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retmil46 · #28 11-13-2006, 11:58 AM

If you read up on the history of Iraq, you could pretty well come to the conclusion that only a dictatorship or other form of strictly authoritarian government could ever hold that country together. At the best, a more liberal form of government would work only if the majority of Iraqis felt it was completely free of foreign (read Western) influence.

Iraq in it's present form has only been around for about 90 years, less than a century old. It was created after WW1 when the French and the British carved up the remains of the Ottoman Empire. The borders were drawn by the colonial powers to divide up territory, not to produce a workable nation-state. That's why it's ended up with 3 disparate religious/ethnic/tribal groups that have a hard time getting along with each other.

Back in the 70's a scholar wrote an essay titled "The Kingdom of Iraq", which examined the period of British administration up thru WWII. Deja vu, it strongly parallels what we're going thru now. Ethnic/tribal violence, hatred of foreigners, distrust of the central government that was aided/advised by the British, at times the British had to resort to military force to maintain order and even recorded instances of sending out the RAF to bomb entire villages to bring everyone back into line.

In one part of the essay, it tells where a British official asked a tribal leader what his beef was - they had their own government, police, etc. The tribal leader's reply was "Yes, but they all speak with a foreign accent".

By the late 20's/early 30's, the British had pretty much reached the same conclusion we have today - that if they ever left, the country would fall into chaos and disintegrate along ethnic/religious/tribal lines, unless there was some form of strictly authoritarian central government that would do whatever was necessary to hold the country together.