Essay on "Conflict Management Is it Feasible"

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The late political scientist Samuel P. Huntington - whose controversial views at the time of his essay (and later his book, the Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order) were not embraced by many scholars but in hindsight have become practically mainstream - explained that conflicts between how Westerners and Muslims prioritize values sets up an immediate clash of cultures. And in the case of Iraq, while the West (i.e., the U.S.) is at the "peak of power" (Huntington, Foreign Affairs, 1993) the Iraqis - in many cases - are returning to the roots of their civilization, to their ancient values and traditions. Ancient Islamic values do not go away quickly just because the American military machine has arrived to depose Saddam.

And as to the existing cultures in Iraq that Bush apparently did not take note of - and hence seemed to have assumed blindly that all ethnic and cultural groups would rally around the flag for the new American-imposed leadership - the Shiites are powerful in their beliefs and traditions albeit they are fewer than the entrenched Sunnis, and the Kurds exist and have demands although they are a minority within the community of cultures in Iraq. Now that these cultural / religious / ethnic groups are engaged in a civil war, battling for control of the power vacuum in a post-Saddam political world, the presence of over 100,000 U.S. troops - presumably on a nation-building mission - makes the situation more of matches and gasoline than the emergence of a new nation.

The point is, it is not feasible to piece together a politically stable, Western influenced democracy while ethnic / cultural bloodletting is occurring throughout Iraq. In his book the Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order, Huntington points out that while Muslims make up one-fifth of the world's population, in the 1990s they have been "...far more involved in intergroup violence than the people of any other civilization." He specifically points to the fact that of 50 "ethno-political conflicts" between the years 1993-1994 Muslims were involved in 26 of those. And out of the 48 locations in which 59 conflicts occurred, "...half of these places Muslims were clashing with other Muslims, or with non-Muslims" (Huntington, 1999). Moreover, adding to the reasons why the Bush invasion / occupation of Iraq was doomed to failure and why in this case it was not feasible to attempt to install Western democracy and capitalism, Huntington writes that the conflict between Western civilization and Muslim civilizations has been ongoing for 1,300 years.

Continuing to explain the "why not?" portion of the question for number one, it is clear that while trying to ram a Western-style democracy down the throats of a Muslim nation like Iraq is hard enough, trying to complete the transformation of a Muslim nation into a Western democracy during a civil war in Iraq is impossible. To wit, author James D. Fearon's article in Foreign Affairs ("Iraq's Civil War") points out that due to fierce sectarian violence in Iraq the Bush administration's political objective in Iraq "is unrealistic" (Fearon, 2007). The fact that the U.S. sent a "surge" into Iraq that temporarily seemed to reduce violence, buying time for "negotiations on power sharing" in the Iraqi political power structure, creates "no good reason to expect" this civil war to end with an agreement on the sharing of power between Kurds, Sunnis and Shiites (Fearon).

The author also points to the fact that of the 125 civil wars since the end of World War II, the average civil war lasts about ten years. And given the rag-tag appearance of the Iraqi army - which is Shiite-dominated and believed to be involved in "ethnic cleansing" according to Fearon - and police force, the chances for peaceful transference of power from the U.S. To Iraq are remote. Fearon asserts that a power-sharing agreement generally comes after each side "...comes to the conclusion that it cannot get everything it wants by violence" and if the current civil war - and the history of Muslim conflicts, as spelled out by Huntington - is any example, power-sharing in Iraq with or without the U.S. military presence is all but impossible.

Perhaps Iraq's elected politicians will muddle through," Fearon writes; and perhaps the Iraqi army will learn to act effectively and "evenhandedly against insurgents and militias on all sides." But that is so "optimistic" and "so unlikely" that those who currently defend Bush's policies cannot defend them morally or in terms of America's national interest.

As a post script to the first question, when it comes to the origins of civil wars Paul Collier writes in the journal Foreign Affairs that "income inequality and ethnic-religious diversity" are frequently cited [incorrectly] as reasons for civil wars. Collier claims that inequality as far as economic status "does not appear to increase systematically the risk of civil war." On page 40 of his essay he explains that although international media covering civil wars may reach back to the past to bring up ethnic strife as a cause, conflicts in "ethnically diverse countries" may be "ethnically patterned without being ethnically caused."

TWO: Are the impediments to nation-building policies and projects-based mostly on cultural differences between the West and developing nations, or are these impediments a mixture of cultural, economic and political factors?

First, as to the issue the U.S. / Western modern influences spreading around the globe in some broad, generalized and yet hegemonic way - not necessarily through nation-building - Mario Vargas Llosa writes in Foreign Policy that "The fear of Americanization of the planet is more ideological paranoia than reality" (Llosa, 2001). And besides, Llosa writes, cultures are always subject to change. Efforts to "forge and isolate our distinct 'cultural identity' continue today with a political and intellectual zeal," and yet by seeking to "impose a cultural identity on a people is equivalent to locking them in a prison and denying the most precious of liberties" - the ability to be whatever they wish to be. Cultures do change, Llosa insists, and they joust with other cultures; but that "jousting" helps to "renovate and renew them, allowing them to evolve and adapt to the continuous flow of life" (Llosa, 2001).

That having been said, there are several issues with reference to impediments vis-a-vis the continuing U.S. occupation in Iraq that are outlined by author Larry Diamond (a senior fellow at the conservative Hoover Institution). Diamond writes in Foreign Affairs that by turning over the domestic political decision-making to Iraqis in 2004 the U.S. "...did not erase, or even much ease at first, the most pressing problems" faced in Iraq (Diamond, 2004). Those problems included "endemic violence, a shattered state," an economy that was dysfunctional and a society that was "decimated" (Diamond, 2004).

And so in the case of Iraq, the answer to question TWO is that impediments to America's desire to nation-build in Iraq were cultural, economic, and political. Any effort to rebuild (or, nation-build as the case may be) a "shattered, war-torn country" needs to include four "basic components," Diamond asserts. Those four are one, "political reconstruction" (assuming that the existing political system has been removed or decimated, as it was in Iraq); two, "economic reconstruction" (which hasn't been accomplished up to this point… READ MORE