Pro-Syrian parties swept elections in southern Lebanon.

BEIRUT, June 6 -- Hezbollah and its pro-Syrian allies celebrated their sweep of Sunday's elections in southern Lebanon, while in Damascus, officials of Syria's ruling party gathered Monday for a meeting where President Bashar Assad focused on economic and governance matters rather than broad change in the political system. Politicians from Hezbollah, an armed Shiite Muslim movement that was allied in the election with the mainstream Amal party, sought to portray the election results as a rebuff to international calls for its disarmament. Official results showed candidates on the Shiite parties' list outpolling their nearest opponents by ratios of about 10 to one.

Remember why Syrian troops were in Lebanon in the first place: The various groups in Lebanon fought a many year civil war with each other. In some other parts of Lebanon Hezbollah and Amal couldn't win a single seat. The various groups and regions are deeply divided. Deep divisions are not favorable conditions for successful democracy.

There is a possibility that pro-Syrian parties will get a majority in the Lebanese parliament.

The next two rounds of voting, this Sunday and on June 19, will be more hotly contested than the first two, and will determine whether the anti-Syrian opposition achieves a majority.

Suppose the pro-Syrian faction achieves a majority. Will Condi Rice hail the result as a victory for democracy? Will George W. Bush point to it as beneficial result of the US invasion of Iraq?

This brings to mind Saudi Arabia's April 2005 municipal advisory council elections in which Islamists won the most seats.

JIDDAH, Saudi Arabia, April 23 -- Saudi Arabia's limited 10-week experiment with electoral democracy ended here Saturday in a sweeping victory for slates of Islamic activists marketed as the "Golden List," who used grass-roots organizing, digital technology and endorsements from popular religious leaders to defeat their liberal and tribal rivals, even here in Jiddah, for decades Saudi Arabia's most diverse and business-driven city.

Shiites won many of the seats in the Eastern oil region where Shiites are a majority.

Imagine a Saudi Arabia where the monarchy was replaced with a democratically elected government. The Sunni majority's elected leaders might persecute the Shia minority more than the monarchy does. Given an illiberal voting majority dictatorship of the majority will be harsh.

By Randall Parker    2005 June 07 09:22 AM Entry Permalink | Comments ( 2 ) | TrackBack ( 0 )

2005 May 09 Monday

A Critical Look At Natan Sharanky's Democracy Argument

Gerard Alexander writing for the Claremont Review of Books casts a critical eye on a book by Natan Sharansky and Ron Dermer, The Case for Democracy: The Power of Freedom to Overcome Tyranny and Terror. Alexander argues that both the main empirical arguments of Sharansky's book are wrong.

The evidence for these claims is mixed at best. Research on the "democratic peace" is easily misunderstood. It shows, for example, that the U.S. has basically never gone to war against a democracy; but this does not suggest that it has waged war against all that many dictatorships. Wars may be more likely between democracies and non-democracies, but these wars aren't especially likely, either. It is true that both the Soviet Union and Palestinian radicals— Sharansky's focus—have highly aggressive agendas. But his claim that non-democratic regimes are "inherently" belligerent is difficult to square with the fact that most dictatorships do not manifest military designs on democratic countries. It is symbolic, in this respect, that America in the 20th century shared its two famously undefended borders with democratic Canada and authoritarian Mexico.

The evidence is even scarcer that non-democratic regimes inevitably generate extremism among their citizens. Some may have, such as Nicaragua and Iran in the 1970s and Algeria, Saudi Arabia, and the Palestinian territories since the 1980s. But in Africa, Latin America, and East Asia, non-democratic regimes have not, as a general rule, generated violent extremism. Most of Western Europe's historic dictatorships incubated more moderation than radicalism, which is why many of them evolved peacefully into today's consolidated democracies. For that matter, well over a dozen substantially Muslim countries in Africa and Central Asia have so far not generated much extremism, despite durable authoritarian rule. Indeed, one of Sharansky's core cases doesn't support his claim: the USSR seems to have incubated apathy, not extremism.

This highlights a fundamental contradiction in the book. Sharansky argues that non-democratic regimes are doomed to see their citizens move increasingly in the direction of freedom. But a few pages away he argues that non-democratic regimes inevitably produce enraged and profoundly illiberal citizens who are easy fodder for radical recruiters. Which is it? If tyrannies produce not only Mohammed Attas but also Natan Sharanskys, then they must have effects far more complex than he suggests. To make matters worse, violent extremism has been bred, and sustained, in democratic Northern Ireland, and jihadis have found ready recruits among Muslims who are lifelong residents and even citizens of democratic Britain, France, and Israel.

If Sharansky's arguments are wrong then the neocon rationale for their attempt to spread democracy is also wrong. The sorry history of US attempts to change other nations with military force argues against the view that democracy is a panacea. Robert Conquest, one of the rare scholars who called the nature of the Soviet Union correctly, argues that the current promotion of democracy by the chattering classes is a form of madness of the crowds. Also, see my partial list of reasons why democratization efforts in the Middle East are naive. The recent Islamic "Golden List' victories in Saudi municipal elections are only the most recent example of why democracy is not a panacea.

Sharansky recently resigned from Ariel Sharon's cabinet due to Sharansky's opposition to the removal of about 7000 Jewish settlement occupants from the Gaza Strip. My cynical view of Sharansky's argument for Palestinian democracy is that he's setting the bar so high on Palestinian behavior precisely so that Israel never has to grant the Palestinians either self rule or firm borders that clearly separate them from Israel.

Update: Steve Sailer, after citing a number of democracies that have fought each other, points out that democracy is more likely a consequence of the same conditions that make a society less likely to want to invade other countries.

I think, though, that the main reason democracies don't fight each other much is because if the objective situation makes war likely, democracy is unlikely too. Notice that Britain simply suspended its constitutional requirement for a General Election in 1940 for the duration of the war to prevent democracy from interfering with the more important business of winning the war.

Similarly, if a country has disputed borders and a restive minority, democracy is unlikely. For example, Croatia was a dictatorship during its war with Serbia over the Serbs who wanted to break away from the Croatian break-away state. It didn't let Serbs, or anybody else, vote. In 1995, however, Croatia won its war and ethnically cleansed the Serbs out of Croatia (with American backing). Once it became a mono-ethnic state with an undisputed border, it rapidly turned into a democracy.

So, democracy is more likely in comfortable countries that don't need to gird their loins for desperate battle, which is why they haven't gotten into wars with each other.

Our problem with the undemocratic countries stems from the qualities that make them undemocratic, not the fact that they are undemocratic.

By Randall Parker    2005 May 09 09:28 AM Entry Permalink | Comments ( 3 ) | TrackBack ( 0 )

2005 March 02 Wednesday

Robert Conquest On The Limits And Pitfalls Of Democracy

Eminent historian Robert Conquest, who for decades wrote politically incorrect but true things about Stalin and the Soviet Union and who for his effort was heavily criticised from the Left, has an essay in The National Interest taking on a different group of believers in false panaceas. This time Conquest's target is the mad crowd that sees democracy as the universal solution for political problems.

The common addiction to general words or concepts tends to produce mind blockers or reality distorters. As Clive James has put it, "verbal cleverness, unless its limitations are clearly and continuously seen by its possessors, is an unbeatable way of blurring reality until nothing can be seen at all."

"Democracy" is high on the list of blur-begetters--not a weasel word so much as a huge rampaging Kodiak bear of a word. The conception is, of course, Greek. It was a matter of the free vote by the public (though confined to males and citizens). Pericles, praising the Athenian system, is especially proud of the fact that policies are argued about and debated before being put into action, thus, he says, "avoiding the worst thing in the world", which is to rush into action without considering the consequences. And, indeed, the Athenians did discuss and debate, often sensibly.

Its faults are almost as obvious as its virtues. And examples are many--for instance, the sentencing of Socrates, who lost votes because of his politically incorrect speech in his own defense. Or the Athenian assembly voting for the death of all the adult males and the enslavement of all the women and children of Mytilene, then regretting the decision and sending a second boat to intercept, just in time, the boat carrying the order. Democracy had the even more grievous result of procuring the ruin of Athens, by voting for the disastrous and pointless expedition to Syracuse against the advice of the more sensible, on being bamboozled by the attractive promises of the destructive demagogue Alcibiades.

