Anyone who thinks Iraq is now poltically stable should read this.

[Lemon law]

As Iraq is still subject to sectarian violences with multiple bombs killing over 100 hundred today. And no end in sight, as Iraqi PM Maliki has done nothing to build consensus among
Sunnis, Shia's, or Kurds.

http://news.yahoo.com/fugitive-iraqi-vice-president-sentenced-death-official-112935523.html

Now there is a new provication contained in this link with a death sentence in abtenia aginst the the smallest major political group, namely the Iqaqi Sunnis.

Which is somewhat the rub, INMO, as all the Iraqi insurgent groups that formed up as soon as Saddam fell, are still as well armed as they ever were. As any reduction in Iraqi insurgent violence was mainly due to power sharing agreements to Itaqi Sunnis.

Now that Maliki has just betrayed that, it may ignite new waves of ethnic cleansing. And when at the same time, Israeli saber rattling threatens to attack a primarily Shia Iran, a primarily Shia controlled Iraq could go ballistic.

As for me, I certainly hope Iraq does not go the civil war route, but its a frigtenly all too possible now.

 

[superccs]

Like the burning of india, that whole region has no idea how to find the door to civilization. Religion is to blame, nothing makes a better in-group out-group division more solidified in the minds of the fuct. Nuke from orbit.

 

[nextJin]

I said this during my 2nd tour over there, no matter if it's now or 100 years from now nothing will change the eventual outcome after we have left.

Same thing applies for the Ghan.

 

[Dulanic]

Like the burning of india, that whole region has no idea how to find the door to civilization. Religion is to blame, nothing makes a better in-group out-group division more solidified in the minds of the fuct. Nuke from orbit.

Pretty much this... nothing has killed or will kill more people than religion has.

 

[William Gaatjes]

Like the burning of india, that whole region has no idea how to find the door to civilization. Religion is to blame, nothing makes a better in-group out-group division more solidified in the minds of the fuct. Nuke from orbit.

It is not religion itself that is to blame. It is power hungry people that use any form of tool (religion is such a tool) to influence other people. Put different groups together and that is what is going on.

Religion was once used to bring people together.
As a form of mass education. But as any tool, it can be abused.
Just as with a hammer, something can be created...
Or destroyed...

Knowlegde of chemicals can be used to solve problems or create problems...
It is the people who would rather destroy each other for silly believe systems and views of life instead of joining hands together building a save land and home for their children.

It is the people who would rather keep that hate for each other alive than to forgive each other and mourn together about the victims lost on all sides and while doing so creating a fundamental construct to prevent the useless killings that occur. That fundamental construct is nothing more then creating a group conscience, being aware that every life lost is one too many.

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

It is not religion itself that is to blame. It is power hungry people that use any form of tool (religion is such a tool) to influence other people. Put different groups together and that is what is going on.

Religion was once used to bring people together.
As a form of mass education. But as any tool, it can be abused.
Just as with a hammer, something can be created...
Or destroyed...

Knowlegde of chemicals can be used to solve problems or create problems...
It is the people who would rather destroy each other for silly believe systems and views of life instead of joining hands together building a save land and home for their children.

It is the people who would rather keep that hate for each other alive than to forgive each other and mourn together about the victims lost on all sides and while doing so creating a fundamental construct to prevent the useless killings that occur. That fundamental construct is nothing more then creating a group conscience, being aware that every life lost is one too many.

Shhh. Stop telling truth. Doesn't go well. We have Mao and Stalin. Rome, which wasn't about expansion for religion. Africa, where tribalism and brutality come in many guises. Humans love to kill. Give them a reason, any reason, and they will.

As far as Iraq, what a surprise! Yeah that's sarcasm. People who don't understand ME relationships are all too common. That was Bush and his administration, and we see it here all the time with Iran threads. What a surprise. (insert sarcasm thingy here)

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

Pretty much this... nothing has killed or will kill more people than religion has.

