The Robustness Of Authoritarianism: Exceptionalism In The Middle East

Throughout history, our world has constantly been bruised and battered by civil turmoil. Today, the civil war in Syria decimates the country; the Israeli and Palestinian conflict rages on; tens of thousands of people have been killed in South Sudan's ongoing civil war. It is not always easy to isolate what exactly ignites the flames of war, but, whenever possible, finding a workable, calm and satisfying solution to a potential uprising is preferable.

…The U.S. began the Iraq war with the goal of ridding the region of a tyrannical government that didn’t protect its people. However, a decade later, at the conclusion of the U.S. military mission in Iraq, the people are perhaps worse off than they were before the

At its current position, the Iraqi government is slightly more stable, but not good enough. Over the past few years, Iraq has approved a constitution, begun holding parliamentary and provincial elections, but groups are still competing to have the most control over Iraq’s central government. Iraq’s government is weak; during an interview with Kurdish Iraqi President Fuad Masum, has few to no answers

The opposition forces, while not fighting each other or Assad's forces, are combating a tertiary group of radical islamists --who-- like the forces of the Comintern, are comprised of domestic and foreign radicals who are imposing their totalitarian will over the regions that they control. It must be noted that while ISIS, in contrast with the Comintern forces, is not a hard Leftist organization. The economic alignment of ISIS can be more accurately compared to that of Third Position politics, which share many socio-economic traits of Stalinist Leftism. SImilar to the Spanish Civil War, this political infighting has led to the weakening of the opposition forces. This has led to many experts alluding to a Assad victory. A victory that could be avoided if the opposition forces put aside their ideological differences in the quest for “democracy”.

The decision to invade Iraq was perhaps the largest foreign policy blunder in modern Western history. Its immense cost—in the thousands of lives lost, trillions of dollars spent, and an unquantifiable amount of political capital squandered—represents an immense failure at many levels of government. Today, even though Saddam Hussein’s dictatorship and security state have been dismantled, Iraq remains ruined: its economy is in shambles, sectarian strife is rampant, and the Islamic State, a terrorist army, controls much of the northern and western parts of the nation. Iraq is a “state” in name only. In her memoir “The Unraveling” documenting her experiences in Iraq, Professor Emma Sky argues that to identify who is responsible for this failure, blame cannot be placed on just one actor. Both Western policymaking blunders—from the marginalization of experts to de-Baathification to the support of Nouri al-Maliki—and Iraqi politicians’ self-serving agendas acted in concert to exacerbate the sectarianism that ultimately tore the country apart.

The Iraq war has surely not long past in accordance to plot. The Bush administration’s aim to ‘swoop down from the sky, finish off a regime, pull again and reload the shotgun geared up for the subsequent target stalled as Iraq took far longer and became a long way greater complicated than turned into anticipated. There had been no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and the links between Saddam and Al Qaeda are unsubstantiated, human rights has had its setbacks, living conditions are negative and there is nevertheless ongoing internal battle and hostility. The oil producing undemocratic regimes of the region are still undemocratic, and anti-Americanism has fuelled extremism inside the region which can also further endanger

Back when the religion began and Muhammad had just died, the divide was over who the next caliph should be, but now, it is a struggle over political power. The different views between the different parts of Muslim communities was the start of the separation. The divide escalated from different viewpoints, to violence and extreme prejudice. “The Iraq conflict plays out on several levels between Sunnis and Shiites. First and foremost, it’s about how to share power in a 21st century state”(How the Sunni-Shia Conflict Frames the Current Crisis in Iraq). When the Shiites are in power over a country, the Sunnis are being discriminated and attacked. When the Sunnis are in power over a country, the Shiites are being victimized. “Maliki, a Shiite allied with Iran, became the country’s new leader. Rather than seeking peace between the two groups, critics say he oppressed the Sunnis both inside government and by squashing protests in the street”(How the Sunni-Shia Conflict Frames the Current Crisis in Iraq). Maliki did not try to ease the tensions, but instead, did the exact opposite. If the protesters were Shiites, they would not have been ‘squashed’. The tug-of-war between these two sects over who gains control in government has terminated the other branch of Islam. The political struggle between the Sunni and Shia has come to the point at which the two sects