His use of the Clive James quote about verbal cleverness strikes me as a subtle (or perhaps not so subtle) allusion to neoconservatives.

So how about instant democracy of the sort that the neocons want spread over the Middle East? By Conquest's standard it is worthless because it does not emerge from an existing tradition that will support it.

As to later elections, a few years ago there was a fairly authentic one in Algeria. If its results had been honored, it would have replaced the established military rulers with an Islamist political order. This was something like the choice facing Pakistan in 2002. At any rate, it is not a matter on which the simple concepts of democracy and free elections provide us with clear criteria. "Democracy" is often given as the essential definition of Western political culture. At the same time, it is applied to other areas of the world in a formal and misleading way. So we are told to regard more or less uncritically the legitimacy of any regime in which a majority has thus won an election. But "democracy" did not develop or become viable in the West until quite a time after a law-and-liberty polity had emerged. Habeas corpus, the jury system and the rule of law were not products of "democracy", but of a long effort, from medieval times, to curb the power of the English executive. And democracy can only be seen in any positive or laudable sense if it emerges from and is an aspect of the law-and-liberty tradition.

I typed the above before reading the rest of his essay and, lo and behold, Conquest has disparaging things to say about "instant democracies". Hey, and I already thought highly of this guy!

The countries without at least a particle of that background or evolution cannot be expected to become instant democracies; and if they do not live up to it, they will unavoidably be, with their Western sponsors, denounced as failures. Democracy in any Western sense is not easily constructed or imposed. The experience of Haiti should be enough comment.

Conquest says democratization is sometimes used as a tool to ruin institutions.

Democratization of undemocratizable institutions is sometimes doubtless the expression of a genuine utopian ideal, as when the Jacobins by these means destroyed the French navy. But more often it is (in the minds of the leading activists, at least) a conscious attempt to ruin the institutions in question, as when the Bolsheviks used the idea to destroy the old Russian army. When this, among other things, enabled them to take power themselves, they were the first to insist on a discipline even more vigorous.

So then are some advocates of democracy really preaching it in order to cause destruction and general mayhem? How about, say, a civil war between majority and minority groups in Middle Eastern countries? Could this in fact be a conscious but unspoken goal?

Disappointed by the lack of insights to be gleaned from 99.9+% of the commentators you read? Go read his full essay. The mind that wrote it was born July 15, 1917 which makes him 87 years old. I hope my mind can work that well should I live to be that old.

By Randall Parker    2005 March 02 04:46 PM Entry Permalink | Comments ( 11 ) | TrackBack ( 0 )

2004 August 13 Friday

The Fix Is In For Afghanistan Election

The neoconservatives make the argument that if only democracy can be spread to Muslim lands the peoples of those lands would become better governed, have fewer gripes, and would not be angry enough to want to become terrorists. That is the theory. Well, Michael J. Kavanagh reports that the man the Bush Administration picked to run Afghanistan (or at least those rather limited portions of Afghanistan where the central government has any influence at all) will likely win in his first election because the election has been set up to favor only the man who is most well known.

But the way the election rules work, Afghans have little hope of hearing about any contender besides Karzai. The list of candidates wasn't finalized until July 26, and the campaign doesn't legally begin until Sept. 7, barely a month before the election. While short campaigns are not uncommon in many developed democracies, a 30-day campaign without public funding will prevent candidates from reaching a population of mostly illiterate people with little access to broadcast media (especially if they're women).

This means that the incumbent Karzai—who appointed the election management board that made these rules and whose cult-of-personality posters dot much of the dusty Afghan landscape—has more than a slight advantage over his opposition. And that's without mentioning that he has the uncritical support of the most powerful country in the world.

Does this matter? After all, most Afghans are illiterate. Plus, they are poor and split between rival tribes and ethnic groups. They do not even share a single common language. They lack many of the qualities needed for a democracy to work. One could simply say that democracy isn't going to work in Afghanistan and accept that fact.

The problem is that a significant portion of the neoconservatives and not a few liberals believe a universalistic myth that everyone is a natural liberal democrat and that the United States should promote the spread of democracy around the world with messianic zeal. The belief in this myth is getting translated into policy and with results quite harmful to US interests.

The curious thing about the universalistic liberal democracy myth is that its neoconservative promoters have repeatedly shown themselves to be quite willing to manipulate democracies and pull strings inside them to serve what the neocons perceive to be American interests. For instance, Paul Wolfowitz tried (unsuccessfully) to pressure the Turkish government into ignoring the wishes of the majority of Turks to not participate in an invasion of Iraq. Also, the neocons set up an in-house propaganda shop in the form of the Office of Special Plans to produce intelligence findings that would persuade the American public to support the invasion of Iraq.

Granted, America's own Founding Fathers didn't think that simple majority rule would produce enlightened government. The Founding Fathers rightly feared plotting factions and the excesses of majorities whipped into passions by demagogues. The US Constitution has a number of features designed to create obstacles in the way of a rapid change in government policy in response to shifts in popular passions. The very idea of representative government is in part justified by the hope that elected officials will be wiser and better informed than the public as a whole.

But if democracy is problematic even in societies that offer much more fertile ground for its growth then how can democracy possibly be a panacea for what is wrong with large swathes of the world where the conditions are far less favorable for democracy? The basic problem with the neocon vision of the spread of democracy is that societies have to change in ways that create the conditions compatible with democracy before democracy can be put into place. Many of those changes can not be orchestrated from outside and when they occur at all they are a long time coming over a period of many decades or even longer.

Given that the creation of conditions favorable to democracy takes a long time and can not be forced how can the promotion of democracy be the most expeditious way to deal with the threat of terrorism? In a nutshell, it can't. Democracy promotion is a wholly inadequate approach for dealing with the threat of Islamic terrorism.

By Randall Parker    2004 August 13 01:22 AM Entry Permalink | Comments ( 0 ) | TrackBack ( 0 )

2004 July 06 Tuesday

Polygamy, Sex Ratios Prevent Democracy, Encourage Terrorism

A New York Times article discussing the book, Bare Branches: Security Implications of Asia's Surplus Male Population (MIT Press), Valerie M. Hudson and Andrea M. den Boer (which I've previously covered in my FuturePundit post Aging Or Sex Ratio Bigger Demographic Problem For China?) addresses a consequence of high male/female sex ratios that is a recurring ParaPundit topic: what conditions prevent liberal democracy from developing? A shortage of females is seen as a destabilizing influence and a cause of rebellions and terrorism.

Mr. Fish of Berkeley, in his own research into why democracy is so rare in Muslim countries, has examined 150 countries with populations over 500,000 and has concluded that the status of women, more than anything else, explained the strength or weakness of democracy. And the two biggest indicators of female status, he said, were sex ratios and the gap in literacy between men and women.

On average, he found that Muslim countries had sex ratios of 102 men for every 100 women, although it can go as high as 125 men for every 100 women in Saudi Arabia, for example.

Rose McDermott, a professor of political science at the University of California at Santa Barbara, says the topic raises hackles because many researchers don't want to acknowledge differences in male and female behavior. Ms. McDermott and Richard Wrangham, a professor of anthropology at Harvard, are studying more than 60 African countries to figure out the relationship between gender — sex ratios, the number of women in the workforce — and internal and interstate violence. They are especially interested in the role of polygamy.

"Historically, when large groups of men can't get married they hang out together and they become monks or marauding bands that rob, rape and pillage," Ms. McDermott said. "Where do you think terrorist groups come from?"

Polygamy raises the effective sex ratio by reducing the supply of women for those men who have no wives at all.

My list of obstacles to democracy in the Middle East already includes polygamy and a previous post links to William Tucker's argument for polygamy as a cause of a "winner take all" ethos that is obviously inimical to liberal democracy.

Islam is the only major world religion that sanctions polygamy. Mohammad allowed his followers to have four wives (the same number he had). About 12 percent of marriages in Moslem countries are polygamous. This is not as bad as East and West Africa, where successful men often take more than a hundred wives and where almost 30 percent of marriages can be polygamous. But the solid core of polygamy at the heart of Islamic culture is enough to produce its menacing social effects.

