Where does Iraq and the Middle East go from here?

[Mr Khan]

Rath said:

Mr Khan said:

Kasz216 said:

 

Unfortunitly, most dicatorships know that now... hence why so few even bother to try.

That's what i find interesting about China though... will they be able to keep their way of government moving foward?

I wouldn't quite say that. What has happened more is that most of the development-minded dictatorships have already fallen to their own devices, like Suharto in Indonesia. Syria was interested in modernization, as was Egypt and so, to a point, is Iran. Vietnam and Cuba are working to improve conditions. North Korea, Myanmar, and Laos are capable only of keeping things in stasis, while the ones in Africa tend to be kleptocracies only interested in their own aggrandizement rather than the good of the people

I find it interesting that you include Burma in that list, they're reforming at an incredible and entirely unexpected rate. Thein Sein seems to be actually aiming to peacefully convert Burma into a democratic country - inclusive of Aung San Suu Kyi and her political party. Certainly things aren't in stasis there.

My read on the situation was that the Junta was tossing the opposition a few bones to keep them quiet, though i'll admit i didn't follow the story too closely.

 

@ Samuel

As there is primarily a state of anarchy between states, the people of states will often look to dealing with other states to solve their problems (e.g., famine? Go take Kurdistan's harvest!), making war invetiable so long as there are states and no binding framework between states. Now the nature of this gets vastly warped and distorted by the endless machinations of modern politics.

Really you're arguing a utopian-anarchist perspective. The People do not function without state leadership, and as states have their interests in their necessary existence, so they play games with one another. The idea that peace would be universal if government got out of the way is hard to grasp, because if we dismantle "government" as we know it, then you end up with something like Somalia or Mexico in the 1910s, or China in the 10s and 20s: warlordism.

Government is a state of nature, therefore war is a state of nature. It is only through the refinement of government and the installation of international systems that we can avert war. Globalization is good for stopping war (though left unchecked as it has been, bad for a hell of a lot else).