Iraq’s Hard-Won Lessons for Future Transitions in the Middle East
Iraq's Hard-Won Lessons for Future Transitions in the Middle East
by Peter J. Munson
Download the Full Article: Iraq's Hard-Won Lessons for Future Transitions in the Middle East
Eight years after the American-led invasion of Iraq, the Middle East sits at a crossroads. The pressure, building for nearly a century in the contrived states drawn up after western models after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire in the First World War, has finally begun to burst the dam. The oppression and inhumanity were so intolerable that Mohamed Bouazizi, a roadside fruit seller unable to cough up a bribe to keep his roadside turf, immolated himself after Tunisian authorities beat him. This tipping point led to weeks of rage, felling the Tunisian and Egyptian dictators, setting Libya, Yemen, Bahrain, and Syria on razor's edge, and forcing at least token reforms in Oman, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia. The depths of the frustration felt across the region, however, indicate not the promise of rapid transitions to democratic rule, but rather the extent of the damage to society, economy, and politics that will have to be overcome. While it is a unique case, the Iraqi experience holds hard-won lessons for what lies ahead. Rather than prescriptions on how to "do it better next time," the lessons should be that transition is an unpredictable and protracted process that cannot be predictably managed. This process can only find legitimacy in solutions that stem from the host society.
Download the Full Article: Iraq's Hard-Won Lessons for Future Transitions in the Middle East
Peter J. Munson is a Marine officer, aviator, and Middle East Foreign Area Officer. His first book, Iraq in Transition: The Legacy of Dictatorship and the Prospects for Democracy (Potomac, 2009), details the social, political, and economic legacies of the Saddam era and their intersection with the American-led invasion and its aftermath. He is currently working on a new project, tentatively titled War, Welfare, and Democracy: Rethinking America's Quest for the End of Democracy. The views expressed here are his own and do not reflect the position of the United States Marine Corps or the Department of Defense.