What are those effects? Do the math. Into every society is born approximately the same number of boys and girls. If they pair off in monogamous fashion, then each one will have a mate -- "a girl for every boy and a boy for every girl." In polygamous societies this does not occur. When successful men can accumulate more than one wife, that means some other man gets none. As a result, the unavoidable outcome is a hard-core residue of unattached men who have little or no prospect of achieving a family life.

The inevitable outcome is that competition among males becomes much more fierce and intense. Mating is an all-or-nothing proposition. Women become a scarce resource that must be hoarded and veiled and banned from public places so they cannot drift away through spontaneous romances. Men who are denied access to these hoarded women have only one option -- they can band together and try to fight their way into the seats of power.

If all those Muslim polygamous marriages involved only two wives that would be enough to deny 12% of the men the chance to have a wife. If the average number of wives per polygamous marriage is even higher then an even larger portion of the men have no prospects for marriage. Offered the chance of dying in a cause in order to get 70 virgins in the afterlife some of them opt for that choice.

The neoconservative neoimperialists do not even want to consider the possibility that there are intractable obstacles in the way of their plans to democratically reform and remake the Middle East. Yet sex ratios, polgamy, consanguineous marriage, and other obstacles are quite intractable unless the United States wants to impose a nearly totalitarian regime and rule ruthlessly for decades while banning some marriage practices, preventing the selective abortion of female fetuses, and imposing liberal curricula upon schools and regulating the content of sermons in mosques.

Of course the United States isn't going to do all that. Yet a sustained effort to remake societies that radically would only begin to remove the obstacles in the way of liberal democracy in the Middle East. By failing to even consider the underlying conditions that cause the Middle East to have no liberal democracies the neoconservatves have launched the US into an intervention in Iraq that is hopelessly naive. The US intervention in Iraq is actually causing Iraq to develop in a directon that lowers the status of women.

Update: Also see an article by den Boer and Hudson in the Washington Post.

We have already seen in China the resurrection of evils such as the kidnapping and selling of women to provide brides for those who can pay the fee. Scarcity of women leads to a situation in which men with advantages -- money, skills, education -- will marry, but men without such advantages -- poor, unskilled, illiterate -- will not. A permanent subclass of bare branches from the lowest socioeconomic classes is created. In China and India, for example, by the year 2020 bare branches will make up 12 to 15 percent of the young adult male population.

While unrelated for the most part to my argument above I've also argued that this shortage of females is causing natural selection to operate on which genes are passed on to future generations.

By Randall Parker    2004 July 06 02:51 PM Entry Permalink | Comments ( 12 ) | TrackBack ( 1 )

2004 July 01 Thursday

History Of American Interventions Bodes Poorly For Democracy

How difficult is it to change a country into a democracy by intervention using military force? John B. Judis has an article in Foreign Policy about the history of failed US attempts to reform and democratize other countries entitled Imperial Amnesia. This article is an excerpted adaptation of his forthcoming book The Folly of Empire: What George W Bush Could Learn from Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson. His excerpt Imperial Amnesia reviews the history of US intervention in the Philippines, Cuba, and other lands.

As for the Philippines' democracy, the United States can take little credit for what exists and some blame for what doesn't. The electoral machinery the United States designed in 1946 provided a democratic veneer beneath which a handful of families, allied to U.S. investors—and addicted to kickbacks—controlled the Philippine land, economy, and society. The tenuous system broke down in 1973 when Philippine politician Ferdinand Marcos had himself declared president for life. Marcos was finally overthrown in 1986, but even today Philippine democracy remains more dream than reality. Three months before Bush's visit, a group of soldiers staged a mutiny that raised fears of a military coup. With Islamic radicals and communists roaming the countryside, the Philippines is perhaps the least stable of Asian nations. If the analogy between the United States' “liberation” of the Philippines and of Iraq holds true, it will not be to the credit of the Bush administration, but to the skeptics who charged that the White House undertook the invasion of Baghdad with its eyes wide shut.

Minor quibble: I'd put Indonesia at the top of the list of unstable Asian countries. Though if you include Papua New Guinea (PNG) as part of Asia then obviously PNG is worse. However, PNG is small enough that PNG can be managed by Australia and the Aussies can rule the Solomon Islands as well. But Indonesia can not be stabilized by a return of colonial administrations and its far more numerous Muslim populace would resent US military intervention. Whereas the Philippines still occasionally accepts US military missions to track down Muslim rebels. So Indonesia strikes me as the greater worry.

The American imperialists overestimated their ability to reform and reshape the world.

Some Americans argued the country needed colonies to bolster its military power or to find markets for its capital. But proponents of imperialism, including Protestant missionaries, also viewed overseas expansion through the prism of the country's evangelical tradition. Through annexation, they insisted, the United States would transform other nations into communities that shared America's political and social values and also its religious beliefs. “Territory sometimes comes to us when we go to war in a holy cause,” U.S. President William McKinley said of the Philippines in October 1900, “and whenever it does the banner of liberty will float over it and bring, I trust, the blessings and benefits to all people.” This conviction was echoed by a prominent historian who would soon become president of Princeton University. In 1901, Woodrow Wilson wrote in defense of the annexation of the Philippines: “The East is to be opened and transformed, whether we will or no; the standards of the West are to be imposed upon it; nations and peoples which have stood still the centuries through are to be quickened and to be made part of the universal world of commerce and of ideas which has so steadily been a-making by the advance of European power from age to age.”

The naivete doesn't end there. Woodrow Wilson thought he could make South America have successful democracies. Well, South America's democracies are still plagued with corruption, slow economic growth, and popular hostility to elected leaders that is so intense that some are forced from office.

Upon becoming president, Wilson boasted that he could “teach the South American republics to elect good men.” After Mexican Gen. Victoriano Huerta arranged the assassination of the democratically elected President Francisco Madero and seized power in February 1913, Wilson promised to unseat the unpopular dictator, using a flimsy pretext to dispatch troops across the border. But instead of being greeted as liberators, the U.S. forces encountered stiff resistance and inspired riot and demonstrations, uniting Huerta with his political opponents. In Mexico City, schoolchildren chanted, “Death to the Gringos.” U.S.-owned stores and businesses in Mexico had to close. The Mexico City newspaper El Imparcial declared, in a decidedly partial manner, “The soil of the patria is defiled by foreign invasion! We may die, but let us kill!” Wilson learned the hard way that attempts to instill U.S.-style constitutional democracy and capitalism through force were destined to fail.

Writing for the Christian Science Monitor Lucien O. Chauvin reports that democracies in South America are unstable and their populaces are deeply dissatisfied.

LIMA, PERU - Here in Peru, the president is polling in single digits, and some want to bring back a former strongman.

Just across the border in Bolivia, the government had to fend off rumors last week that the military was planning a coup.

Next door, indigenous politicians in Ecuador called for a general uprising to force the president out of office.

In Venezuela, the electoral board set a tentative date for a recall vote on its left-wing leader.

In fact, political conditions in Bolivia may be so bad that Mark Falcoff of the American Enterprise Institute has recently made the argument that Bolivia may be disintegrating.

Last October Bolivia experienced a social and political upheaval that forced the resignation of President Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada and shook the capital, La Paz, to its very foundations.[1] The headquarters of all the political parties supporting the government were burned to the ground; toll booths and other symbols of government authority were destroyed or disabled; even the Ministry of Sustainable Development--a magnificent Art Deco building that once housed the business offices of the Patiño tin empire--was gutted. Although a measure of normality has been restored since then, there is no certainty that stability is here to stay. As recently as late April, the lobby and lower floors of the congressional office building were demolished by a suicide bomber, and the successor regime--led by Sánchez de Lozada’s former vice president Carlos Mesa--is attempting to buttress its shaky legitimacy through a series of tawdry gimmicks. These include attempts to govern without parties; denying natural gas to Chile, Bolivia’s hated neighbor; threatening to overturn long-standing contracts with international energy companies; and brandishing a plebiscite which may well take the country--or at least an important part of it--outside the world economy. Republics do not normally commit suicide, but Bolivia may be an exception. If current trends continue, we may witness the first major alteration of the South American political map in more than a hundred years.

Haiti's another poster child of failed democratization. The US occupied Haiti starting under Woodrow Wilson 1915-1934 and again under Clinton beginning in 1994 with US forces leaving in 1996 and UN forces remaining a few more years. More recently George W. Bush sent in troops after rebels defeated Aristide's forces.

