The View-Point

"Western Standards" of Democracy in Iraq?

Consider for a moment the incidents of sectarian violence reported on a near-daily basis out of Iraq. Such Muslim-on-Muslim acts of killing have little or nothing to do with the on-going war in Iraq, led by America and the coalition of nations.

The sad and contrasting fact is that Iraq under the murderous and brutal regime of Saddam Hussein seemed to provide an effective level of containment to reduce (or at least control) the sectarian violence. The ironic state of affairs is that although the people of Iraq are better off (according to Western standards) having been released from the grasp of a tyrant, that tyrant and his 'unorthodox' methodologies (by Western standards) seemed to have been the only effective way of maintaining a modicum of 'peace' in Iraq. It somewhat resembles a backwards, 'Bizarro world, measured by Western standards, where a brutal dictator was most effective at maintaining 'peace', and now that Freedom and Democracy have been put into place, brutality and terror rule the day.

Question: Can "Western standards" be applicable outside of the Western world?

Labels: commentary