Of course a democracy is much more than elections - my point. Autocracies that hold elections, yet have no significant division of power between Executive, Legislative and Judicial branches and all the supporting institutions, including civilian control of the military, are not democracies.
Thats not a universally accepted definition of a Democracy.
I already addressed free media and political dissent in Iraq - it is there. Iraq has a real power-sharing democracy.
Free media is not there and political dissent still draws an eerie eye from the government.
Yeah, I went back a deleted the word, peaceful. It was not. Of course, given the recent events in Egypt's Tahrir Square that Laila pointed out to us (last 15 minutes), there is indeed the potential for violence in Egypt. The blood must be shed for freedom.
Domestic issues inspired them. This is nothing but an Egyptian and Tunisian revolt. I suppose every pro-Democratic movement in the ME is of course American and Iraqi inspired. :roll:
The suggestion is an insult to my intelligence. In light of your lack of evidence, did you ever think that maybe all political groups in Egypt (as they have repeatedly stated) are just sick of being oppressed and living like animals?
Thats to say the current demonstrations would not have happened if Saddam was still in power, right? All of this is unsubstantiated and ill say it again, there is nothing special about Iraq that would make it a role model. The country is ruined and democratically its C-grade.
I think i would know <<
Is Democracy exclusive to race? That is an irrelevant statement. Iraq is NOT the role model here.
And yet it moves forward as documented by the many Iraqi newspapers I pointed you too.
What ones?
Oh? So now you agree with me? Indeed we took an unexpected turn when, instead of doing a deal with Saddam we invaded and created a democracy out of Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds. Another BIG reason most of the Arab world hated us for doing what we did is that we tore down a Sunni run country and effectively gave it to the Shiites, since they are the majority.
Or maybe because you handed them a country that is more unstable than it has ever been at any point of its existence?
The US invaded Iraq with the mindset that they where doing it selflessly for the Iraqi's. In reality they merely destroyed any chance of a homegrown revolution that would have created a unified Iraqi made Democracy instead of the mess we see today.
There should be no question that what we did in Iraq has SIGNIFICANTLY influenced democratization movements in the rest of the ME (Tunisia, Egypt, Jordan, Yemen, .... so far ....).
Wrong. All these countries have made reforms in light of what has happened in North Africa. Naturally, they are pissing themselves it could happen in there own nations.
Hell, the only nation i can think of that is remotely close to having inspired the revolts outside of said nation is Tunisia.
Bread and food inspired the revolution, not the US. Sorry.