Writing for the New York Times Juan Forero reports that Latin America Is Growing Impatient With Democracy.

In the last few years, six elected heads of state have been ousted in the face of violent unrest, something nearly unheard of in the previous decade. A widely noted United Nations survey of 19,000 Latin Americans in 18 countries in April produced a startling result: a majority would choose a dictator over an elected leader if that provided economic benefits.

Is democracy a panacea? No. Is it easy to impose it and make it stick? No. The US has failed far more often than it has succeeded.

Consider Cuba. Before Castro became dictator Batista was dictator. But before Batista the United States intervened repeatedly with troops. Corruption and oppression by elected goverments got worse with time. The United States had to repeatedly play umpire over contested elections up until the point of pretty much giving up on maintaining a democracy in Cuba.

Under the tutelage of the United States, the political life of Cuba prior to 1933 followed a certain pattern. Incumbent presidents would attempt reelection, but if they were unable to secure their own party's nomination, they would shift their support to the opposition candidate. The incumbent president's candidate would inevitably win at the polls, either legally or fraudulently. The losing party would usually dispute the final results, claim that they were fraudulent, and rise in revolt. The United States would send an arbiter, sometimes backed by United States troops. The mediator would then call for new elections, but the incumbent president's opposition would not accept the arrangement and would boycott the polls. Thus the presidential nominee would win by default. This did not happen every time, however. In 1906 Estrada Palma refused to accept the United States compromise plan, which in fact favored him; and in 1924 there was no electoral boycott or rebellion.

Note that this saga of the repeated failure of democracy played out over a period of decades with US involvement. For Cuba the outcome was a communist dictatorship that lasts to this day. So US involvement does not necessarily eventually succeed. The Middle East is going to be no easier to reform than Latin America and the Caribbean. Well, our involvement in Latin America has lasted for over a century with uncertain results. Therefore I think it takes a lot of audacity for the neoconservatives to bill US efforts to build democracy in the Middle East as the most expeditious and certain way to deal with the threat of terrorism in the short to medium term.

There are many reasons why democratization can fail. I have listed several obstacles to democracy in the Middle East (see bullet list in the middle of that post). But that list is far from comprehensive.

Some people see moral virtue in being optimistic about the achievability of desired optimal outcomes and believe that to strive for anything less than the ideal is somehow immoral. But there are limits to our power. The United States had overwhelming military superiority over Cuba and Haiti and yet still was not able to work any lasting beneficial changes in either society. Idealism is the enemy of the good if idealism prevents a person from reaching a realistic appreciation for what is possible. Overreaching can (and has) often resulted not just in limited gains but even net losses. A panglossian view of the potential for the spread of liberal democracy is the enemy of the cause of liberal democracy.

By Randall Parker    2004 July 01 02:22 PM Entry Permalink | Comments ( 20 ) | TrackBack ( 0 )

2004 April 22 Thursday

Partial Baathist, Iraqi Army Restoration And Fallujah Big Battle Brewing

Some former Baathists and former Saddam-era Iraq Army officers are to be hired in an attempt to reduce Sunni support for insurgents.

The U.S. administrator of Iraq, L. Paul Bremer, proposed the policy shifts to broaden the strategy to entice the powerful Sunni minority back into the political fold and weaken support for the insurgency in the volatile Sunni Triangle, two of the most persistent challenges for the U.S.-led occupation, the officials say. Both policies are at the heart of national reconciliation, increasingly important as the occupation nears an end.

This may in part be an attempt to split some of the more secular Sunnis from the old regime away from the more fundamentalist Sunnis who see the current battle more as a holy war. Another way to look at this US move is as an attempt to recruit Iraqis who know who the insurgents are and who are not hesitant to use force against their fellow Iraqis as these former Saddam men surely did for the old regime.

One reason that the ex-Baathists might still not be willing to sign up to serve US occupation forces is that they may reasonably expect that once the Shias dominate the new government these ex-Baathists will be sidelined (or worse) once again. On the other hand, getting back on the inside has got to beat being on the outside under a Shia-dominated regime. So some will no doubt elect to sign up - especially if the pay is high enough. But what is less clear is whether, once in positions of power, they will serve their American masters or surreptitiously work against US interests.

If the US would support a confederation rather than a federation for the new Iraqi government that would give the old Sunni Baathist elite a greater incentive to suppress their fellow Sunni insurgents. A confederation would provide the ex-Baathists with a clear zone where they could be the bosses and therefore have a stake in more peaceful conditions.

If the Bush Administration wanted to get really Machiavellian it would promise to create and enforce some sort of formula for what percentage of the oil revenue went into each of the Kurdish, Shia, and Sunni areas of the confederation. Keep in mind that the oil is all located in Kurdish and Shia areas. So If the Sunnis saw the continuation of the confederation as a way to guarantee them a slice of the oil money they'd have a vested interest in maintaining the stability of the confederation. Then one could even imagine Sunni soldiers who would get support from their tribes to, say, go take a piece out of the Mahdi Army in the Shia area.

It isn't clear whether the decision to restore more former Baathists to jobs involves any powerful positions. A lot of people were in the Baath Party simply to be teachers, engineers, or other occupations which required Baath Party membership. It may be that the change here is designed simply to speed up the return to work of people in fairly unpolitical jobs.

"We've heard complaints from Iraqis for instance that the appeals process is sometimes slower in implementation than was originally designed," Senor said. "It sometimes excludes innocent, capable people who were Baathists in name only."

The restoration of Iraq Army officers and perhaps intelligence agents is likely to have more potent effects on the conduct of the fight against the insurgency forces.

The bid for Sunni support comes at a time of losses of existing allies.

Monday, Spain began to withdraw its 1,400 troops, and the Dominican Republic announced it would quickly follow suit, bringing its 300 troops home within two weeks. Honduras also said it would pull its 370 troops. Poland, a resolute coalition member, said Thursday that it was considering withdrawing its 2,400 troops.

The previous article provides a pretty good description of events around Fallujah. It sounds like once the Marines are well-positioned and prepared there is going to be a final battle for Fallujah.

One reason the US needs to figure out a better way to govern Iraq is that, as Mark Steyn acknowledges, the American people are not temperamentally suited for colonialism.

America hasn't an imperialist bone in its body. For one thing, there's nobody to staff an imperial governing class. If you were the average 19th-century Englishman, life in the colonies had plenty of attractions: more land, better weather, the opportunity to escape the constraints of class. None of these factors applies to the average 21st-century American: if you're in Maine and you're sick of it, you can move to Hawaii rather than the Malay states.

Steyn points out that Niall Ferguson is engaged in an exercise in futility when Ferguson argues that the US should become a colonial power. Mark's conclusions on Ferguson and colonialism are very similar to my own.

By Randall Parker    2004 April 22 05:56 PM Entry Permalink | Comments ( 0 ) | TrackBack ( 0 )

2004 April 21 Wednesday

Bring Back Iraqi Army Officers Or Pursue Democratic Imperialism?

Many in military circles in Iraq think the disbanding of the Iraqi Army was a mistake that ought to be rectified.

"It's very clear that we've got to get more senior Iraqis involved - former military types involved in the security forces," said Gen. John Abizaid, the US regional commander, last week. "In the next couple of days you'll see a large number of senior officers being appointed to key positions in the Ministry of Defense, and the Iraqi joint staff, and in Iraqi field commands."

Former Iraqi officers boast that they could form an emergency committee at the Defense Ministry within 48 hours and restore order within a week. Such predictions may be wishful thinking, but these men have one refrain: Security can't be restored without them.

"The cat knows where the mouse is, but the lion doesn't know," says Colonel Saad, who asked that a pseudonym be used. "I won't go back to the army for the Americans - I can't shake their hands - but I would [go back] for an Iraqi government.

"[President] Bush promised to rebuild Iraq, and that every Arab will wish he were an Iraqi," says Colonel Saad "They gave this idea of freedom, and Iraqis can't handle it. To them it means freedom to attack the Americans with stones and tomatoes."

While it clearly goes against George W. Bush's character to learn from his mistakes it is possible that enough people in the military and in the Coalition Provisional Authority will recommend bringing back parts of the Iraqi Army that this may eventually happen. After all, Bush also follows advice from his advisers and many may swing around to supporting this idea. So a restoration of the old Iraqi Army and an unleashing of it to crack heads seems plausible.

