-war-politics-economy-related-questions/164259/345 "2003-04-01T14:43:20Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by vanilla \* > \*\*A question about Baghdad: > How fast are our troops moving in? > They seem to be trying to go really slow, so as to avoid mass casualties. > How much of the Iraqi civilian population want to fight back? > How many actually support the U.S. action? if any. \*\* In re the military situation, I only know what I see on al-Jazeera, al-Arabiyah, Abu Dhabi, BBC, TV 5 International. Afraid I’m not qualified on the troops question. In regards to the Iraqi civilian populace and its desire to fight back, well again this is hard to know. However, if you review this thread and my comments and the link to news storiess, such as a stream of young Iraqi men returning from exile to fight against the Americans (and pointedly not for Sadaam as one put it), then you get a sense that an important percentage are looking to cause the invaders (the US) as much pain as possible. Point of national honor if nothing else. I am sure there is also compulsion to fight, but despite our agitprop to the contrary I have the clear impression from first hand convos with Iraqis that this is badly exageratted – for all that in the post-conflict period we are likely to see highly situational claims to the contrary. The reality is mixed then, and is likely to be fluid. The more civilian casualties, the more opposition. The more poor diplomacy and less effort to speak to Arab views, the more opposition, and deeper. Where is the balance, I have no idea in the end, I can only suggest the courses of action I have to date. As for “support” it depends on what you mean. I would say there is near zero support for the idea of a US administration a la McArthur in Japan, perhaps light to moderate support for “get rid of Sadaam and leave us the fuck alone” type action. I have not referred to Pandora’s box for nothing. There are non-trivial difficulties that have been played down. ---
**Author:** ![Spiritus\_Mundi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c68b51/32.png) [@Spiritus\_Mundi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spiritus_Mundi)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2003, 2:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lounsbury-on-iraq-mena-war-politics-economy-related-questions/164259/346 "2003-04-01T14:43:42Z")
**col** It’s a minor point, but I wanted to make it clear that I was not saying that a sudden and sharp drop in the value of the dollar would have no effect on the US economy. I was simply noting that shoudl such a thing occur we do benefit from the insulatory effect of having foreign debts owed in our own currency. It is one of the real benefits of having our currency be the de facto standard for international commerce. I’m not a pollyanna on the quesiton of US debt ratio, but neither am I a cassandra who sees cataclysmic upheavals in the near future. ---
**Author:** ![IzzyR](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/2acd7d/32.png) [@IzzyR](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IzzyR)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2003, 3:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lounsbury-on-iraq-mena-war-politics-economy-related-questions/164259/347 "2003-04-01T15:13:07Z")
[Iraq War Boosts Militants’ Recruiting](http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-War-Militant-Upsurge.html) A hopeful sign: [British Say Iraqis Warm to Them in South](http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-War-Tipping-Point.html) But a somber note, concerning long-term aspects, from the [NY Times](http://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/01/international/worldspecial/01PARA.html?pagewanted=all&position=bottom) (at the tail end of a generally interesting article about American/Israeli parallels) > [@](#): > > unlike the Americans in Iraq, the Israelis were instantly welcomed as liberators, even by the Shiites of the south, Mr. Sneh said. “It was genuine, because we liberated them from the Palestinian occupation,” he said. > > Mr. Sneh, who is a member of Parliament, said he had been received warmly into Shiite homes. But, he said, in the kind of warning other Israeli soldiers recall receiving at the time, one Shiite leader told him, “Thank you for coming, but please, leave quickly.” > > The Israelis stayed, and their effort to install a new government ended in disaster. Charles Enderlin, the bureau chief here for France 2 television, recalled covering the war initially from a passenger car with Israeli license plates. Within months, he said, he was wearing a flak jacket and moving safely only in a military convoy. > > “You started to have attacks against Israelis, and the Israelis reacted the usual ways, and that was curfews on villages, searches in houses, sometimes in mosques, with dogs to look for explosives,” Mr. Enderlin recalled. “The result was, after a few months, the whole Shiite community was anti-Israeli.” The militant group Hezbollah had been born. > > Israel withdrew to a “security zone” in Lebanon’s south, but did not leave altogether for 18 years. > > Eventually it was the withdrawal that illustrated for Israelis how dangerous a trap the invasion had become: they did not want the army to stay in Lebanon, but they concluded that by leaving under fire, Israel emboldened the Palestinians to pursue their own cause violently in the belief that Israel would capitulate to force. > > “I don’t think the idea of the Americans staying in Iraq after the war is a good one,” said Asher Susser, director of the Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern Studies. “It’s a tortuous road to begin.” ---