Mao and Stalin had a rather secular religion then.

 

[Texashiker]

As Iraq is still subject to sectarian violences with multiple bombs killing over 100 hundred today. And no end in sight, as Iraqi PM Maliki has done nothing to build consensus among
Sunnis, Shia's, or Kurds.

As long as people let a violent religion run their lives, there will be no peace.

 

[Anarchist420]

Most of what the op mentioned was old news. IIRC, most iraqis liked it better under Hussein.

 

[William Gaatjes]

Shhh. Stop telling truth. Doesn't go well. We have Mao and Stalin. Rome, which wasn't about expansion for religion. Africa, where tribalism and brutality come in many guises. Humans love to kill. Give them a reason, any reason, and they will.

As far as Iraq, what a surprise! Yeah that's sarcasm. People who don't understand ME relationships are all too common. That was Bush and his administration, and we see it here all the time with Iran threads. What a surprise. (insert sarcasm thingy here)

Indeed.
Dictators are not always as evil as they seem in the relative sense when looking from a distance over a large time period.
Dictators can also acts as a binding and stabilizing source to prevent people from constantly fighting.
In Yugoslavia, this could be seen seen with Tito. A ruthless person, but acted as a stabilizing agent. When he died, the civil wars in that region started again. People instantly had forgotten that the differences they had, were not a reason to fight each other unless these differences got artificially inflated to be THE reason... By the people themselves...

And in Iraq, it is the same.
Many different groups, only looking at the differences and not looking at what they all have in common and could create when working together.
Prejudice, if only people realize prejudice is just something to jumpstart the mind. Not something to live by...

 

[kage69]

Mao and Stalin had a rather secular religion then.

It's not really debatable that Stalin (forcibly) replaced god worship with Stalin worship. A religion that worships something tangible, as opposed to the ethereal, is still a religion. Secular means there would be no worship in the first place, right?

I'm reluctant to put Mao in the same category as Stalin on that issue, he didn't seem to have the same level of ego as Stalin, even if they both shared an extreme disregard for the lives of their countrymen.

I agree though, religion is a tool used by men to advance their own agendas. Being that it can be used for good as well, maybe "multi tool" is a better term.

 

[TechBoyJK]

How many people were murdered in the US today?

What's the death toll from violence in the US vs Iraq? Per Capita Ratio?

I have quite a few friends who have served in Iraq and they all say the same thing. It can be a little crazy in areas like Baghdad and Mosul, but for the most part, it's calm.

I'm not saying it's politically stable.. just that even with the violence, I still wonder how bad it really is to live there if you aren't crazy.

 

[MrColin]

I would guess its about like Mexico now, but instead of feuding drug lords beheading large groups of people its feuding religious fundamentalists.

 

[werepossum]

Like the burning of india, that whole region has no idea how to find the door to civilization. Religion is to blame, nothing makes a better in-group out-group division more solidified in the minds of the fuct. Nuke from orbit.

Sure they do - you can't avoid something so assiduously for thousands of years without knowing where it's at!

 

[Lemon law]

The large problem in Iraq is that Iraq is a nation that should never have been. A less than 100 old nation that was put together in some London map room out of the left over bits of the imploded Ottoman Empire. And worse yet, with three major ethnic groups who had nothing in common.

Iraq has a long history of being an accident not waiting to happen, as Iraq limps from one accident happening to another.

 

[Jhhnn]

Iraq unstable? No shit, Sherlock. That was the whole point of the invasion & the handing out of small arms & ammo like candy at halloween, playing off the groups against each other- to balkanize the place, beat down their infrastructure, cripple their govt & their ambitions, make sure they'd never threaten either KSA or Israel.

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

Iraq unstable? No shit, Sherlock. That was the whole point of the invasion & the handing out of small arms & ammo like candy at halloween, playing off the groups against each other- to balkanize the place, beat down their infrastructure, cripple their govt & their ambitions, make sure they'd never threaten either KSA or Israel.