Another possibility is that the US occupation forces could become just totally brutal and ruthless in putting down the insurgency. Niall Ferguson, British Empire historian, argues that the US needs to be as ruthless as the British were in 1920 in order to restore order in Iraq.

And this brings us to the second lesson the United States needs to learn from the British experience. Putting this rebellion down will require severity. In 1920, the British eventually ended the rebellion through a combination of aerial bombardment and punitive village-burning expeditions. It was not pretty. Even Winston Churchill, then the minister responsible for the air force, was shocked by the actions of some trigger-happy pilots and vengeful ground troops. And despite their overwhelming technological superiority, British forces still suffered more than 2,000 dead and wounded.

Is the United States willing or able to strike back with comparable ruthlessness? Unlikely — if last week's gambit of unconditional cease-fires is any indication. Washington seems intent on reining in the Marines and pinning all hope on the handover of power scheduled — apparently irrevocably — for June 30.

This could prove a grave error. For the third lesson of 1920 is that only by quelling disorder firmly and immediately will America be able to achieve its objective of an orderly handover of sovereignty.

But is there any chance the US will do this? Isn't it easier from a political perspective to let Iraqi Army guys who were willing to brutalize for Saddam to instead brutalize for America?

Ferguson sees many parallels between Iraq in 1920 and 2004.

What happened in Iraq last week so closely resembles the events of 1920 that only a historical ignoramus could be surprised. It began in May, just after the announcement that Iraq would henceforth be a League of Nations "mandate" under British trusteeship. (Nota bene, if you think a handover to the UN would solve everything.) Anti-British demonstrations began in Baghdad mosques, spread to the Shi'ite holy centre of Karbala, swept on through Rumaytha and Samawa - where British forces were besieged - and reached as far as Kirkuk.

But the US in 2004 is not sufficiently like late Imperial Britain of 1920 for its leaders to order what the British did. Besides, today there will be CNN and similar media organs broadcasting the carnage in real-time. That won't go over well back home or in much of the rest of the world.

Ferguson has a new book coming out entitled Colossus: The Price of America's Empire.

In Colossus he argues that in both military and economic terms America is nothing less than the most powerful empire the world has ever seen. Just like the British Empire a century ago, the United States aspires to globalize free markets, the rule of law, and representative government. In theory it's a good project, says Ferguson. Yet Americans shy away from the long-term commitments of manpower and money that are indispensable if rogue regimes and failed states really are to be changed for the better. Ours, he argues, is an empire with an attention deficit disorder, imposing ever more unrealistic timescales on its overseas interventions. Worse, it's an empire in denial-a hyperpower that simply refuses to admit the scale of its global responsibilities. And the negative consequences will be felt at home as well as abroad.

One problem I have with Ferguson's analysis is that he ignores the way that technological advances are effectively reducing the economic return on empire. Take the few hundred billion that the US may end up spending on Iraq. What is the return on investment for doing this? Today large sums of money have many competing uses and some of those uses could potentially offer huge returns on investment. Imagine the same dollars spent on, say, a massive effort to develop a large assortment of new energy technologies. As I've argued in the past a massive energy technology development project would yield many national security dividends as well as producing a cleaner environment and reducing the amount of money we have to spend on imports. We'd be enriched. Well, how does a global empire enrich us?

Territory isn't as valuable as it used to be and technology is a lot more valuable and continuing to rise in value. To the extent that foreign intervention in some Muslim territory could transform a Muslim society into a more liberal, democractic, and less likely to produce terrorists we could, at least in theory, benefit. But the scale and length of the intervention required to do that is far greater than even the Bush Administration has the stomach for. The Bushies do not even understand the scale of the intervention that is required. My own take on George W. Bush's obvious intellectual limitations is that he has high latent inhibition or a strong filter on new information. If he had low latent inhibition (and see the previous link about that) his mind might be able to learn enough to grasp the scope of what he wants to accomplish.

Even if Bush was up for the challenge democratic imperialism requires many decades to work. Given that many of our academics see imperialism as evil and corporations as the latest agents of evil imperialism I think it would be very difficult to build up a consensus in American opinion for sustained imperialistic intervention that could last long enough to create sustainable semi-liberal democracies. Formation of consensus to pursue that goal would require thpse portions of our elites which are currently hostile to classical liberalism to become more supportive of it. Also, other portions that do support classical liberalism but with an excessively panglossian view of its appeal would have to adopt a more realistic view of human nature that accepts that not all humans love freedom and liberal democracy. This seems a rather tall order. Even if it could be done would it be worth it?

Leave aside what the elites think for the moment and consider the beliefs of the popular majority. Failing some more terrorist attacks that kill a lot of people inside the boundaries of the USA I do not see the American public becoming sufficiently keen on rearranging Middle Eastern societies with the ruthlessness and sustained commitment that would be required to have a chance of making the changes stick.

My own take on what to do is partition Iraq and do the same to Sudan and Afghanistan. The Kurds could form their own army for their new country and the old Saddam Army could be the new army for the Sunnis. I am not sure what to do about the Shia area's military needs.

Update: An article on Tech Central Station by Carroll Andrew Morse is my first siting of a proposal for how to carry out a partition of Iraq.

Here is the plan. Sovereignty will not come to Iraq all at once. On June 30, Iraq will be divided into provinces, or occupation zones -- at different times and different places, both labels will be appropriate. There will be more than three zones, there will be at least 25, maybe as many as 100. Each zone will evolve towards civil government at its own rate. Some zones will need to be overseen using the rules of outright military occupation of a hostile nation. Other zones will be able to quickly establish full home rule, complete civil government in all matters except foreign policy and military affairs. Over six months, let's see how many zones can produce a local government that can rule without slaughtering a significant percentage of its own population, or stoning women for committing adultery, or burning the foreign nationals providing electricity and water.

Zones demonstrating the ability to live peacefully will be migrated towards full home rule. When enough provinces reach complete home rule, they will have important decisions to make. If enough zones decided to band together, they can form a state of their own. (There will have to be a few basic rules about a minimum number of provinces, or a minimum total population, and/or territorial contiguousness required to form a state.) They are free to welcome into their state other provinces that reach full home rule at a future time. Multi-province successor states may even reserve the right to join with other multi-province successor states. Under this plan, the Iraqi people ultimately decide the shape of post-Hussein Iraq.

My problem with this approach is that it will lead to fighting as rival ethnic groups try to create majorities in border provinces between newly seceded states. Ethnic cleansing tactics of terror to cause flight of competing groups will be used to create local majorities for plebiscites.

Still, he makes a number of points in favor of partition including an excellent finale:

Unless they freely choose to do so, people with wildly different visions of ideal governance should not be forced to work together because of eighty-year old map lines hastily drawn by colonial interlopers. The American coalition and the wider international community should give the people of Iraq an opportunity to build civil societies under the conditions where there is a fighting chance for success. A single state solution is not necessary for a peaceful and prosperous future for the people of post-Hussein Iraq. Democratic processes provide no guarantee that the people of Iraq will avoid bad choices, but they can be structured so that the poor choices of some do not scar the futures of all.

Why should the Kurds have to put up with living in the same country as the Arab Sunnis and Arab Shias? The Kurds show every sign of a far greater willingness to form working and relatively more restrained and less corrupt governments. From all the reading I've done they come across as having a more modern mentality. At the same time, clearly the Sunnis fear Shia payback once the Shias are in charge. Well, these fears seem reasonable. So why not split them apart? The hard decisions to make are about Baghdad and other places that are not clearly Sunni or Shia or Kurd. But the alternative of keeping Iraq together seems far worse.

Update II: Reporting from Baghdad Charles Crain thinks the Iraqis may not have all that much desire for a federal democracy.

Last week's events suggest that if the majority does not want to assert itself, then the minority will fill the vacuum.

...

The most troubling thing is that the passivity and irrelevance of the new Iraqi security forces reflect the mood of most Iraqis, who remain reluctant to fight for a new type of Iraq. They may not be enthusiastic about the occupation nor eager to make common cause with murderous insurgents or theocratic narcissists like Sadr, but they are either unwilling or unable to play the leadership role that is sorely needed.

...

I worry that the structure of a federal liberal democracy is simply not an inspiring prospect for Iraqis, who place such an emphasis on religious, family and tribal ties. It's no foregone conclusion that, if only the insurgency would go away, Iraqis would embrace the brand of representative government they're being offered.