**Author:** ![istara](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e79b87/32.png) [@istara](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/istara)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2003, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lounsbury-on-iraq-mena-war-politics-economy-related-questions/164259/348 "2003-04-01T16:14:46Z")
[slight hijack] > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Collounsbury \* > \*\*Puzzling, but don’t jinx me with comparisions with people who get killed. \*\* It’s not one of Christie’s best, but worth reading the first couple of pages for a really vivid depiction of Baghdad earlier this century. Bits of it sound similar to Dubai today (souqs full of cheap goods from Asia, all the hustle and bustle, hugely cosmopolitan place, etc). The guy who dies is a British guy, working as a goverment agent, who speaks IIRC about a dozen regional accents and dialects, has grown up in the region and passes completely for an Arab. Sorry to jinx you, however it should be a complimentary comparison! [/slight hijack] ---
**Author:** ![AZCowboy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/97f17d/32.png) [@AZCowboy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AZCowboy)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2003, 4:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lounsbury-on-iraq-mena-war-politics-economy-related-questions/164259/349 "2003-04-01T16:18:33Z")
> [@](#): > > _ **Collounsbury** wrote:_ > My greatest concern all along and continuing to present is the post-War solutions. I recall that you have self-imposed a limit of participating in one GD thread at a time, for personal or time constraint issues. May I suggest that once this thread has run its course\*, that your next GD OP be along the line of discussions regarding ideas for the post-war Iraq? \*I would also suggest that that time is near. Seems many of the questions coming along have actually been asked and answered in this thread already. ---
**Author:** ![Eva\_Luna](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e495f1/32.png) [@Eva\_Luna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eva_Luna)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2003, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lounsbury-on-iraq-mena-war-politics-economy-related-questions/164259/350 "2003-04-01T16:32:12Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Collounsbury \* > \*\* > Creating pressure to do things right, post war is helpful however. > \*\* I’m not sure that having the public show displeasure with current military actions is such a bad thing, if for no other reason than to show our own administration that we are watching them, and that some of us are angry about how they have handled this situation (and are continuing to handle it). My own personal hope is that demonstrations will receive international coverage, and that it will create a certain greater level of understanding abroad that this administration does NOT speak for all of us when it comes to matters of war and international diplomacy, or of U.S./Mideast relations. But that’s probably a separate thread, too. I would love any specific ideas, though, on how to make my thoughts known to my governmental representatives; the more specific, the better. Obviously, I can write a letter to the editor, or to my Congressman (Jan Schakowsky, who is generally of a mind with me anyway; she’s an old friend of my mom’s, and a social/political activist from way back), but I’d appreciate any more creative ways people might have in mind, ones which might create a wider audience. > [@](#): > > \*\* > > Given direct convos with people involved, it is clear to me that the Admin has not been listening to experts here on the ground. Hiring them and not listening to them is not terribly helpful. \*\* Of course not; if Bush and Cheney, who are so militarily focused at the moment, won’t even listen to people at the upper levels of Defense, why would they listen to anyone at State at all, let alone those outside the diplomatic sector? I just hope that after the dust has settled, those who will be in a position to influence the shape of the postwar Iraqi administration will remember that there are people out there with the professional expertise to know what might actually work, and might be more open to listening to their ideas. ---
**Author:** ![Balduran](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/cc9497/32.png) [@Balduran](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Balduran)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2003, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lounsbury-on-iraq-mena-war-politics-economy-related-questions/164259/351 "2003-04-01T16:46:53Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Collounsbury \* > In regards to the Iraqi civilian populace and its desire to fight back, well again this is hard to know. However, if you review this thread and my comments and the link to news storiess, such as a stream of young Iraqi men returning from exile to fight against the Americans (and pointedly not for Sadaam as one put it), then you get a sense that an important percentage are looking to cause the invaders (the US) as much pain as possible. Point of national honor if nothing else. This sounds very odd to me. They may say they are not fighting for Sadaam, but in practical terms, they are. Not only are they prolonging the fight, but I imagine they will be making the post-war situation worse. Adding to the hard feelings all around. Is national honor and mistrust of the US so deep that these matters not considered? A hypothetical question for the experts here. If magically, the war and the post-war were conducted the way you think it should, would you be in favour of it? ---
**Author:** ![Cervaise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cervaise/32/16693_2.png) [@Cervaise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cervaise)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2003, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lounsbury-on-iraq-mena-war-politics-economy-related-questions/164259/352 "2003-04-01T17:49:23Z")
> [@](#): > > This sounds very odd to me. They may say they are not fighting for Sadaam, but in practical terms, they are. The Bush Administration says “Operation Iraqi Freedom” is part of the War on Terror, but in pursuing it they are increasing anti-American feelings around the world and making recruitment easier for al-Qaida and other organizations. Bush & Co may say they’re fighting terrorists, but in practical terms, they’re making more of them. How is this any less odd? Humans can do some very weird things if the rationalization is strong enough. As Collounsbury has been saying over and over in this thread, while the Arab in the street has no great love for Saddam, they hate the U.S. invaders much, much more. Strange bedfellows and all that. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2003, 6:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lounsbury-on-iraq-mena-war-politics-economy-related-questions/164259/353 "2003-04-01T18:19:11Z")
> [@](#): > > This sounds very odd to me. They may say they are not fighting for Sadaam, but in practical terms, they are. Not only are they prolonging the fight, but I imagine they will be making the post-war situation worse. Adding to the hard feelings all around. Is national honor and mistrust of the US so deep that these matters not considered? Ever watched _The Civil War_ by Ken Burns? One of his clips was of Shelby Foote relating an anecdote (they must have played it several times during the series) in which he describes a Confederate soldier being interviewed by a Federal officer. He described the rebel as being clearly poor, certainly not a slave-holder, possibly not even a landowner. The Union officer pointed out that it seemed odd that he would be fighting to support the landed gentry when he was not even able to partake in their society, ending the questioning with “Why are you here?” To which the rebel replied. “Because you are.” The purely rational observations of people who are outside a conflict (and who may not even understand all the issues involved in the conflict) will alwys be trumped by the heartfelt convictions of those who choose to participate. ---
**Author:** ![Bomzaway](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e480ec/32.png) [@Bomzaway](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bomzaway)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2003, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lounsbury-on-iraq-mena-war-politics-economy-related-questions/164259/354 "2003-04-01T18:34:01Z")
Thanks for the thread Collounsbury. It’s very informative. Can you comment on what you perceive to be the root cause for American or Western hatred is, and what can be done to appease those that despise us so? I do understand that this is a rather simplistic question for a complex situation. ---
**Author:** ![Boo\_Boo\_Foo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e274bd/32.png) [@Boo\_Boo\_Foo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boo_Boo_Foo)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2003, 10:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lounsbury-on-iraq-mena-war-politics-economy-related-questions/164259/355 "2003-04-01T22:08:30Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by tomndebb \* > \*\*The Union officer pointed out that it seemed odd that he would be fighting to support the landed gentry when he was not even able to partake in their society, ending the questioning with “Why are you here?” To which the rebel replied. “Because you are.” > > The purely rational observations of people who are outside a conflict (and who may not even understand all the issues involved in the conflict) will alwys be trumped by the heartfelt convictions of those who choose to participate. \*\* Excellent quote **tomndebb** … excellent quote… that particular mini-series should be