5 ms·

No doubt there are terrible leaders, but experience in the middle east has shown it's no just terrible leaders standing in the way of prosperity.

Cyph0n 8y ago
Care to give examples of good leaders in the Middle East? Keep in mind that the only countries in MENA that currently have a democratically elected leader are Tunisia and Lebanon.
- analog31 8y ago
  It may be even more fundamental: Good leaders emerge from a good democracy. Maybe what the Middle East needs is to copy from the constitutions of successful democracies. Even adopting just our First Amendment would be a decent start.
  - xaranke 8y ago
    As long as the oil status quo is maintained, I don't see this happening. Thankfully those days seem to be quickly disappearing.
  - azinman2 8y ago
    Democracy isn’t always the best form of government for a given population. I think all attempts to force it that have blown up are a good demonstration of this. It depends a lot on the culture, the would be leaders, etc. It should be emergent and home-grown, not exported.
    - ethbro 8y ago
      > It should be emergent and home-grown, not exported. It's amazing how bad government "democratic nation-building" is at realizing this. Democracy is, at best, a generational project. This issues we're seeing in autocratic -> democratic states are almost inherent in an overly quick transition. From a game theory perspective, why would any leaders act in the best interest of the country when there are no institutions and no expectation of democratic continuity?
      - UncleEntity 8y ago
        IDK, (most of) the Eastern European former Soviet satellite states did a pretty good job of it in less than a generation. Most people tend to point to Iraq as the model of "democratic nation-building" but that was probably the best example of what not to do -- send all the bureaucrats (who were, by necessity, members of the Ba'ath party) home and deny them a say in the new government, disband the police and military forces, basically let the people do whatever they want with revenge killings and ethnic cleansing of neighborhoods and keep the people who are (presumably) in charge of law and order bottled up on the military bases with limited contact with the local population. It still boggles my mind the total shitshow post-invasion Iraq turned into...
        ethbro 8y ago
        I'd defer to someone more intimately aquatinted with Eastern Europe's pre-Soviet history, but my impression is that it followed many of the same themes as Western Europe. Which is to say the area was likely primed for democracy over hundreds of years in a similar manner. And as anthithetical as communist mono-party government is to pluralist democracy, one can certainly make the case that it can be credited with building institutions and a functioning bureaucracy. Many organs of which directly mapped to democratic equivalents, as near as I can tell. As for Iraq, absolutely agreed. And I think essentially everyone still working in foreign policy now believes de-Ba'ath-ization was a terrible mistake.
    - sbmthakur 8y ago
      Precisely. What proponents of "export democracy" forget is that it takes time to develop a democratic tradition. Democracy in the US and the UK is centuries old. In the case of France and Germany, it took bloodbaths to turn them into democracy in a short time. Not different to what happened in few Arab states. In India(my home nation), we have a 70 years old democracy. It's broken but functioning. And hopefully, we will get there soon.
      - mmsimanga 8y ago
        You are right, but faced with a migration crisis such as the one we have what would you have the West (because that's where most migrants are heading) do?
        Cyph0n 8y ago
        For starters, we can (1) stop invading and destabilizing countries and (2) stop supporting autocracies and monarchies even if it goes against our short-term interest (e.g., access to oil). Migration crises are the result of a chain of bad decisions made over the years. Avoiding them requires long-term thinking and leaders with foresight.
        mmsimanga 8y ago
        Your point no 2) is in agreement with my parent post. In short, rather make life uncomfortable for the leaders that are causing people to migrate from their countries. Your point no 1) is something the voting public in the country (e.g. US or UK) need to make known to their public representatives. You are right avoiding migration issues requires leaders with foresight and motivation to make those decisions. It suits some leaders to have their countries always in a state of crisis so there is no clear accountability. It suits leaders in these countries to always point to the West and say that is where all our problems come from. They take no accountability and then they go on holiday and get medical attention in the West. The question is how do we motivate these leaders to make the right decisions, life is pretty good for them as things stand. It's not their relatives jumping in boats to try to get to the West. They fly first class.
    - Cyph0n 8y ago
      Your last sentence is 100% true: forcing democracy on a country is never going to work. But claiming that democracy doesn't suit all populations is something I do not agree with. Democracy is the only form of government where (in practice) the people have a say in how their country is run.