Mr. Crain's fears are correct. Yes, the majority really doesn't want to assert itself. Yes, most Iraqis feel little loyalty toward Iraq as a whole and do not see the power plays by various minority factions as being against the greater good because the average Iraqi feels no great loyalty to the idea of the greater good. Yes, federal liberal democracy holds little allure for most Iraqis. There are no Iraqi opponents of the Mahdi Army running to battle to fight them while crying "Give me liberty or give me death". Not everyone has the values of the Founding Fathers of America. We should give up on the fantasy of a united liberal democracy in Iraq. It is not within the realm of possibility.

Update III: Frank Rich sees a parallel with the inter-tribal fighting that Lawrence of Arabia witnessed.

The Arab revolt against the Ottoman empire, abetted by the heroic British liaison officer T. E. Lawrence and guerrilla tactics, has succeeded. The shotgun mandating of the modern state of Iraq, by the League of Nations in 1920, is just a few years away. But as the local leaders gather in an Arab council, a tentative exercise in self-government, there is nothing but squabbling, even as power outages and public-health outrages roil the populace. "I didn't come here to watch a tribal bloodbath," says Peter O'Toole, as Lawrence, earlier in the movie when first encountering the internecine warfare of the Arab leaders he admired. But the bloodbath continued — and now that we've ended Saddam's savage grip on Iraq, it has predictably picked up where it left off. Only Americans have usurped the British as the primary targets in the crossfire of an undying civil war.

My favorite line is uttered by Peter O'Toole as TE Lawrence right after Sherif Ali (Omar Sharif) kills the guide Talas.

"Sherif Ali! So long as the Arabs fight tribe against tribe, so long will they remain a little people. A silly people! Greedy, barbarous, and cruel-as you are!"

I like Rich's characterization that what is going on in Iraq is a civil war and US troops just happen to be standing in the middle of it. Why should this be so? See my recent post High Costs And Dismal Prospects In Iraq: How To Derive Benefit? for links to a number of reasons why liberal democracy is not going to succeed in Iraq. Here's a brief summary.

• Democracy always fails in low per capita income countries.
• Consanguineous marriage creates conflicting loyalties that work against the development of a civil society.
• Islam creates highly motivated extremist rivals to secular authority.
• The Kurds and Sunnis are afraid to become oppressed minorities under majority Shia rule.
• The practice of polygamy creates a "winner take all" ethos that makes people see all relationships as characterised by dominance and submission.
• Liberal social and political values are not in-born and take decades or centuries for a society to absorb.

By Randall Parker    2004 April 21 01:37 PM Entry Permalink | Comments ( 1 ) | TrackBack ( 0 )

2004 April 19 Monday

It Is Time To Partition Sudan

Nearly a million black Sudanese have been forced out of their homes by an Arab militia.

In the Darfur region of western Sudan, a humanitarian crisis has already displaced nearly one million people -- and the United Nations has warned that the situation is getting worse.

According to reports, an Arab militia known as the Janjaweed has committed atrocities ranging from raping and murdering civilians to burning down entire villages, all with the aim of displacing the black Sudanese tribes.

This is all terribly predictable from just a very cursory reading of the last half century of Sudanese history. The civil war in Sudan has been going on for decades. Sudan has been in a civil war for longer than most of you reading this post have been alive.

The Arab-led Khartoum government reneged on promises to southerners to create a federal system, which led to a mutiny by southern army officers that sparked 17 years of civil war (1955-72).

...

In September 1983, as part of an Islamicization campaign, President Nimeiri announced his decision to incorporate traditional Islamic punishments drawn from Shari’a (Islamic Law) into the penal code. Southerners and other non-Muslims living in the north were also subjected to these punishments. These events, and other longstanding grievances, in part led to a resumption of the civil war that was held in abeyance since 1972, and the war continues until today.

There is nothing sacred about international borders. God did not come down and stand on a mount and announce that all borders made after World War II must be kept sacred and permanent from now until eternity. It is time to start solving long-running conflicts by splitting up peoples who obviously do not belong together. It is time to partition Sudan into black African and Arab sections. Continued international support for Sudan as a single national entity is grossly immoral and irresponsible.

Iraq is another place which should not be single a country. Others have recognized that partition of Iraq has considerable merit. I was very surprised today when Tyler Cowen pointed out that even Glenn Reynolds is batting around the partition idea for Iraq. Keep thinking about it Glenn. Partition would yield substantial benefits. Given all the factors working against a democratic Iraq (including continuing Bush Administration incompetence so severe that they haven't even managed to spend much on aid - see that post) a split of Iraq into pieces would give us at least a Kurdish part that would view the US favorably. See Glenn's post for a quick list of reasons why we don't owe the neighboring countries squat. We should not feel obliged to keep Iraq together.

I've also made this argument previously with regard to Afghanistan in the post Why Not Partition Afghanistan Along Tribal Lines?

The mess in the Balkans is effectively being sorted out by partition while Western governments pretend that they are not partitioning. Albanian Muslim dominated Kosovo is de facto a separate country from Serbia. Bosnia-Hercegovina has been split into pieces. Western governments could cut the death tolls and create the conditions for much better governments in several parts of the world if they were willing to explicitly acknowledge that not all currently recognized international borders deserve to be treated as having fixed permanent boundaries. A number of current borders throw together people (can you say Hutus and Tutsis in Rwanda and Burundi? sure!) who would be best off separated by strongly enforced borders drawn between them.

By Randall Parker    2004 April 19 11:40 AM Entry Permalink | Comments ( 1 ) | TrackBack ( 0 )

2004 April 03 Saturday

Low Per Capita Income Countries Never Remain Democracies

Jonah Goldberg reports on yet another reason why the prospects for democracy in Iraq are bleak.

More recently Adam Przeworski of New York University confirmed this truism by studying every attempted transition to democracy around the globe. He and his colleagues found that once a country passes $6,000 in per capita income it is virtually guaranteed to succeed in its transition to democracy. States between $3,000 and $6,000 have less than a 50-50 chance of staying democracies. And countries below $3,000 are almost bound to fail.

Jonah points out that Iraq's GDP is between $1,500 and $2,400 and that this does not bode well for the prospects of democracy in Iraq.

To build the kinds of institutions that Iraq would need to be able to succeed as a democracy would take decades. I see little sign of sufficient patience on the part of the America's politicians or people for that sort of thing. For this and other reasons I continue to be the camp of Pessimists on Muslim Democracy.

Update: Writing for Reason Michael Young, who also is opinion editor of Lebanon's Daily Star, argues that the main objective of the Bush Administration's invasion of Iraq is democratization of the Middle East.

The last pillar, however, was the most interesting, and went to the heart of the strategy adopted by Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld, Cheney, and, ultimately, Bush. By intervening in the relationship between the brutish Iraqi regime and its long-suffering subjects, the US adopted a policy of enforced democratization. As far as the Bush administration was concerned, a democratic Iraq at the heart of the Arab world could become a liberal beacon in the region, prompting demands for openness and real reform inside neighboring states. Ridiculous you say? The Syrian regime, faced in the past two weeks with protests by individuals seeking greater freedom and a revolt by disgruntled Kurds, would surely disagree.

This is where Clarke's allegations, and those of critics who see a disconnect between Al Qaeda and Iraq, are misleading. Iraq always was essential to the anti-terrorism battle precisely because victory there was regarded as necessary to transform societies from where terrorists, spawned by suffocating regimes, had emerged. One can disagree with the practicability of such a strategy, but it is difficult to fault its logic.

The biggest problem with Bush Administratration strategy against terrorism is that their course of action is very unlikely to result in a self-sustaining democracy in Iraq. It would take decades to bring about the depth of transformation in Iraqi society and in the Iraqi economy needed to make Iraq's democracy self-sustaining, let alone liberal. Iraq can not be used as a means to transform the other societies in the Middle East because a liberal Iraq as a beacon of transformation of the rest of the Middle East is not in the cards for a long time to come. The transformation of the Middle East into liberal democracies that will be less fertile ground for the recruitment of terrorists is therefore also not in the cards for a long time to come.