Occam's razor disagrees. Everything I have examined suggests that Bush didn't understand much of anything. Besides, Iraq was not a threat to Israel. Like now, iran was the one to watch. Iran and Iraq were enemies.

 

[Jhhnn]

Occam's razor disagrees. Everything I have examined suggests that Bush didn't understand much of anything. Besides, Iraq was not a threat to Israel. Like now, iran was the one to watch. Iran and Iraq were enemies.

Bush didn't have to understand- he just needed to blunder in, eyes wide shut, to serve Israeli & Saudi purposes.

It served Iranian purposes as well, but those purposes won't bear immediate fruit, if ever. They're playing the long game, building ties with Iraq thru trade & technical support.

 

[Lemon law]

Occam's razor disagrees. Everything I have examined suggests that Bush didn't understand much of anything. Besides, Iraq was not a threat to Israel. Like now, iran was the one to watch. Iran and Iraq were enemies.

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An extermely shallow and superficial analysis in MHO Hayahususa.

While you may be right in one that GWB&co knew nothing, the consequences of GWB's actions ended up being really trully idiotic.

As Saudi Arabia did little to say no, but ended up with a Shia dominated Iraq rather than its former far Friendlier Sunni dominated Iraq. Lets put it this way, Saudi Arabia ain't amused and Iran now is happy to have a Shia dominated Iraq.

In short Hayabasus, your razor is very dull and defective and just can't cut it!

As for Turkey, who used to sit on the sideslines, half wannabe Nato member, is now PO'ed at both the USA and Israel. As Turkey now fears a rising Kurdism nationalism in the North of Iraq, will spread to and energize the large Kurdish minoities in both Turkey and Syria.

As the epic backfires of GWB&co and his merry band of Neocons become object lessons to us all on exactly how not to advance American interests in the mid-east.

 

[TastesLikeChicken]

As usual, LL gets it completely wrong because he fails to recognize that the ME has been a clusterfuck ever since the Ottoman Empire sided with the wrong side in WW1, lost their hedge bet, and payed the price for it. It's no less of a clusterfuck now, just a different one.

Afaik, nobody thinks Iraq is "politically stable" either so the premise of the OP is pure bunk. However, Iraq's government is far more stable than that of Syria, which the US has not meddled with, as well as a number of other governments in the ME. So "stable" is a fairly relative term where the ME is concerned. The real question is whether or not Iraq's current government is in peril. Is it? No. Not really. This is just another bump in the road that will pass and LL's attempt to spread FUD will fade along with the numerous other threads he has started on the same subject that have fallen flat on their face and amounted to zilch. No doubt LL will pick himself up from yet another FUD failure, dust himself off, and try again to spread more in the near future. It's in his nature. He just can't seem to help himself.

 

[MrColin]

As usual, LL gets it completely wrong because he fails to recognize that the ME has been a clusterfuck ever since the Ottoman Empire sided with the wrong side in WW1, lost their hedge bet, and payed the price for it. It's no less of a clusterfuck now, just a different one.

Afaik, nobody thinks Iraq is "politically stable" either so the premise of the OP is pure bunk. However, Iraq's government is far more stable than that of Syria, which the US has not meddled with, as well as a number of other governments in the ME. So "stable" is a fairly relative term where the ME is concerned. The real question is whether or not Iraq's current government is in peril. Is it? No. Not really. This is just another bump in the road that will pass and LL's attempt to spread FUD will fade along with the numerous other threads he has started on the same subject that have fallen flat on their face and amounted to zilch. No doubt LL will pick himself up from yet another FUD failure, dust himself off, and try again to spread more in the near future. It's in his nature. He just can't seem to help himself.

It's true, a diverse bunch of religious tribalist radicals like that found in Iraq actually require a brutal dictator like Saddam Hussein to keep things stable.