Article

2007-10-25 Iraq

Iraqi Leaders Lack Motive to Look Beyond Self-Interest

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Posted by Zenster 2007-10-25 13:12|| || Front Page|| [11132 views ] Top

#1 Sounds like U.S. politicians.

Posted by DoDo 2007-10-25 14:48|| 2007-10-25 14:48|| Front Page Top

#2 Third world politicians acting like third world politicians. Who would have guessed.

Posted by rjschwarz 2007-10-25 15:34|| 2007-10-25 15:34|| Front Page Top

#3 Elections and our democratic process of representative government are not a panacea in getting generations of tribal loyalties, kinship, and cronyism out of ME governments. We are projecting our value system on theirs, and changing their values is a HUGE undertaking on our part, requiring literally decades of commitment by this country.

Of course, we in this country have some serious issues with our own system and people, so we mentors have some serious cleaning of cobwebs and homework to do, too.

It seems that our main national interest is to eliminate the Islamic threat. We have to do some serious internal soul searching before we decide commit to a complete overhaul of ME governments.

Posted by Alaska Paul">Alaska Paul 2007-10-25 15:59|| 2007-10-25 15:59|| Front Page Top

#4 His axiom is wrong. Think about it. The author wants Iraqi leaders to *set aside* self-interest. That doesn't happen anywhere, except by people who *pretend* to set aside their self-interest, like Al Gore and his comrades, who only think of themselves.

Instead, let me suggest that what Iraqi leaders *should* be doing is find a way to blend their self-interest into mutual interest, to profit everyone.

This is a big difference. What is more sensible, to invest $10k in your own investment in the hope of personally making $11k; or to invest $10k in a mutual fund in the hope of making $15k each for everyone in it? You are still all following your self-interest, but you are doing so as a group.

The same with Iraq. What the Iraqi leaders must be convinced of is that they will all prosper more if they hang together, than if try to get it all for themselves.

Posted by Anonymoose 2007-10-25 16:45|| 2007-10-25 16:45|| Front Page Top

#5 Congressional Democratic ~~Iraqi~~ Leaders Lack Motive to Look Beyond Self-Interest

There, fixed it for you

Posted by Procopius2k 2007-10-25 17:43|| 2007-10-25 17:43|| Front Page Top

#6 So long as their "self-interest" is guided in whole or in part by Islam...

Posted by Crusader 2007-10-25 17:51|| 2007-10-25 17:51|| Front Page Top

#7 And they ain't much for detecting where their self interest lays.

Posted by gom-jobar 2007-10-25 20:43|| 2007-10-25 20:43|| Front Page Top

#8 The author wants Iraqi leaders to *set aside* self-interest. That doesn't happen anywhere, except by people who *pretend* to set aside their self-interest, like Al Gore and his comrades, who only think of themselves.

Bravo, 'moose. You correctly isolated the "false premise" of Friedman's argument. Still, the fact remains that the vast majority of Iraqi politiciansas you duly notemistakenly subscribe to the Zero-Sum Equation. They continue to seek out ways whereby others shall lose as they gain and for that, most of them need to ~~die~~ be ousted from office.

Posted by Zenster">Zenster 2007-10-25 20:43|| 2007-10-25 20:43|| Front Page Top

#9 Just testing

Posted by g(r)om-jobar 2007-10-25 20:45|| 2007-10-25 20:45|| Front Page Top

#10 Intresting

Posted by g(r)omgoru 2007-10-25 20:46|| 2007-10-25 20:46|| Front Page Top

#11 Look at all the existing democracies. None of us are exactly paragons of cooperation. Anyone who thinks that the current political climate is new hasn't read alot about the 1880'2 or Andrew Jackson's time.

Democracy Is Hard

Posted by Chuck Simmins">Chuck Simmins 2007-10-25 20:47|| http://northshorejournal.org]">[http://northshorejournal.org] 2007-10-25 20:47|| Front Page Top

#12 Anyone who thinks that the current political climate is new hasn't read alot about the 1880'2 or Andrew Jackson's time.

For that matter, look into the U.S.political machines of the past 100+ years. Every ethnic group new to the U.S. quickly realizes that there's a nice little trough to feed and dispense favors from.

"Because all the key players think the Americans are going to bail them out, they have no incentive to make any real concessions to one another."

Sounds like U.S. domestic politics to me.

Posted by Pappy 2007-10-25 21:32|| 2007-10-25 21:32|| Front Page Top

#13 Sounds like U.S. domestic politics to me.

Mebbe so, Pappy, but the big difference is that we aren't seeking to nuke the shit out of any non-believing nations whereby many of the Muslim majority countries would like nothing better. This lends a whole different sense of urgency to our own efforts and increases the need for these corrupt-as-shit-assholes to get off of the shari'a dime.

Posted by Zenster">Zenster 2007-10-25 22:00|| 2007-10-25 22:00|| Front Page Top

#14 TOPIX > GROONG ARMENIAN NEWS [USA] > Turkey's military operations inside Iraq agz the Kurds may "provoke" or initiate a wider regional conflict. Turkey's incursion is viewed as TEMPORARY at best unless Iraq's new Govt can formally, effectively control and nationalize the Iraqi Kurds. Iff not, risks only promo further instability and risk of inter-nation confrontation.

Posted by JosephMendiola 2007-10-25 23:37|| 2007-10-25 23:37|| Front Page Top

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