      - azinman2 8y ago
        But how can you say that’s ideal for all? And that’s even suggesting that the mechanisms underlying keep that going for real and not just in name. America is losing is democracy as the money in politics is determining policy more than the constituents voting [1]. China, meanwhile, is vastly expanding its empire and economy under totalitarian control that’s lifting millions out of poverty [2]. Other countries have populations that want clerics or other religious folks at top (e.g. Iran), or tend to have a history of authoritarian rule and a population that respects that. There are many different forms, and I find it to be cultural imperialism to suggest there is an ultimate form of government for all people. That is coming from your own values, which is due to where you were raised and the larger social norms.... not some commandments from the heavens that dictate what it must be. Democracy can be great (in theory), but it’s not the only way. [1] https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/perspectives-on-politics/article/testing-theories-of-american-politics-elites-interest-groups-and-average-citizens/62327F513959D0A304D4893B382B992B/core-reader https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/perspectives-on-poli... [2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_in_China https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_in_China
        repolfx 8y ago
        America is losing is democracy as the money in politics is determining policy more than the constituents voting And yet American's current president was elected despite him being out-spent 2:1 by Hillary Clinton. In the UK Leave won despite being outgunned and outspent by Remain. In fact here is a study that claims campaign spending during general elections has essentially no impact whatsoever. https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/gsb-cmis/gsb-cmis-download-auth/442076 https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/gsb-cmis/gsb-cmis-download-auth... China was dirt poor because of its long, unbroken history of dictatorship. It's still poor today, although given the fraudulent nature of many Chinese statistics it's hard to know how poor. But the fact that the PRC appears to have learned a few lessons by copying the success of more democratic capitalist nations, is in no way a vindication of dictatorship: there are still so many lessons for China to learn. Finally, the "cultural imperialism" line. I wonder if you actually are Chinese, to be using that line, because it's one the PRC pushes constantly. The idea that dictatorship and democracy are two equally valid ways to run a country can be easily disproven by just looking at how many people mourn the passing of dictatorships when they fall (not many), or their success rates in various metrics. Democracy is clearly a much better way to run things.
  - graeme 8y ago
    The us constitution has not been a great model. Latin america was the main place it was copied, and that didn’t work out so well. And even america had a civil war. The british and french systems are more likely to be copied nowadays. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Constitution_and_worldwide_influence https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Constitution_a...
  - sbmthakur 8y ago
    Not necessarily. Mustafa Kemal didn't emerge from a democracy.
    - yalph 8y ago
      Exactly right.
  - Cyph0n 8y ago
    Are you kidding? Do you really think that it's just about drafting a constitution? And do you think that Middle Eastern countries do not have the capability to write their own constitutions?
- majewsky 8y ago
  What about Israel?
  - Cyph0n 8y ago
    I was thinking about MENA from an Arab/Muslim point of view, but technically you are right.
- lsd5you 8y ago
  My point was that getting rid of some of the terrible leaders did not solve any problems, indeed made things worse by most measures. Tribalism and perhaps worse - the rule of violence leads to bad leaders. I imagine even good people would have to be bad to stay on top in those societies.
  - yalph 8y ago
    Terrible according to whom? George Bush and his gang?
- ethbro 8y ago
  Usually the ones who were proponents of national self-determination and/or assassinated: Yitzhak Rabin (Israel), Yasser Arafat (Palestine), Mohammad Mosaddegh (Iran, who the US deposed), Anwar Sadat (Egypt), Gamal Abdel Nasser (Egypt), Mohammed Daoud Khan (Afghanistan), Faisal bin Abdulaziz Al Saud (Saudi Arabia).
  - Cyph0n 8y ago
    That's not at a useful metric at all. For example, most of the nationalist/Kemalist leaders were brutal autocrats. I'd argue that the best among them was Borguiba, but I suppose you've never heard of him.
    - ethbro 8y ago
      That wasn't my metric. It was a historical attribute that many "good leaders in the Middle East" shared. And you specified Middle Eastern, which I took to be exclusive of the Maghreb.
      - Cyph0n 8y ago
        Look up what MENA stands for.
        ethbro 8y ago
        Gotcha. My day job doesn't use foreign policy acronyms. I'm sure there are other examples in North Africa. But 'name good leaders in the Middle East' -> 'here are some good leaders (many of which were nationalists' -> 'most nationalist leaders were autocrats' isn't arguing the same thing. I assume we agree that there were in fact many good leaders in the Middle East? Which was my original point.
