Islam and Democracy

http://www.usip.org/pubs/specialreports/sr93.html

An interesting and well-written report for the US Institute of Peace. Worth a read. It's nice to see a USG-funded institute taking the US to taks for inconsistent and hypocritical actions in resepact to promotion of human rights.

My class is almost over (just the exam to take tonight). It's been quite a valuable learning experience. As I said to shy_kat last night, I haven't gained that much from my interaction with the professor and the other students, but I have learned a lot from the syllabus that the professer assigned, and I plan to go back and finish reading most of the coursebooks that I didn't read comepletely (though I may skip the one on the Sufis and the one on the ghulati sects: there's an awful lot there about obscure doctrinal differences that might be useful as a reference but aren't terribly interesting to me. I took a substantive (rather than structural) class to see if it was worth continuing this program. It is. If I stay at SAIC and they keep paying some or all the tuition, I will keep working on the degree.

thank you. Memory Hole!

It's not that they just posted it (looks like they've had it up for a year or so), just that I'd not looked for it before.

Reports From the Future of Iraq Project
Over 1,200 Pages of Previously Unavailable Reports From State Dept Planning for Post-Saddam Iraq
Warnings and Recommendations by Experts and Iraqi Exiles Ignored by Administration

two more interesting pieces from the USIP

Scenarios for the Insurgency in Iraq

The workshops' principal finding is that U.S. goals for Iraq and the region should be reexamined and scaled back. The administration's expressed goal of "an Iraq that is peaceful, united, stable, democratic, and secure, where Iraqis have the institutions and resources they need to govern themselves justly and provide security for their country" is possible only in the very long term. Avoidance of disaster and maintenance of some modicum of political stability in Iraq are more realistic goals—but even these will be hard to achieve without new strategies and actions. [emphasis in original]

Who Are the Insurgents? Sunni Arab Rebels in Iraq

Building a profile of a typical anti-coalition Sunni Arab insurgent is a daunting task: ready demographic information about the insurgents is fragmented, and the rebels themselves are marked more by their heterogeneity than by their homogeneity. Drawing from a wide array of sources, however, we can try to piece together a view of their primary motivations for taking up arms against the U.S.-led occupation. Sunni insurgents generally claim one of three primary identity-based impetuses for their anti-American and antigovernment violence: secular/ideological, tribal, or Islamist. Further, the Islamists can be divided into two camps: moderates and radicals who might one day reach an accord with coalition forces and the Iraqi government, and ultraradical Salafi and Wahhabi Islamists with whom a rapprochement will never occur. With the exception of this Salafi and Wahhabi minority, core ex-Ba'this—some of whom are wanted for crimes against humanity—and hardened criminals, the identity and motivations of most insurgents are elastic and multifaceted.