Another problem with this strategy is that relatively few Iraqis became terrorists even though they lived under a suffocating regime. By contrast, Saudi Arabia, while more suffocating to women, is less suffocating to men and yet lots of Saudi men have become terrorists. So the Bush Administration strategy doesn't seem like it is going to work - at least not by the mechanism of eliminating suffocating regimes.

However, having said all this there still might be a mechanism by which the Bush Administration strategy could work: the invasion and overthrow of multiple governments of overwhelmingly Muslim populations combined with the killing of many Muslim fighters who rush into the countries occupied by American troops might demoralize muslims and rob Islam of its appeal by making Islam seem like a loser religion. So US troops in Iraq and Afghanistan could conceivably demonstrate to Muslims that the US has both the ability and the will to defeat and kill any Muslim group that would attempt to stand up to the US and to the West. But that will only work if overwhelming force is used and sustained.

Mind you, I'd hate to rest all of a strategy against terrorism on such a hypothesized psychological mechanism which might not work for a number of reasons. A comprehensive strategy against terrorism ought to include a much better intelligence and covert operations capability, better border control, better immigration policy, an energy policy aimed at defunding the Wahhabis, and numerous other policy improvements. But military battlefields where Islamic Jihadis can test their mettle against US forces and lose decisively and repeatedly might have a longer term demoralizing effect that will decrease the appeal of Jihad. Then again, it might not. Anyone have an opinion to offer on this?

Update II: Steve Sailer provides yet another reason why it is unreasonable to expect democracy and freedom to take hold in Iraq.

Freedom or Dominance: I fear that one of the Administration's fundamental misconceptions about Iraq was the assumption that Arabs value freedom most of all. In reality, I suspect they prize dominance most highly We assumed we could hand them their freedom and they'd be grateful to us for our selfless sacrifice, or, at worst, appreciate our enlightened self-interest. But Arabs have no history of the powerful giving anyone their freedom, so they assume it is a trick and a trap. In Arab thought, the only way to prevent the dominant from exploiting you is to be the dominant one yourself.

It is a Western conceit that everyone shares the same values with the same relative ranking of values. It is foolish to think that everyone has the same values and that they are just being oppressed and prevented from expressing those values.

Update III: Here is an excerpt from Adam Przeworski's research on which the report above is probably based: A Flawed Blueprint: The Covert Politicization of Development Economics.

No democracy ever fell in a country with a per capita income higher than that of Argentina in 1975—US$6055. This is a startling fact given that throughout history about 70 democracies have collapsed in poorer countries. In contrast, 35 democracies spent a total of 1,000 years under more affluent conditions, and not one collapsed. Affluent democracies survived wars, riots, scandals, and economic and governmental crises.

The probability that democracy survives increases monotonically with per capita income. Between 1951 and 1999, the probability that a democracy would fall during any particular year in countries with per capita income under US$1,000 was 0.089, implying that their expected life was about 11 years. With incomes in the range of US$1001 to US$3000, this probability was 0.037, for an expected duration of about 27 years. Between US$3001 and US$6055, the probability was 0.013, which translates into about 78 years of expected life. And above US$6055, democracies last forever.

You might be wondering then: How did democracy survive in the United States in the 18th and 19th century when US per capita GDP was well below $3000? I think we have to do an adjustment for capital productivity. Basically, the living standards of even a messed up society can be higher than what Americans experienced in the 19th century because there are lots of cheap productivity-enhancing devices available today that will still enhance production in societies with a fair amount of corruption, less protection of property, and other shortcomings. Perhaps it is not the low per capita GDP itself that causes a democracy to fail but rather the same factors that cause the low per capita GDP also cause democracy to fail. A democratic society in the 19th century that didn't have those problematic factors present still would have had - at least by late 20th century standards - low per capita GDP. But it would have had the right cultural elements and other elements to maintain a democracy and to utilize scientific and technological advances.

Update IV: Writing June 2005 I now dismiss the idea that by use of overwhelming military force the United States is going to convince Muslims they have a loser religion. The Bush Administration's strategy is not going to work in Iraq either intentionally or by accident. The vast majority of the countries that have low per capita GDPs are not going to become successful democracies. Their populations lack the values and abilities and customs needed to make liberal democracy or even semi-liberal democracy work. We should reduce the risk of terrorism via a combination of layered defenses through better intelligence and covert operations, real border control. careful visa screening, information systems, and other means to make it harder for terrorists to reach and stay in the West. We should also accelerate technological developments that promise to obsolesce oil as a way to defund the Wahhabis.

By Randall Parker    2004 April 03 12:17 AM Entry Permalink | Comments ( 5 ) | TrackBack ( 1 )

2003 November 10 Monday

US, Pakistani Officials Meet Over Madrassah Schools Issue

Pakistan's Federal Education Minister Zubaida Jalal has just made a visit to Washington DC to meet with many top Bush Administration officials including Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice along with members of Congress. The Washington Times has the best coverage of her visit.

Mrs. Jalal said that only 2 percent to 3 percent of the madrassas pose political problems, not so much for their Islamic-centered programs but because they are used as recruiting centers for the fundamentalist groups that finance them.

The education minister estimated that there were some 15,000 to 20,000 madrassas across the country — only about half of which are even registered with the Islamic educational foundations. The total number of students is about 1.5 million.

The Pakistanis don't have enough money to move all the kids out of religious schools. Plus, the government doesn't want to anger all the religious leaders by doing so. Therefore expect a slow rate of change.

In a measure of the seriousness with which the Bush Administration takes the Madrassah schools as recruiting grounds for terrorists when Mrs. Jalal arrived at the Pentagon she got an honor guard and escort by Paul Wolfowitz. Mrs. Jalal expects changes to Pakistani education to come only very slowly.

"I briefed them about the committed measures being made by Pakistan to extend quality education, with stress on self-generating income and element of jobs." Pakistan Ambassador, Ashraf Jehangir Qazi was also present. Of the targets, she said "no miracle of instant changes could be claimed, while the objective is to make a positive dent in our educational system to make it skill and job-oriented, modern and moderate."

"In any case, the target is the next 10 to 15 years, if we are talking of mindset and change of attitude, it could be visible after as many years, and not within two to three years. Basically, it is the next generation we are talking about." "The target child is one who enters school or madressah today."

The article is not clear on the time-table but it sounds like the Bush Administration has promised $600 million in US aid for changing education in Pakistan.

Jalal also lobbied for more student visas to America for Pakistani students.

...during her recent meetings with senior US officials she apprised them of the difficulties Pakistani nationals, particularly those between 18 and 45 years, were facing with respect to their visa applications. The education minister said the US officials assured her that they were working on proposals to allow more flexibility to Pakistani nationals.

Sounds like the US officials are going to increase the number of student visas from Pakistan in order to give something to the Pakistanis in exchange for schools reform.

Half of all Pakistani students do not go beyond primary school.

The Prime Minister appreciated the vision of Education Sector Reforms (ESR) 2001-05 and called for its implementation in true letter and spirit. The Minister for Education Zubaida Jalal in her presentation said that the ESR envisages increase in literacy level from 40% to 60%, gross primary enrolment from 84% to 100%, net primary enrolment from 66% to 76%, middle enrolment from 47.5% to 55%, secondary enrolment from 29.5% to 40% and higher education from 2.6% to 5%.

If secondary enrollment is the equivalent of American high schools and middle enrollment is like junior high then it sounds like in Pakistan most kids do not even attend junior high schools for 7th or 8th grade. Pakistan's education system sounds like it is as backward as Mexico's.

By Randall Parker    2003 November 10 04:21 PM Entry Permalink | Comments ( 1 ) | TrackBack ( 0 )

2003 September 21 Sunday

US Aid To Iraq Proportionately Much Bigger Than Marshall Plan

Tyler Cowen of Marginal Revolution looks at US aid plans for Iraq and compares Iraq aid with Marshall Plan aid as a percentage of target country GDP.

According to some estimates, we will spend $20 billion on Iraqi infrastructure over the next year, half of Iraqi gdp (don't take Iraqi gdp statistics too seriously!). Andrew Sullivan has been asking how our assistance to Iraq compares to the Marshall Plan of postwar Europe. Here are some answers, drawn from a 1985 piece I wrote "The Marshall Plan: Myths and Realities," click here for an on-line summary, the piece appeared in Doug Bandow's U.S. Aid to the Developing World.