compulsory viewing for all students of history the world over - such was it’s quality. More importantly, it gets to the heart of my earlier posts regarding education. (I know, I know, I must sound like a broken record at the moment but I fear that I STILL haven’t explained my point well enough, so I’m gonna try again :D) As an analogy, I’d like to offer the Serbian-Croatian community which emigrated to Australia after WW2. Man, those guys had some ethnic emnity going back a thousand years, and even AFTER they had moved out here to Australia, they still wanted to keep the fight going. Of course, it pissed off us local Aussies very much - it was, after all, not the Australian way - it was an unwritten rule that once you became an Australian citizen, you let bygones be bygones and you had to leave all that stuff behind. Still, ever 5 or 7 years or so, there’d be some minor tit for tat reprisal - maybe some ethnic mob violence at a soccer game etc - that sort of bullshit. However, the 2nd generation of those Serbians and Croations just had nothing but disdain for the “old fight” as it used to be known. By and large, they wanted to have NOTHING of it - the “ancient emnity” had no place in their lives, and it was an embarassment to these 2nd generation folks. And this is what I was trying to get across earlier regarding my observations about the Golden Ideals of stable society. Somehow, here in Australia, by either good luck or good fortune, we’ve set up a situation where in the space of just 1 generation - ancient bitterness and emnity can be forgotten, or at least looked upon as being the wasteful handbrake that it truly is. What I was trying to say earlier to **Collounsbury** is that through quality education, and other intangible factors such as worldliness, and letting the internet INTO closed societies etc - is it possible that a similar quantum shift could take place WITHIN the Arab World in just one generation? Coz, as it stands at the moment, I get the distinct impression that all of those ethnic separations, all of those deeply ingrained cultural “ways of doing things”, well, they seem like an institutionalised kind of handbrake, if you know what I mean? ---
**Author:** ![The\_Peyote\_Coyote](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/5f8ce5/32.png) [@The\_Peyote\_Coyote](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Peyote_Coyote)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2003, 12:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lounsbury-on-iraq-mena-war-politics-economy-related-questions/164259/356 "2003-04-02T00:23:34Z")
Collounsbury: you probably missed my earlier question, but what information do you hear about Iran’s rumored development of the Bomb? I’ve entertained the possibility that the Bush Administration will try to go after Iran next, especially considering its earlier warnings this week against Syria and Iran. A couple of weeks ago, I read a column in The National Review by a commentator urging that the US nuke N. Korea and Iran, and I wonder if more within the administration do not share his views. ---
**Author:** ![Truth\_Seeker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/5fc32e/32.png) [@Truth\_Seeker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Truth_Seeker)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2003, 5:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lounsbury-on-iraq-mena-war-politics-economy-related-questions/164259/357 "2003-04-02T05:04:55Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Collounsbury \* > **I have thought about this issue for years now, and the more I see, the more I am convinced that my initial observations in North Africa were correct, that only changes rooted in the local society and vocabularly -e.g. Islamic feminism, will lead to more than some superficial shifts in the elite.** I’m not so sure. If you’re willing to take a fairly long view, it’s easy to effect dramatic, permanent change in almost any society: corrupt the young. This obviously takes 30 years or so to be fully effective but it can produce dramatic results. If you really wanted to completely tranform a middle eastern society, all you have to do allow its citizens, to freely study, work and live in Europe and the U.S. Having a large percentage of the population with family links to the West creates a powerful undercurrent of cultural exchange. Look, for example, at Iran. I would argue (with no academic support whatsoever) that one of the key influences shaping modern Iranian attitudes towards democracy is the very large number of Iranian expatriates in the West, especially in the United States. Iran and the U.S. are _supposed_ to be bitter enemies, yet these people have relatives back in Iran with which they maintain close contact. (There are also, of course, a great many Iranians in Iran who studied in the U.S.) These Iranian expats infect their relatives back home with western ideas, attitudes and, most importantly, expectations. Having Uncle Majid as a living role model is a thousand times more effective than any top-down initiative could possibly be. The trick is that you have to make the young believe they have a shot at success. Here’s an interesting article from an expat Iranian newspaper discussing [the prevalence of western culture in Iran.](http://www.iranian.com/News/1999/November/youth.html) Despite Iran’s semi-pariah status, average Iranians view themselves as having a real stake in international culture. For the same reasons, I predict the nastiness in the Balkans will be nothing more than a fading memory thirty years from now. Young Serbs, Kosovars, Bosnians, etc, have something better on offer than continued ethnic and religious rivalry. This, I’m afraid, is exactly what is **not** happening in most of the Arab world today. The “Baywatch Effect” is completely counterproductive unless the lifestyle it portrays is believed to be at least theoretically attainable. If the young have no hope whatsoever, wholesale export of western cultural imagery is likely to result in an anti-western backlash. If people are convinced they can never have something, they’re likely to decide they don’t want it. ---
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2003, 5:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lounsbury-on-iraq-mena-war-politics-economy-related-questions/164259/358 "2003-04-02T05:50:10Z")
How did the Romans deal with Iraq (or Mesopotamia, or however it was known then) as part of their empire? While Col and others offer sage counsel as to the folly of poorly informed hubris and great expectations, I wonder if there really _is_ a new world order coming based on a United States centric “hyper power” model. Does the United States have the necessary institutional sophistication to efficiently run a globe spanning empire in this context? ---
**Author:** ![Tamerlane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tamerlane/32/7602_2.png) [@Tamerlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamerlane)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2003, 6:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lounsbury-on-iraq-mena-war-politics-economy-related-questions/164259/359 "2003-04-02T06:39:06Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Truth Seeker \* > > Look, for example, at Iran. I would argue (with no academic support whatsoever) that one of the key influences shaping modern Iranian attitudes towards democracy is the very large number of Iranian expatriates in the West, especially in the United States. Iran and the U.S. are _supposed_ to be bitter enemies, yet these people have relatives back in Iran with which they maintain close contact. (There are also, of course, a great many Iranians in Iran who studied in the U.S.) These Iranian expats infect their relatives back home with western ideas, attitudes and, most importantly, expectations. Having Uncle Majid as a living role model is a thousand times more effective than any top-down initiative could possibly be. If I may, I would venture the opinion that you are overemphasizing the importance of the ex-pats just a bit. Not that they aren’t an influence, but I think it is worth keeping in mind that a very significant number of them were/are from the exiled Iranian upper-class ( the “100 families” and associates ), which does not have a good reputation in Iran. It was as much against them as the Shah that the revolution was launched. They were highly westernized before the revolution and those that remained behind still are, but they are far more politically impotent than they once were and they still seem somewhat internalized culturally. A smaller, but still insignificant number were/are from Iran’s secular middle-class and they probably have a wider impact. However I’d say that the biggest reason you see such a pro-western ( if you can call it that - maybe just modernist ) cultural tilt is because Iran was already tilted before the revolution and the revolution really didn’t change things much. At most it froze things for a few years. The Iranian revolution, as profound a shift as it was, did not affect a complete change in cultural paradigm. A telling observation from Richard Kaplan: \*A male journalist could go, for example, to Saudi Arabia, to Iraq, even to Pakistan, with its female prime minister, Benazair Bhutto, and be lectured at length about “the increasing role of women in public affairs,” and be obliged to interview a prominent woman who ran this or that league of Iraqi or Pakistani women. And yet, when I entered a restaurant in these countries, I would encounter only men eating their grilled meat. Women were rarely in sight, and usually confined to the “family” section behind a screened partition. In Iran, as I had begun to learn, women would always be seen in restaurants, and were always approachable. In Iran, a male traveler communicated with both sexes, not just with his own. In Iran, you could point a camera at a woman - as I often did - and she would smile. If you did that in Pakistan, the woman would run away and a man might throw a rock at you. In Iranian homes, even lowe-middle-class homes, where women remained in chador, women still talked to you, questioned you, and did not politely retreat. The Islamic Revolution was supposed to have been cultural as well as political. The chador, coupled with the giant posters reading Marg bar Amrika ( “Death to America” ), were visual evidence of this dual purpose. Yet the mores of what was, by Near Eastern