{"id":9135,"date":"2014-06-20T19:05:23","date_gmt":"2014-06-20T19:05:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lexingtoninstitute.org\/?p=9135"},"modified":"2014-06-20T19:05:23","modified_gmt":"2014-06-20T19:05:23","slug":"war-without-end-why-iraq-can-never-be-a-stable-democracy-from-forbes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lexingtoninstitute.org\/war-without-end-why-iraq-can-never-be-a-stable-democracy-from-forbes\/","title":{"rendered":"War Without End: Why Iraq Can Never Be A Stable Democracy (From Forbes)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>President Obama&#8217;s reluctance to\u00a0recommit U.S. military forces in Iraq is driven in part by a recognition that the country lacks the basic building blocks of a stable democracy. First, its borders do not coincide with the loyalties of ethnic groups living within them.\u00a0 Second,\u00a0past leaders have repeatedly used brutal repression to hold the country together.\u00a0 Third,\u00a0Iraq\u00a0has a long history of being a battleground for neighboring states &#8212; a status it retains today.\u00a0 Fourth,\u00a0the Islamic belief structure is\u00a0incompatible with key values in the Christian West such as separation of church and state.\u00a0 Fifth, emancipation of women is opposed by many Iraqis, regardless of what the country&#8217;s constitution may say.\u00a0 Bottom line: U.S. forces sent to\u00a0support the Iraqi government will likely end up defending a dictatorship.\u00a0 I have written a commentary for Forbes <a href=\"http:\/\/www.forbes.com\/sites\/lorenthompson\/2014\/06\/20\/war-without-end-why-iraq-can-never-be-a-stable-democracy\/\"><strong>here<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>President Obama&#8217;s reluctance to\u00a0recommit U.S. military forces in Iraq is driven in part by a recognition that the country lacks the basic building blocks of a stable democracy. First, its borders do not coincide with the loyalties of ethnic groups living within them.\u00a0 Second,\u00a0past leaders have repeatedly used brutal repression to hold the country together.\u00a0 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[104],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v22.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>War Without End: Why Iraq Can Never Be A Stable Democracy (From Forbes) - Lexington Institute<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.lexingtoninstitute.org\/war-without-end-why-iraq-can-never-be-a-stable-democracy-from-forbes\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"War Without End: Why Iraq Can Never Be A Stable Democracy (From Forbes) - Lexington Institute\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"President Obama&#8217;s reluctance to\u00a0recommit U.S. military forces in Iraq is driven in part by a recognition that the country lacks the basic building blocks of a stable democracy. First, its borders do not coincide with the loyalties of ethnic groups living within them.\u00a0 Second,\u00a0past leaders have repeatedly used brutal repression to hold the country together.\u00a0 [&hellip;]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.lexingtoninstitute.org\/war-without-end-why-iraq-can-never-be-a-stable-democracy-from-forbes\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Lexington Institute\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2014-06-20T19:05:23+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.lexingtoninstitute.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/lex_share.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Loren B. 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