Before we contribute to regime change in Syria, how are Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya doing?

[pampango]

12. We're liberals. These countries have problems. Bring back the dictators.

For some reason living under brutal dictators for a few decades did not teach these Arabs that democratic politics must be played with certain civilized rules. Did they learn nothing about democratic politics from Mummar and Saddam? Perhaps if they had been given just a few more decades of absolute power they could have brought forth wonderful democracies in their respective countries.

Amazingly, after just a few decades of repression and rule by the gun and whim of the dictator, these people have not been able to create a "Sweden of the Middle East". And they have had more than 2 whole years to do it. Do they know how long it took France or Russia to create stable democracies after ousting a king or a tsar? Never mind. Bad question.

The one thing that secular and religious political opponents in Libya today seem agree on is that they are happy that Mummar is not dictator-for-life any more. Imagine that. People not wanting to live under a dictator. There is just no figuring what some people want.

Support was widespread for proposed legislation known as the Isolation Law that would bar some former regime officials from power. Debate over the law stretched on for months, impeding progress on Congress's primary responsibility, which is paving the way to draft a new constitution and hold elections. It also brought to light a deep divide in the country.

On one side stood the Muslim Brotherhood and allied Salafis as well as representatives from cities that had sacrificed the most blood and treasure during the civil war. These hardliners were pushing for an ongoing revolution to uproot just about all of those who played a role in the former regime.

In the opposite camp stood the National Forces Alliance. They are sometimes called “liberals". They prefer a more moderate law that would apply based on an individual’s conduct under the regime, the version that passed cuts wide and deep across Libyan society, and makes no exception for those who played a significant role in the revolution.

Libya is grappling with the legacies of Muammar Gaddafi’s reign and the civil war that unseated him. In many ways, the real divide is between the people, tribes, and cities that Gaddafi pitted against each other in a strategy of divide and rule, whether they stood with or against him during the war, and how much they suffered.

http://www.globalpost.com/dispatches/globalpost-blogs/groundtruth/how-militias-took-control-post-gaddafi-libya

Part of the divide in Libya seems to be between those who want to bar from government everyone who had anything to do with the Qaddafi dictatorship and those who want to consider "an individual's conduct under the regime" and whether each played a role on the revolution that ousted Qaddafi.

Playing politics by certain rules does not seem to be a lesson that Qaddafi taught Libyans. Rule by gun was the lesson they learned. Libyans will have to unlearn the latter and learn the former in the long run, but that has been true of most revolutions throughout history.