The Legacy?

I may not be as jubilant as Bill Maher when it comes to the situation in Iraq.. Yes they had elections.. Yes they have representative government.. Yes it seems to be a much more favored way of existing in a land riddled with so many different points of view - it makes one's head spin..

The Iraqi Assembly appears to be sputtering because they can't really come to a consensus about much of anything.. Yes, I realize that sometimes a democracy takes a long time to develop.. But is this really a surprise?? It's not as though their melting pot is on a good bubble right now.. Things take time to change, to adapt, and more importantly - to grow..

I find it really no different than how our two parties can't seem to agree when it comes to Judicial Appointments and other hotly contested issues.. Can you actually imagine what it would be like if our entire governmental system was wiped clean and we were told: "start over.." We wouldn't have a system in place FOR YEARS, DECADES or longer!! We can't even agree if the right to filibuster should be a right?!?!?!!!!

More importantly -- look at our own history and overlay the fact that it took our founding fathers YEARS before we could have a government that we could employ ... and even then we had to have a CIVIL WAR in order to finalize the whole enchilada.....

Iraq is no different..

These are factions of people whose only commonality was the fact they were repressed under the Saddam regime.. They may or may not share the same religion.. They have different issues with the Kurds of the north and the Shiites of the South.. Different ideologies, different cultures and subsets.. The melting pot doesn't like partitions in the tray....

In fact, Iraq has been put in the microwave by the US - and said "please form a democracy in 30 seconds!!" Guess what - not going to happen.. The one fact that everyone seems to agree on is the fact that we need to finish what we started.. But I hope no one forgets that it was the antics of a select few that got us in this mess to begin with..

I digress..

The Iraq condundrum is going to be magnified in the coming years.. Some will say that it is a success - yet I caution not to bring out the champagne just yet.. If they are to follow our lead, there will be an outright Civil War on a scale that will probably make Saddam look like an ant-squasher.. Moreover, there's no way of knowing exactly what form the "final part" will look like.. There were the indications that this new government has substantial ties to Iran -- something that has gone unreported since the elections.. What will happen when some new leader emerges that happens to conflict with America's blueprint for the region?? Will we have to take him out of office too??

(Let's not forget that little nugget of history where we helped get Saddam in office to begin with..)

I find it amazing that we've instilled several of the attributes that democracies like the US are founded on.. Yet even today, some 200+ years in our own infancy, we are completely different than the charters that were originally brought to Massachusetts.. To mention again - the process took YEARS..

For example - women's rights..

I'm a big proponent of women's rights.. I think anytime a group of people has been exiled out of the process is a system wrought with problems.. To be a true democracy instills the intrinsic rights for all -- not just a select few.. But what has happened in Iraq, is something that only America could conceive.. Let's not forget our own past and how it was ludicrous to believe that a woman should have a right to cast a vote in a man's world.. This type of oppressive attitude is magnified on a very deep level over in Iraq -- mainly due to their belief structure that looks to keep women held down, out of sight and definitely not anywhere near any cabinet position..

Iraq has been liberated for just over a year..

The woman's suffrage movement started in 1850 and lasted 70 YEARS before a woman could vote for the first time in 1920.. The first woman ever elected to a position was 1887 when Susanna Madora Salter became mayor of Argonia, Kansas.. The first woman elected to Congress of the United States was 1918 -- Jeanette Rankin of Montana.. It's a process that started in 1848 with the Seneca Falls Convention -- but was not taken seriously until 62 years later..

I am in no way suggesting that women should be excluded from the process.. I am saying that these women will become targets and those who are not ready to share their Assembly with a woman.. As much as the powers that be want to make Iraq in our image -- the country is not ready, the culture is not ready, the people are not ready.. Suggesting that all we have to do is draft a document, have an election, and call it a democracy ... is nothing short of an irresponsible policy at best..

It takes time to change one's belief structure.. Our own history has evidence of this..

Anyone who entertains the notion that all we had to do in Iraq, was to make them a bit more like us - and they will prosper is not saying very much for the process it takes to make such a system work.. In the short-term, at least long enough for Bush to see it - he will finally have his legacy.. He got rid of a tyrant.. But let's have history revisit Iraq and the region in 2105 before adding that second wing to the George W. Bush Presidential library..

In Iraq, we've accelerated the process in a region that is already volatile, already on the brink of some disastrous revolution, and have installed a government that is meant to appease our look in the mirror.. We have an administration that believes that we have a "winning formula" for the people of Iraq.. Yet I'm hesitant to believe that the same people who orchestrated the war with Iraq to begin with - has a winning formula when the equation isn't written in a text book..