Falling like Flies: Dictators, Iraq, and Revolution
In the Middle East, beginning with Tunisia, and spreading to Egypt, Bahrain, among others, dictators have been falling like flies of late or at least made to sweat it. And then there is Lybia, where Momar Gaddafi, having been ruler for forty-one years is being pushed from power. The spectacle of his son, Safi Gaddafi, attempting to besmirch the protesters was pathetic (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7iNtStzbhKw ); it is hard to say if he believed his own fallacious arguments, or just wanted to maintain his family’s privilege. But that is a story for another time. Today’s tale goes back a bit further to 2002.
George W. Bush asserted, in building up his case for war in Iraq, which began on March 20, 2003, this. According to Bush, Iraq would become a beacon of democracy in the Middle East. Other countries would follow suit. Dictators would topple. This hardly happened. Almost nothing happened, no repercussions of the liberalizing sort, outside of Iraq. Now, almost a decade later, quite unexpectedly by almost any measure, a whole slew of countries face major reforms if not revolution.
The question, then, arises: perhaps democratization cannot be imposed from the outside easily. Revolutions have to arise spontaneously from below, from the pent up needs of the people when there is a chance of success.
I am not going to be brazen enough to suggest an algorithm by which revolutions happen. One thing is clear. Bush was not only wrong about Saddam Hussains’ weapons of mass destruction, but the effect that toppling the Iraqi regime would have. The revolutions we are seeing across the Middle East, do not have any clear link to what happened in Iraq, and there is reason to believe they would have happened one way or another. In fact, if we had not invaded Iraq, it may have also undergone regime change, notice, without the loss of American life and treasure.
Revolutions are something we have read about. Sometimes the term is used to help sell books. So there is the information, digital, green, and scientific revolutions. And so on. It is hard to think in our day and age of ravages in the streets. Sometimes revolution can be foisted from above, sometimes helped from without; but it will never, I believe, be greatly successful without the will of the people. Perpetual peace interspersed with perpetual revolution—that is our fate, and here is why.
The condensation of power in the hands of a few is a fact of life. Even in our capitalist economy, when companies do too well, we have to limit their success, lest they monopolize the market. So we have all sorts of requirements on companies—how big they can get, how much of the market they can control, and so on. We even limit, or try to, how much they can influence the political process. Because of their kinship, I do not bother to distinguish between economic and political power here.
In the end, the bigger they are the harder they fall. And powers do decline, fall, and crumble. The task, I think, is to attempt to be good, to be sensitive to the times, and moderate our success, as required. These are prerequisites of sustainable success, of great success. This is a message has been lost on the Gaddafi clan, who, like Bush, adhered to litanies of false, self-serving prophesies.
George W. Bush asserted, in building up his case for war in Iraq, which began on March 20, 2003, this. According to Bush, Iraq would become a beacon of democracy in the Middle East. Other countries would follow suit. Dictators would topple. This hardly happened. Almost nothing happened, no repercussions of the liberalizing sort, outside of Iraq. Now, almost a decade later, quite unexpectedly by almost any measure, a whole slew of countries face major reforms if not revolution.
The question, then, arises: perhaps democratization cannot be imposed from the outside easily. Revolutions have to arise spontaneously from below, from the pent up needs of the people when there is a chance of success.
I am not going to be brazen enough to suggest an algorithm by which revolutions happen. One thing is clear. Bush was not only wrong about Saddam Hussains’ weapons of mass destruction, but the effect that toppling the Iraqi regime would have. The revolutions we are seeing across the Middle East, do not have any clear link to what happened in Iraq, and there is reason to believe they would have happened one way or another. In fact, if we had not invaded Iraq, it may have also undergone regime change, notice, without the loss of American life and treasure.
Revolutions are something we have read about. Sometimes the term is used to help sell books. So there is the information, digital, green, and scientific revolutions. And so on. It is hard to think in our day and age of ravages in the streets. Sometimes revolution can be foisted from above, sometimes helped from without; but it will never, I believe, be greatly successful without the will of the people. Perpetual peace interspersed with perpetual revolution—that is our fate, and here is why.
The condensation of power in the hands of a few is a fact of life. Even in our capitalist economy, when companies do too well, we have to limit their success, lest they monopolize the market. So we have all sorts of requirements on companies—how big they can get, how much of the market they can control, and so on. We even limit, or try to, how much they can influence the political process. Because of their kinship, I do not bother to distinguish between economic and political power here.
In the end, the bigger they are the harder they fall. And powers do decline, fall, and crumble. The task, I think, is to attempt to be good, to be sensitive to the times, and moderate our success, as required. These are prerequisites of sustainable success, of great success. This is a message has been lost on the Gaddafi clan, who, like Bush, adhered to litanies of false, self-serving prophesies.
Labels: Gaddafi, Lybia, revolutions in the Middle East
posted by Anoop Gupta at 14:24
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