Right. And really, this is why I'm mostly against the Iraq war, or the Iraq war as-it-was-executed.
But like--- does the Arab world even have a culture of democracy? I think if we waited for that revolution to happen, we would still be waiting. Has the arab spring produced democratic results? The answer is mostly no--- they've just traded old regimes for civil wars among new regimes. Tunisia is a happy exception. http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2016/01/daily-c...
If the people themselves do not want democracy, we should not force it upon them. We should just open our doors to those that do, so they do not suffer under tyranny as a minority. But it is not our jobs to change the will of the majority.
> If the people themselves do not want democracy...
I think a lot of people in the Arab world certainly do want democracy, probably a majority of them in many countries, but the problem is that once a majority bloc attains power they exercise it autocratically. Look at how Mohamed Morsi behaved in power in Egypt, or how Erdogan uses the police and courts to silence and persecute the opposition in Turkey. Look at Al-Maliki's lurch towards sectarianism [1] in Iraq that created the conditions for the rise of ISIS. As a firm believer in democracy, it's pretty disheartening.
But like--- does the Arab world even have a culture of democracy? I think if we waited for that revolution to happen, we would still be waiting. Has the arab spring produced democratic results? The answer is mostly no--- they've just traded old regimes for civil wars among new regimes. Tunisia is a happy exception. http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2016/01/daily-c...