Long time ago, the deep religious splits between Shi’ites and Sunnis as well as the racial separations between Arabs, Kurds, and other minorities such as Christians and Turkmens people shaped a growing level of violence between citizens in Iraq. The greatest threat to Iraqis has

During its preparations for the invasion, the United States made several errors based upon flawed assumptions, to include the apportionment of an inadequate number of military forces to provide security following the conclusion of major combat operations. As Iraq no longer possessed a sufficient domestic capacity to stem the increasing insurgent violence and the Coalition lacked enough forces to protect the population, this situation proved conducive to the growth and proliferation of the insurgency. Additionally, the De-Ba’athification program undermined the constituent components of governance in Iraq. As the state was unable to exercise domestic governance, the CPA, whose legitimacy Iraqis questioned, implicitly assumed responsibility for enforcing the rule of law, the deterrence of criminality, and the prevention of political violence. As the United States did not resource the CPA to execute these actions across the entirety of Iraq and because of its policy errors undertaken in the early days of the occupation, the Iraqi state deteriorated, which isolated the population and allowed for the cultivation of an insurgent

Moreover, Moon argues that “[e]lections are lauded as symbolic of the arrival of democracy, but every democratic theorist agrees that there is far more to democracy that elections” (116). Removing Saddam Hussein and setting up elections, does not address the underlying systematic issues within the country. There are other Baathist leaders besides Hussein, and removing the dictator does not remove the Sunni versus Shia conflict within the region. Moon goes on to state that “[a]n Iraqi-headed government may embody sovereignty, but scholars of democracy are unanimous that the tricky part of maintaining the monopoly on the legitimate use of force lies not in creating instruments of power, but in constraining its illegitimate exercise. That requires

The rapid collapse of the regime of Saddam Hussein marked a defining moment for advocates of regime change. Operation Iraqi Freedom and its aftermath produced a number of challenging problems for Iraqis, their neighbours, the international community and, not least, the supporters of the invasion. For the last, these problems included the unexpected difficulty of the first phase of the campaign; the failure to find weapons of mass destruction; the lack of effective planning for the aftermath; and the continuing violent opposition to the new regime. This chapter examines key features of neo-conservative thinking in retrospect and prospect after the collapse of Saddam Hussein’s regime.

Iraq is a nation that is in mass turmoil right now. Right now this country is under attack by a jihadist militant group known as ISIS. Despite numerous advantages over these terrorist ISIS has managed to take control over a significant amount of territory in Iraq. The root of Iraq’s problems is the strong Sunni-Shia sectarian divide that exist within the country. This sectarian divide is due to an Iraqi government that fails to fairly represent all of its people. Clearly the current troubled state of Iraq shows that the Iraqi government is deficient in providing national security and representative government to its people.

In my current event article, Carter, Tawfeeq and Alkhshali show dissenting views between Iran 's Leader Khamenei, and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on the conflict in Iraq, where Khamenei blames the conflict on extremist and remnants of Husseins military and Kerry blames Iraq’s sectarian rule. Through academic journals and news articles I will show the sectarian policies enforced by Maliki 's rule caused political instability and military and governmental weakness that generated the extremist ideologies in which fuel the ISIS advances.

The Islamists—Shia and Sunni—were not automatically hostile to the U.S. presence, especially since both gained from the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. But they were determined to retain the “Muslim character” of Iraq, especially in the face of non-Muslim occupation, and cannot long support the U.S. presence. Islamist power inside Iraq has diminished to the extent there is freedom enjoyed by other political and religious parties within the country to rival the Islamists. However, as nearly everywhere, repression of political pluralism invariably works to the benefit of the

Over the last century, the Middle East has been the location of ethnic rivalry, political and economic instability, religious conflict, territorial dispute and war. Much of this tension in the Middle East comes from the various interpretations of Islam and how the religion should be applied to politics and society. Over the last ten years, the United States and their allies have pushed to promote democracy in the Middle East. However, they too have many obstacles they must overcome. They face problems such as the compatibility of Islamic law and democracy, the issue of women’s rights, and there is always the problem of how to go about implementing a democratic reform in these countries. Many initially would assume that it is only the