    - yalph 8y ago
      Firstly nonsense about most Kemalist leaders being brutal autocrats. Second whats your point?

Cyph0n 8y ago

Care to give examples of good leaders in the Middle East? Keep in mind that the only countries in MENA that currently have a democratically elected leader are Tunisia and Lebanon.

analog31 8y ago
It may be even more fundamental: Good leaders emerge from a good democracy. Maybe what the Middle East needs is to copy from the constitutions of successful democracies. Even adopting just our First Amendment would be a decent start.
- xaranke 8y ago
  As long as the oil status quo is maintained, I don't see this happening. Thankfully those days seem to be quickly disappearing.
- azinman2 8y ago
  Democracy isn’t always the best form of government for a given population. I think all attempts to force it that have blown up are a good demonstration of this. It depends a lot on the culture, the would be leaders, etc. It should be emergent and home-grown, not exported.
  - ethbro 8y ago
    > It should be emergent and home-grown, not exported. It's amazing how bad government "democratic nation-building" is at realizing this. Democracy is, at best, a generational project. This issues we're seeing in autocratic -> democratic states are almost inherent in an overly quick transition. From a game theory perspective, why would any leaders act in the best interest of the country when there are no institutions and no expectation of democratic continuity?
    - UncleEntity 8y ago
      IDK, (most of) the Eastern European former Soviet satellite states did a pretty good job of it in less than a generation. Most people tend to point to Iraq as the model of "democratic nation-building" but that was probably the best example of what not to do -- send all the bureaucrats (who were, by necessity, members of the Ba'ath party) home and deny them a say in the new government, disband the police and military forces, basically let the people do whatever they want with revenge killings and ethnic cleansing of neighborhoods and keep the people who are (presumably) in charge of law and order bottled up on the military bases with limited contact with the local population. It still boggles my mind the total shitshow post-invasion Iraq turned into...
      - ethbro 8y ago
        I'd defer to someone more intimately aquatinted with Eastern Europe's pre-Soviet history, but my impression is that it followed many of the same themes as Western Europe. Which is to say the area was likely primed for democracy over hundreds of years in a similar manner. And as anthithetical as communist mono-party government is to pluralist democracy, one can certainly make the case that it can be credited with building institutions and a functioning bureaucracy. Many organs of which directly mapped to democratic equivalents, as near as I can tell. As for Iraq, absolutely agreed. And I think essentially everyone still working in foreign policy now believes de-Ba'ath-ization was a terrible mistake.
  - sbmthakur 8y ago
    Precisely. What proponents of "export democracy" forget is that it takes time to develop a democratic tradition. Democracy in the US and the UK is centuries old. In the case of France and Germany, it took bloodbaths to turn them into democracy in a short time. Not different to what happened in few Arab states. In India(my home nation), we have a 70 years old democracy. It's broken but functioning. And hopefully, we will get there soon.
    - mmsimanga 8y ago
      You are right, but faced with a migration crisis such as the one we have what would you have the West (because that's where most migrants are heading) do?
      - Cyph0n 8y ago
        For starters, we can (1) stop invading and destabilizing countries and (2) stop supporting autocracies and monarchies even if it goes against our short-term interest (e.g., access to oil). Migration crises are the result of a chain of bad decisions made over the years. Avoiding them requires long-term thinking and leaders with foresight.
        mmsimanga 8y ago
        Your point no 2) is in agreement with my parent post. In short, rather make life uncomfortable for the leaders that are causing people to migrate from their countries. Your point no 1) is something the voting public in the country (e.g. US or UK) need to make known to their public representatives. You are right avoiding migration issues requires leaders with foresight and motivation to make those decisions. It suits some leaders to have their countries always in a state of crisis so there is no clear accountability. It suits leaders in these countries to always point to the West and say that is where all our problems come from. They take no accountability and then they go on holiday and get medical attention in the West. The question is how do we motivate these leaders to make the right decisions, life is pretty good for them as things stand. It's not their relatives jumping in boats to try to get to the West. They fly first class.
  - Cyph0n 8y ago
    Your last sentence is 100% true: forcing democracy on a country is never going to work. But claiming that democracy doesn't suit all populations is something I do not agree with. Democracy is the only form of government where (in practice) the people have a say in how their country is run.
