Understanding Iraq through Il Principe

Read the newspaper again today. Quick show of hands: any one else made that mistake recently? Looks awfully like the newspaper yesterday, doesn't it. Nothing seems to change, not really change. Things still seem to go the way of the dodo, and in a rather spectacular fashion usually. Here's a summation for those of you who are less than prudent newsaholics: John Edwards- adulterer; Russia and Georgia- at war; Iraq- quagmire. Seem familiar?

I hardly profess to being an expert on world happenings, but this struck a chord with me, so much so that it seemed like an adequate sort of thing to discuss for a first blog in this, the most wonderful of creations, the Internet. Of those three things, two of them actually happen to be newsworthy, for which I do commend my friends at the floundering STrib. As you may have guessed, they are not the ones that have to do with famous sex lives; they are the ones that have to do with world events. I thought that I might talk about them through the pane of a recent discovery of mine: "The Prince." In this essay, Niccolo Machiavelli talks about the difficulties in holding onto captured territory, and methods for which to do so effectively. Please bear in mind that he is writing, in Italian, some five hundred years ago, for a certain Medici, and not to the audience of today (seventh grade education, attractions to flashing lights, Larry King Live, et al.).

First, he talks about the laws and customs of a principality, and how and when one should change them. He claims that it is difficult to hold a region in which the customs and laws are unfamiliar to you, and yours to them. We wonder why Iraqis don't hasten to the bells of the Western revolution. Have Americans really begun to believe their own propaganda? A race of people doesn't grow up "hating freedom." The United States' notion of what "freedom" is seems extremely limited, insofar as it doesn't allow for a country to choose it's own system of self-governance. For purposes of my discussion, we can choose to refer to Iraq as a "hereditary principality," as it really was that until it's regent was deposed. It is stated, and rightly so, in this essay that this sort of region will be the most difficult of all to hold. As a citizenry begins to see the hereditary family as "belonging" to the throne, or rulership (read: Divine Right of Kings), they will see anyone who usurps that person as a transgressor. To continue to rule a hereditary principality, a brilliant leader is not needed, but simply an adequate one, and under Saddam Hussein, "at least the trains ran on time." (As quoted to me once by an old Spaniard in regards to Franco's regime.)

Further, since the hereditary rulers are seen as belonging where they are, any usurpation will fall if met with any significant challenges (of which there have been more than a few). Machiavelli writes that if the usurper has any of such difficulties, it is likely that the principality will fall right back into it's old owner's hands. As they have exterminated the hereditarily vested family (and rightly so), we see the conflict that exists today: a people accustomed to harsh reality seeking strict moral enforcement wherever it can find it, in this case, fanatical Islam. It shouldn't surprise the American military that this has happened, but rather it should surprise the American people that there was ever any question in regards to the outcome of their action.