NORTHERN IRELAND DOES NOT MAKE IRELAND A FAILED EXPERIMENT:

Barren Ground for Democracy (ROBERT D. KAPLAN, 11/14/04, NY Times)

Whether one views the war in Iraq as a noble effort in democratization or a brutal exercise in imperialism, there can be little doubt that it has proved the proverbial "bridge too far" for those who planned and, like myself, supported it. While much has been made of the strategic missteps the Bush administration has made since the Saddam Hussein regime was toppled, it seems likely that even the best-executed occupation would have been a daunting prospect.

What we are witnessing is a legacy of history and geography - factors often denied by both liberal and conservative interventionists - catching up with America. Had our political leaders considered such factors, I suspect, they might have avoided some of the disasters of the occupation. These factors should also give President Bush pause as he plans to "spread freedom" in his second term. To see all this clearly, one must look at the campaign in the Persian Gulf region not as an isolated effort but as the culmination of a decade-long effort to bring the vast lands of the defunct Ottoman Empire in the Balkans and Asia into the modern world and the Western orbit.

After the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, communist satellites like Poland, Czechoslovakia and Hungary promptly evolved into successful Western democracies. This transition was relatively easy because the countries boasted high literacy rates, exposure to the Enlightenment under Prussian and Hapsburg emperors, and strong industrial bases and middle classes prior to World War II and the cold war. In retrospect, it seems clear that only the presence of the Red Army had kept them from developing free parliamentary systems on their own.

But the idea that Western-style democracy could be imposed further east and south, in the Balkans, has proved more problematic. Beyond the Carpathian mountains one finds a different historical legacy: that of the poorer and more chaotic Ottoman Empire. Before World War II, this was a world of vast peasantries and feeble middle classes, which revealed itself in Communist governments that were for the most part more corrupt and despotic than those of Central Europe. [...]

While democracy can take root anywhere (look at Indonesia and Afghanistan), it cannot be imposed overnight anywhere. Keep in mind that in Afghanistan we dismantled only a regime and not an entire bureaucratic apparatus of control like in Iraq; for in Afghanistan no such apparatus had existed. Over sizable swaths of the country there had been only warlords and tribal militias, with whom we had to work for many months before we began to co-opt them into a new legitimate authority: or, as the situation demanded, help that new authority to gradually ease them out. In Afghanistan following 9/11, we did what we had to do, and otherwise accepted the place as it was. The result has been change for the better.

Afghanistan is obviously a trouble spot for his argument, but even more problematic is the strong desire for democracy among the Shi'a. However, this fact can be seen to support his argument in that the Shi'a religious ideology is that of an oppressed people, disaffected from the state, and antithetical to political Sunni Islam. It is worth trying to make Sunni Iraq democratic immediately, but it is hardly worth staking the success of the war on. Granting the Kurds and Shi'a democratic states is ample justification for the intervention, especially because Shi'astan will force more rapid liberalization in Iran. The success of these states will then provide the example that helps the few recalcitrant Sunni populations to see the light.

Posted by Orrin Judd at November 14, 2004 8:52 AM