The New York Review of Books: How to Get Out of Iraq

Very interesting look at Iraq, although I'm not sure that I completely agree with his resolution of the Iraq crisis. It does bring on the higher longer question about the evolution of governments from cavemen to representative democracy. I think the better question can Iraq move from a totalitarian regime to a western democracy in a couple of years? Even in the most democracy crazy states it takes a while. The US does not have the will for this right now. The best example of transitioning from a totalitarian regime have been Japan and Germany after WWII. Then the US army still occupies both of these countries. If we consider them as good examples it still took at least a decade to get things moving in the right direction.

Currently we're going to stay for a few years? We are only asking for a disaster. Most importantly Japan and Germany were very homogeneous countries with high rates of literacy and industrialization at the beginning of WWII. Iraq is none of these things: It's not homogeneous, it's not well educated, it's not industrialized. Ideally we would need a very strong leader to take the reigns for life and move the country toward democracy. First establish education and industry as priorities of the country (something that they can sell through a value add, not just commodities like oil). The next step would be more civil rights. In a generation it might be possible, but not less than a decade. Even countries like Taiwan or Malaysia have taken a long time to become democratic