We're talking about the Shia uprising of 1991, which was encouraged by the US in the aftermath of the liberation of Kuwait by Bush the 1st, but then US then figured they preferred Hussein in power to a Shia regime and let Saddam brutally suppress the uprising.
Which, apparently, goes a long way towards explaining why the Iraqi Shia don't much like the US, even if they removed Saddam. Can the last politician to go out the revolving door please turn the lights off?
Do you think Lebanon's sectarian system is an acceptable democratic arrangement? It might be the only way to get disparate communities to share a single state. It worked pretty well until the Israel/Palestine conflict spilled over.
Northern Ireland's political system is also sectarian in ways that make me very uncomfortable and lead to political gridlock, but again it may be a necessity.
And then there's the Low Countries' now obsolete pillarisation.
So, yes, why export Jeffersonian Democracy? The principle of self-rule and self-determination is an entirely different beast. Can the last politician to go out the revolving door please turn the lights off?
