China is steadily liberalizing and North Korea is feeling a crapload of international pressure. It'd be swell if you could reread the first sentence of the paragraph you just quoted though.
China liberalizing? No, it's just turing into a dictatorship with free markets. Like Pinochet. It's still utterly horrible. North Korea's international pressure has nothing to do with the state of South Korea, the same thing would be happening if North Korea continued to act as it is now and South Korea was still a dictatorship.
Africa is still full of such examples. Here's another one: Botswana and South Africa vs. Zimbabwe. Or just look at Southeast Asia. Togo is the most obvious example, but looking at throughout the world it appears to be the rule, not the exception.
I was going to pursue the example debate, but I deleted it. This is all irrelevant. Let's cut the fat out of this conversation and focus on the key idea.
Supporters of such regimes hold to ideologies such as Baathism or Islamic fundamentalism that are undemocratic and don't care about the conditions of other democratic countries. It's not as if a Nazi supporter from 1930s Germany, if they were transported to modern day Europe, would all of a sudden decide that Nazism sucks and a democratic moderate government is better. Holders of extremist ideologies aren't persuaded.[/quote]
Ok, if you're going to argue that all of these countries exist in a vacuum and nothing that happens in another country can possible influence a neighboring country, this debate is over.
If you're willing to concede that countries are surrounded by other countries with constant interaction and influence upon one another, then we can progress to a substantive discussion. The question becomes how much influence Iraq democratizing will have, instead of whether it will have any. We can discuss whether the influence will be negligible or significant, but I need you to see that SOME influence will happen.
I have
NEVER argued that as soon as a country is a democracy, all of the surrounding countries instantly convert.
no, the question is name an instance in history where one country became democratic and as a result every other neighboring country became democratic as well and that would've never happened without the first country to begin with. That's basically what the nonsense "domino effect" claim put by Bush supporters claims, that a democratic Iraq will somehow magically eliminate every dictatorship in the Middle East.[/quote]
Ok, I've already stated a multiple times that this is not the argument I'm defending.
well this doesn't take into account that many such countries in Europe are constitutional monarchies which don't exist in the Western Hempisphere for fairly obvious reasons. This also is not an example of what I was asking for[/quote]
What do you mean? My point was that the democratic structures in Europe are completely different from the democratic structures in North and South America. All the European countries follow a similar model (a couple exceptions) and same with the American countries. This is probably because Britain was the governmental model in Europe while the USA was the model in our hemisphere.
The US has always had influence in the Middle East long before occupying Iraq. etc. etc. etc.[/quote]
My point was that the USA now has MORE influence. I never argued that the USA didn't have any before, that'd be absurd.
Let me lay out my arguments to refocus this discussion:
*Iraq and Egypt do not exist in a vacuum. Thus, any signfiicant democratic reform will have a certain amount of influence on neighboring countries.
*Regions often have a certain political culture. All of the Arabic countries seem even more closely knit than, say, South America, Southeast Asia, or Europe.
*Iraq and Egypt are some of the key countries in the Arabian political culture. This, combined with a myriad of other factors, makes them UNIQUELY capable to making the Mideast more individualistic, secular, and liberal if they themselves are influenced in such a manner.
>For example, I believe Egypt controls the vast number of intellectuals in the region and Iraq has a strategic position to become a success story. I'm not intimate enough to list every single influencing factor, but I can list more if you want them.
Here's what I'm not arguing:
-I'm not arguing any of your anti-Bush characterizations of 'conservative' arguments.
-I'm not arguing that every country has this potential. So Qatar doesn't have the same potential as Egypt. All my arguments are specific to Iraq and Egypt and are NOT applicable in random examples you pull out of Subsaharan Africa or East Asia. I'm not saying that this is a rule, but rather a unique opportunity in the Mideast due to the current circumstances.