standards, a highly sophisticated, urbane, and even northern culture, appeared minimally affected fifteen years after the revolution, or even twenty years later…\* You’re not wrong in your observation of a sophisticated, somewhat westernized society, but I’d say that is mostly because it has been that way since before the revolution. Modern Iran in that sense is less a product of the revolution, but rather the result of a long historical evolution that includes the revolution, but started much earlier. [/QUOTE] > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by astro \* > How did the Romans deal with Iraq (or Mesopotamia, or however it was known then) as part of their empire? They didn’t much. Except for a very brief period under Trajan, that region was Persian, either under Parthian or Sassanian control. Indeed it was the center of gravity for the Sassanian state in particular, due to its huge land revenues ( the Parthians were a bit less settled as far as capitals went, but still heavily dependant on the economic resources of Iraq ). Just as it was to be the economic engine of the later Islamic Caliphates and its decline in that regard was a major factor in the dissolution of Caliphal central authority by the mid-Abbasid period. > [@](#): > > While Col and others offer sage counsel as to the folly of poorly informed hubris and great expectations, I wonder if there really _is_ a new world order coming based on a United States centric “hyper power” model. Does the United States have the necessary institutional sophistication to efficiently run a globe spanning empire in this context? WAG/HO? No. I’d also argue that it would be folly to try. I’m not an isolationist, but hyper-interventionism is just as bad. - Tamerlane ---
**Author:** ![system](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/original/2X/e/e489c3b7d8fce19c4b355dd4fc3f88cc39c34b87.png) [@system](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/system)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2003, 6:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lounsbury-on-iraq-mena-war-politics-economy-related-questions/164259/360 "2003-04-02T06:42:21Z")
Again, all this is well and good. But, _irrelevant_. You are pointing to an immigration issue, of people leaving their old roots and integrating, however fitfully, into a new community. This is not how things work in place, with rooted communities. Education is fine, but it is not magical, and it has real limitations that I have already set out. Pointing to utterly different situations, sociologically and economically does not change the observation. > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Boo Boo Foo \* > \*\*Excellent quote **tomndebb** … excellent quote… that particular mini-series should be compulsory viewing for all students of history the world over - such was it’s quality. > > More importantly, it gets to the heart of my earlier posts regarding education. (I know, I know, I must sound like a broken record at the moment but I fear that I STILL haven’t explained my point well enough, so I’m gonna try again :D) > > As an analogy, I’d like to offer the Serbian-Croatian community which emigrated to Australia after WW2. Man, those guys had some ethnic emnity going back a thousand years, and even AFTER they had moved out here to Australia, they still wanted to keep the fight going. Of course, it pissed off us local Aussies very much - it was, after all, not the Australian way - it was an unwritten rule that once you became an Australian citizen, you let bygones be bygones and you had to leave all that stuff behind. Still, ever 5 or 7 years or so, there’d be some minor tit for tat reprisal - maybe some ethnic mob violence at a soccer game etc - that sort of bullshit. > > However, the 2nd generation of those Serbians and Croations just had nothing but disdain for the “old fight” as it used to be known. By and large, they wanted to have NOTHING of it - the “ancient emnity” had no place in their lives, and it was an embarassment to these 2nd generation folks. > > And this is what I was trying to get across earlier regarding my observations about the Golden Ideals of stable society. Somehow, here in Australia, by either good luck or good fortune, we’ve set up a situation where in the space of just 1 generation - ancient bitterness and emnity can be forgotten, or at least looked upon as being the wasteful handbrake that it truly is. > > What I was trying to say earlier to **Collounsbury** is that through quality education, and other intangible factors such as worldliness, and letting the internet INTO closed societies etc - is it possible that a similar quantum shift could take place WITHIN the Arab World in just one generation? Coz, as it stands at the moment, I get the distinct impression that all of those ethnic separations, all of those deeply ingrained cultural “ways of doing things”, well, they seem like an institutionalised kind of handbrake, if you know what I mean? \*\* [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lounsbury-on-iraq-mena-war-politics-economy-related-questions/164259.md?page=17) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lounsbury-on-iraq-mena-war-politics-economy-related-questions/164259.md?page=19)