Democracy in Iraq - Post-invasion: Future Prospects For Democracy in Iraq

Post-invasion: Future Prospects For Democracy in Iraq

“If we think there is a fast solution to changing the governance of Iraq, then we don’t understand history, the nature of the country, the divisions, or the underneath suppressed passions that could rise up. God help us if we think this transition will occur easily. The attempts I’ve seen to install democracy in short periods of time where there is no history and no roots have failed. ." (Marine General Anthony Zinni (retired) Head of U.S. Central Command from 1997 to 2000, 10 October 2002).

Retired Marine General Anthony Zinni is not alone in believing that the creation of democracy in Iraq does not call for short-term solutions. As a matter of fact, political philosopher Chantal Mouffe develops Zinni’s ideas by arguing that ‘democracy is never going to be completely realized, but it is something which will always need to be a project which we are going to fight for…be aware that there is no final goal – democracy is a process which we are continually working towards. So we are clearly facing a difficulty in terms of the way passion can be mobilized.” To Adam Garfinkle, another Middle East scholar, experiencing difficulty in establishing democracy in Iraq is an understatement. Adam M. Garfinkle argues that attempting to promote democracy in Iraq and the rest of the Arab World will fail and only exaggerate feelings of anti-Americanism within the Arab world.

However, poles apart from Garfinkle, scholar James Fallows envisions the future Iraq as a “City on the Hill” for the Arab World – an Iraq, Fallows believes, which will instigate democracy throughout the Middle East.

Others argue as Thomas Jefferson would have done that ‘democracy must be rooted… in the “soil” of Iraq if it is to grow. Very few plants and certainly not democracy grow from the top down.’ Thus the opinions of the future for democracy in Iraq are quite varied.