Quote:
Originally Posted by ExNavyAmerican
The vote means that 70% of the population approve of democracy, and the percentage of votes in Iraq is about 40% higher that that of the U.S. That would tell me that the Iraqis are more enthusiastic about the new system than we are of our old one. As far as tyranny of the majority goes; you're right. It's called the parliamentary system. The parliamentary system is a bad form of government, but the Iraqis chose it: not us. The Iraqis are doing the soft ethnic cleansing, and it is illegal. I would submit that they need a different PM, but that doesn’t mean that it has been a “quagmire”; it’s actually been an amazing success.
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Once again, of those 70% that voted, nearly all voted for their religious parties to assume power. In my book, a sign of a democratic form of government is that the voters then accept the results of the election without resorting to violence or descending into civil war. This is not the case in Iraq. A fairer statement might be that Iraqis accept democracy as long as it's their religious party that is leading the democracy.
As far as a parliamentary system being a bad form of government, I don't necessary buy into that. There are pros and cons to the various versions of democracy, but minority rights can be protected against the tyranny of the majority under a parliamentary system. Typically, it's ensconced in your constitution, and then it relies on how it is enforced. There is not a national compact in Iraq that agrees that minority rights are properly protected, and those rights that exist are not currently being enforced.
Lastly, the soft ethnic cleansing cannot be boiled down to a result of who is the PM (it does contribute to a degree, but would appointing Allawi, a Shia secularist with some legitimacy among Sunni, stop the soft ethnic cleansing in the Shia south - no; would it stop the hard ethnic cleansing that is occuring in Baghdad - no). It is a result because of competing religious sects and multiple factions within each sect. The democracy that you seem to hail has actually helped to reinforce that which makes it fail in many respects. By making the religious parties the building block of the democracy, it has legitimized those forces which tear it apart (the militia wings of these same parties).
By kicking the militia can down the road due to insufficient forces to tackle it early on, it was hoped that the future cost of confronting them would be reduced. Unfortunately, this has not been the case.