Spring Break
Democracy good prospect in Iraq
Contributed by NICK KASE
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Alan Godlas, a religion professor, said the ethnic and religious diversity of Iraq's population might lend itself to the establishment of democracy, since none of the groups want to be dominated by the others.
"Since the minorities are so large, they will not simply allow themselves to be oppressed now that Saddam is gone," Godlas said.
Iraq is 97 percent Muslim, with a Shiite population of 60 to 65 percent and a Sunni population of 32 to 37 percent. The ethnically Turkish and linguistically distinct Kurdish population of northern Iraq comprises 15 to 20 percent of the population and is predominantly Sunni, according to the CIA World Factbook.
U.S. officials last week expressed concern that members of the Shiite theocracy in Iran have tried crossing into Iraq to influence the establishment of government.
Philip Schlossberg, director of the Campus Center for Jewish Life at the University said, "The goal (of the Iranian government) is the export of the Islamic regime."
Gabriel Wilner, executive director for the Dean Rusk Center for International, Comparative and Graduate Legal Studies at the University's School of Law said the institution of democracy in Iraq might result in the election of Shiite fundamentalists.
"The history of southern Iraq will play a very strong role in (nation-building). It is Islam that kept the Shiites going through the years of repression," Wilner said.
Ali Elnajjarr, a senior from Dalton and a native of Gaza, said the U.S. presence in Iraq has given the Kurds the greatest benefit.
"The Shiites and Sunnis are glad Saddam is gone, but they want the United States to go away," Elnajjarr said. "The Kurds want the United States to stay to prevent trouble with Turkey."
Wilner said a large problem is that the United States has decided to rebuild Iraq on its own and that the U.S. governmental model may be a very difficult one to "effectively transfer" to a Middle Eastern country such as Iraq, which has no democratic tradition.
But others are more optimistic about a democratic future for Iraq and the Middle East.
Schlossberg cites the example of secular and democratic Turkey as a positive model for Muslim countries in the region and said the U.S.-led coalition is going about the stabilization of Iraq in the right way.
Wilner said nation building is a very daunting task for the United States to do alone, and pre-war disagreements among allies in the United Nations should not influence these attempts or cause further difficulty in diplomacy.
"The United Nations ought not to be scrapped," he said.
Elnajjarr said the people of the Middle East desire democracy, though in a less permissive form than in the west. He also said peace and stability and U.S. success in the implementation of democracy in the region are contingent upon resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian crisis.
Schlossberg said the two issues of the implementation of peace in Iraq and peaceful resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian crisis are independent of each other.
