(My Response)
(09/14/2004 04:01 PM)
Oil is a More Probable Issue than
Nukes.
No democratic regime in the Middle East could ultimately tolerate
a situation in which its principle nonrenewable natural
resource was being exported at prices low enough to admit of it
being used as fuel. The Neoconservatives problem is that
they want a regime strong enough to stand up to Al Quada,
but not strong enough to stand up to Halliburton. That is a
contradiction in terms. Compared to containing a popular
insurgency, telling some foreign profiteers to get the hell out of
your country is a relatively simple task.
The Nehru/Gandhi dynasty in India may fairly be called the
great hope of third-world democracy. No other regime has
come close to it in terms of combining freedom, justice, and
social progress with public order and economic progress, and doing
this outside of a trading enclave. One might cite Singapore (with
its faults), but Singapore is a city-state, and if its hinterland
were included, Singapore would look considerably worse. That said,
India' first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, had no compunction
about suppressing the princely states, and invading the Portuguese
colony in Goa. His daughter, Indira Gandhi, split off
Bangladesh from Pakistan. This was in effect their version of the
Monroe Doctrine.
If a hypothetical democratic Iraq had followed Indian precepts,
then, in the 1960's, as the British withdrew from the
Arabian peninsula, the Iraqis (or more probably, a United Arab
Republic) would have moved in. As late as the late 1970's, it was
probably feasible for Iraq to simply occupy the oil fields.
-------
For Indian princes, see:
Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre, _Freedom at Midnight_, 1975,
ch. 7, "Palaces and Tigers, Elephants and Jewels"
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