The Marshall Plan did not ever exceed 5 percent of the gross national product of the recipient nations. In the case of Germany, note that we were taking more out of Germany, in the forms of reparations and occupation cost reimbursements (11 to 15 percent of West German gnp), than we were ever putting in. Then throughout the mid-1950s, Bonn repaid half of the aid it had received. Note that German economic recovery followed from liberalization and reforms, which predated Marshall Plan aid.

The important thing to realize about Iraq is that it was not a country which had broadly gone thru a process of industrialization the way Europe had before WWII. Europe had the trained workforces, industrial firms, management know-how, financial expertise, and a recent memory of what civil societies were like. Iraq is much harder to reform even though the percentage of destruction of the economies of European countries was much higher. Also, as Cowen implies, the Marshall Plan has been given more credit for the recovery of Western Europe than it deserves.

It is instructive to read Stanley Kurtz's essays on Iraq, the British Raj and the postwar construction of Japan to appreciate just how much more difficult it will be for the US to succeed in Iraq.

By Randall Parker    2003 September 21 01:15 AM Entry Permalink | Comments ( 0 ) | TrackBack ( 0 )

2003 July 06 Sunday

Poorly Paid Afghan Police Prey On Populace

Writing for The Christian Science Monitor Owais Tohid paints a bleak picture of corruption in the 50,000 strong police force in Afghanistan.

KABUL, AFGHANISTAN – As the sun sets over Kabul, the city's hustle and bustle is replaced by shadows and darkness. And with twilight emerges a new criminal network - members of the city police.

...

Observers say if the illegal activities of policemen are not checked, the lawlessness may take Kabul and the rest of Afghanistan back into the era where warlords wreaked havoc on the country.

The police are not getting paid because Western aid donors haven't fulfilled their aid promises. Lawlessness was a major reason why the populace welcomed the Taliban in the first place.

By contrast, writing for The Washington Times Paul Rodriguez reports little crime but enormous waste on the part of the international aid agencies.

"It's a shame, really, given all the talent we have just sitting around," says a U.S. officer who points to the Band-Aid projects assigned to the military. "We could do so much more."

A wide array of Western and Afghan officials say that somewhere up the line the decision has been made to keep the United States in the background while leaving the bulk of the aid work to the international bureaucrats, heavily laden with overhead that eats up as much as 90 percent of funds targeted for aid on the ground. Afghans see this and express desperation. Whether aid workers are Belgian, Greek, English, Hungarian or Spanish, the Afghans view all Westerners as Americans.

Rodriguez reports that Westerners are paying $100 per day for security guards. But Tohid reports that the Afghan government is so short of cash that it has cut police pay in half to less than $17 per month. Are these two claims simultaneously plausible? Are all the Westerners hiring their own guards for their living areas in Kabul and reporting to Rodriguez that they are not having problems with robbers while the rest of the city lives a more perilous existence?

So whose report is more plausible in terms of the crime problem in Afghanistan? Well, here are some ideas: First, Tohid has contributed to CSM reports on Afghanistan going back at least 2 months whereas Rodriguez says he made a 3 week trip thru the country. Also, Rodriguez does acknowledge roaming gangs in the countryside and says aid workers are less safe there than they were a few months ago (one can assume that Afghans are less safe there as well now though he doesn't say). I'm tending toward the view that Tohid is correct in believing that many Afghan police are corrupt and that their salary reduction is pushing more of them into corruption.

BTW, I actually think that the Rodriguez article has a lot of excellent reporting on many more facets of what is going on in Afghanistan. I just suspect he is underestimating the extent of the lawlessness.

Read both reports and offer your opinions in the comment section.

By Randall Parker    2003 July 06 02:56 PM Entry Permalink | Comments ( 1 )

2003 June 04 Wednesday

Occupation Officials Dismiss Basra Iraqi Administration

In Iraq's southern city of Basra the occupation officials have dismissed the local leaders appointed to run the Basra government arguing that these leaders were too closely associated with the old Baathist regime. That was certainly a criticism made against those leaders when the occupation forces first appointed them several weeks ago. Now the occupation officials are going to rule directly arguing the Iraqis are not ready to rule themselves.

Occupation officials say Basra's political leaders and their parties -- from aging communists to liberal socialists to Islamic religious organizations -- are either too inexperienced or unproven to assume leadership positions. In addition, officials say, some may be hostile.

In particular, the occupation officials say that they fear that extremist Islamic groups and their leaders could attempt to play an oversize role in any Iraqi-run government by manipulating people to rally around their clerics and buying loyalty with food, money and other aid.

Note the fear of the Islamic groups. On top of that there is the problem that family and tribal loyalties trump other loyalties among most Iraqis and there is just not a mindset there that places a high enough priority on being fair to the populace as a whole.

Are the occupation officials slowly learning the basics by a process of trial and error? Or did a different crew come in that understand the nature of the problem that they face? Either way, it is still doubtful that the US government has the will and wisdom to pursue policies with the wisdom and on the time scale required to make Iraq into a benign sustainable secular liberal democracy. The Turkish military has been trying to transform Turkey along those lines for many decades and the outcome there is still in question. Iraq is an even tougher challenge with occupiers who lack the staying power of the Turkish military.

By Randall Parker    2003 June 04 12:27 PM Entry Permalink | Comments ( 0 )

2003 May 24 Saturday

Wolfowitz Explanation Of Iraq Conditions Undermines His Argument

The testimony of Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz to the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee defending US handing of post-war Iraq has some obvious contradictions in it.

WASHINGTON, May 23, 2003 – Pundits criticizing the coalition Iraq reconstruction effort are demonstrating "an incomplete understanding" of pre-conflict in-country conditions and "an unreasonable expectation" of the progress level, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz said to the Senate May 22.

We were all impressed by the military's ability to move large armored columns with a huge logistical train to bring up large quantities of military supplies to support a fighting force that went thru many hundreds or thousands of pounds of supplies per soldier per day. But once the fighting stopped the amount of supplies needed per soldier plummeted. So then why couldn't that logistical train have supplied a much larger occupation force that could have done more patrols and held more facilities to provide better security more quickly?

"Much of what I read on this subject suggests what I believe is a fundamental misunderstanding about the nature of the security problem in Iraq and, consequently, a failure to appreciate that a regime which had tens of thousands of thugs and war criminals on its payroll does not vanish overnight," Wolfowitz told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

If Wolfowitz could foresee that the security problem was going to be so large then why didn't he push for the prepositioning of a much larger occupation force in the Gulf ready to move in as soon as the ground fighting stopped?

He said that Saddam Hussein's regime terrorized the people of Iraq for more than two decades, and "the people who created the mass graves that are now being uncovered in Iraq still represent a threat to … stability that was not eliminated automatically when the statues came tumbling down in Baghdad."

The deputy stated that those saying the coalition is ignoring the lessons of the Balkans in Iraq do not realize the fundamental difference between the two experiences. He said they are ignoring the difference between normal peacekeeping operations and the combination of peacekeeping and low-level combat coalition forces find themselves in.

If Wolfowitz does appreciate the difference and he knew there was going to continue to be low-level combat continuing after the major combat was finished then why didn't he argue that more resources should have been on hand to deal with it?

"To give you some statistics, in the last two weeks there have been 50 hostile incidents, 37 of them initiated against our troops," Wolfowitz said to the senators. "We have had 17 wounded in action and one killed. That is since the end of major combat activity."

President Bush declared major combat operations over in April, yet American soldiers continue to be shot at almost daily.

Wolfowitz said the coalition has made substantial progress in Iraq, yet much more remains to be done. The low-level combat complicates the situation for coalition forces because it constrains their freedom of movement.

"We face in Iraq a situation where a substantially defeated enemy is still working hard to kill Americans and to kill Iraqis who are trying to build a new and free Iraq," the deputy said, "because they want to prevent Iraqi society from stabilizing and recovering."

"Bizarre as it may sound, it would appear that their goal is to create nostalgia for Saddam Hussein. We cannot allow them to succeed."

Allowing Baghdad to effectively go unpoliced for many weeks was certainly not helping the populace feel happy that Saddam was gone.

He said Americans must realize the situation in Iraq is completely different from Haiti or Bosnia or Kosovo, where opposition ceased very soon after peacekeeping forces arrived. "We do not have