    - azinman2 8y ago
      But how can you say that’s ideal for all? And that’s even suggesting that the mechanisms underlying keep that going for real and not just in name. America is losing is democracy as the money in politics is determining policy more than the constituents voting [1]. China, meanwhile, is vastly expanding its empire and economy under totalitarian control that’s lifting millions out of poverty [2]. Other countries have populations that want clerics or other religious folks at top (e.g. Iran), or tend to have a history of authoritarian rule and a population that respects that. There are many different forms, and I find it to be cultural imperialism to suggest there is an ultimate form of government for all people. That is coming from your own values, which is due to where you were raised and the larger social norms.... not some commandments from the heavens that dictate what it must be. Democracy can be great (in theory), but it’s not the only way. [1] https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/perspectives-on-politics/article/testing-theories-of-american-politics-elites-interest-groups-and-average-citizens/62327F513959D0A304D4893B382B992B/core-reader https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/perspectives-on-poli... [2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_in_China https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_in_China
      - repolfx 8y ago
        America is losing is democracy as the money in politics is determining policy more than the constituents voting And yet American's current president was elected despite him being out-spent 2:1 by Hillary Clinton. In the UK Leave won despite being outgunned and outspent by Remain. In fact here is a study that claims campaign spending during general elections has essentially no impact whatsoever. https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/gsb-cmis/gsb-cmis-download-auth/442076 https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/gsb-cmis/gsb-cmis-download-auth... China was dirt poor because of its long, unbroken history of dictatorship. It's still poor today, although given the fraudulent nature of many Chinese statistics it's hard to know how poor. But the fact that the PRC appears to have learned a few lessons by copying the success of more democratic capitalist nations, is in no way a vindication of dictatorship: there are still so many lessons for China to learn. Finally, the "cultural imperialism" line. I wonder if you actually are Chinese, to be using that line, because it's one the PRC pushes constantly. The idea that dictatorship and democracy are two equally valid ways to run a country can be easily disproven by just looking at how many people mourn the passing of dictatorships when they fall (not many), or their success rates in various metrics. Democracy is clearly a much better way to run things.
- graeme 8y ago
  The us constitution has not been a great model. Latin america was the main place it was copied, and that didn’t work out so well. And even america had a civil war. The british and french systems are more likely to be copied nowadays. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Constitution_and_worldwide_influence https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Constitution_a...
- sbmthakur 8y ago
  Not necessarily. Mustafa Kemal didn't emerge from a democracy.
  - yalph 8y ago
    Exactly right.
- Cyph0n 8y ago
  Are you kidding? Do you really think that it's just about drafting a constitution? And do you think that Middle Eastern countries do not have the capability to write their own constitutions?
majewsky 8y ago
What about Israel?
- Cyph0n 8y ago
  I was thinking about MENA from an Arab/Muslim point of view, but technically you are right.
lsd5you 8y ago
My point was that getting rid of some of the terrible leaders did not solve any problems, indeed made things worse by most measures. Tribalism and perhaps worse - the rule of violence leads to bad leaders. I imagine even good people would have to be bad to stay on top in those societies.
- yalph 8y ago
  Terrible according to whom? George Bush and his gang?
ethbro 8y ago
Usually the ones who were proponents of national self-determination and/or assassinated: Yitzhak Rabin (Israel), Yasser Arafat (Palestine), Mohammad Mosaddegh (Iran, who the US deposed), Anwar Sadat (Egypt), Gamal Abdel Nasser (Egypt), Mohammed Daoud Khan (Afghanistan), Faisal bin Abdulaziz Al Saud (Saudi Arabia).
- Cyph0n 8y ago
  That's not at a useful metric at all. For example, most of the nationalist/Kemalist leaders were brutal autocrats. I'd argue that the best among them was Borguiba, but I suppose you've never heard of him.
  - ethbro 8y ago
    That wasn't my metric. It was a historical attribute that many "good leaders in the Middle East" shared. And you specified Middle Eastern, which I took to be exclusive of the Maghreb.
    - Cyph0n 8y ago
      Look up what MENA stands for.
      - ethbro 8y ago
        Gotcha. My day job doesn't use foreign policy acronyms. I'm sure there are other examples in North Africa. But 'name good leaders in the Middle East' -> 'here are some good leaders (many of which were nationalists' -> 'most nationalist leaders were autocrats' isn't arguing the same thing. I assume we agree that there were in fact many good leaders in the Middle East? Which was my original point.
  - yalph 8y ago
    Firstly nonsense about most Kemalist leaders being brutal autocrats. Second whats your point?