yup, we need a brutal strongman type back in charge in Iraq

[snot]

17. Here's the problem as I see it.

This is a VERY rough, broad-brush picture, but . . .

There's a sort of natural tendency toward something like feudalism -- people will put up with a certain amount of tyranny so long as there's hope that the tyrant will take care of their basic needs . . . or so long as they seem to have more to lose by opposing the tyrant than by putting up with him. It's the old psychological bargain: I'll obey you if you'll take care of me. Because life is challenging, and it's hard for any of us to manage everything without help. Only, too often, when it comes to the "taking care" part, the tyrant fails to uphold his end of the bargain.

Also, good leaders are very hard to find. You need someone who actually understands a fair amount about a variety of policy issues, who doesn't have too many personal, emotional issues that get in the way, who has good managerial and organizational skills, who has some degree of altruistic concern for others, who has the interpersonal skills to charm a crowd to at least some degree as well as to negotiate with or outfox adversaries, etc. etc.

And not only do you need good leaders, but surrounding circumstances have to be conducive in certain ways. If your infrastructure has been demolished, your economy is in ruins, you're under constant attack by fanatics or one stripe or another, your population is woefully under- or mis-educated, the media are owned by your opposition, etc., etc., even the Founding Fathers might have struggled.

Achieving any degree of not utterly-tyrannical stability, let alone good government, is huge.

It's usually difficult to help another person or country evolve into some kind of more constructive mode of operation. Sometimes it's easier or harder than others; but you can't just chop off the head and slap a new one on that's more to your liking, as we did in Iraq, and expect it to "take." Very roughly speaking, the person or country to be "improved" must meet you at least half-way. Change must come at least in part from within; and what's needed is a clear vision, considerable will, and good internal leadership and/or organization. The Egyptian revolution is highly instructive. The protesters were intelligent, informed, motivated, etc.; but the revolution is struggling, apparently bec. there was no pre-existing organization or leadership sufficiently developed to govern even temporarily, other than the Muslim Brotherhood, which lacked the wisdom and/or political savvy to hold onto power, and the military, which is essentially tyrannical.

In an ideal world, we should ALL be leaders. We should all, at the minimum, be leaders of our own lives; but in fact, few of us manage even that. We're driven by impulses we rarely understand to do foolish or self-destructive things that have irreversible consequences, then spend much time and energy simply trying to cope with whatever we've brought on ourselves.

I do NOT by any means consider our situation as hopeless as this may sound. I just think most people either vastly underestimate the challenges or choose not to care about them, so long as their own selfish, short-term interests are benefitted.

Right now, you could compare Iraq to somebody else's problem child. We have a right to protect ourselves from it, and possibly a humanitarian duty to try to help it to some degree; but we don't have any authority over it and limited influence with it. It is mostly somebody else's problem, and unless we're willing to invest hugely into it over decades -- in ways that would result in lost opportunity costs elsewhere because of the cost in treasure and attention -- we're not going to be able to have much effect on it, let alone actually "fix" it.