I agree that Turkey is an anomaly; I would submit that, at least in part, the difference arises from differences in Turkish and Arabic culture, and from the greater exposure of Turkey to Byzantine political norms.

However, I don’t think it follows from that that liberal democracy is impossible elsewhere in the middle east. Political cultures are not static, and if Turkey could abandon centuries of Ottoman Islamic bureaucracy, the Arab states can reform as well.

What I actually said:
“Claiming Turkey to be a functioning democracy for 100 years is factually wrong.” And I proved why.

I did not say it is not a functioning democracy now. It is.

I also did not say that the Greeks developed the distinction between church and state. I was making the point that that distinction is part of our sense of what makes a good society, which in itself is part of a philosophical tradition that goes back a long, long way.

Here is my short explanation for Turkey: It’s an anomaly.

It’s perfectly fair to point to Islam as never having gone through either of these and therefore never having developed a culture in which the two are regarded as seperate spheres; the same could reasonably be said of pre-Soviet Russia. But in order to maintain that that is a defining feature of Islamic culture you need to adequately explain Turkey, in which an indigenous element forcibly secularized the country and established such a distinction, and in which a democratically elected body abolished the office of Caliph, one of the most important developments in the Islamic world of the last century.

Turkey has a vibrant secular culture in which it is generally accepted that the mosque does not interfere in political matters. It is not a country in which western standards of human rights are followed, and it is a country in which the army has a history of removing governments which it considers to stray from the consensus position — but it is also a country with a broad and deep acceptance of the rule of law and of secular liberalism as a governing philosophy.

If, as you say, the PLO destroyed a democratic republic in Lebanon, that only supports my thesis.

As for the Iraqi solution lacking sufficient lethality, perhaps we agree there. US Generals “on the ground,” in the now-common cliche, were clamoring for hundreds of thousands more troops that our original force represented. Paul Bremer verifies that in his recent book. This is a fairly amazing claim that has not been covered by our liberal media, funnily enough.

Of course, there is no guarantee that greater troop strength may have in itself been sufficient.

Blaming the French for our effort, as massive as it has been, is a little too late and too less. Falls into that ‘errors’ bit I mentioned above. Would have been nice to have corrected. But, does not change the fact that the whole adventure was ill-conceived.

Then please explain why Turkey has been a functioning democratic state for almost 100 years. Or why Lebanon was one before the PLO destroyed it.

What is your solution? Ignore them until they get the bomb then genocide?

The main problem in Iraq, as I said from the outset, was that Bush & Co weren’t ruthless enough. They should have shut down the insurgency before it began with a few harsh responses.

It would also have helped if the French hadn’t forced Turkey to back out of the invasion plan (stab the Americans in the back or EU membership never) — the lack of a northern pincer allowed the Saddamites to reform, stash weapons, and start the guerilla war. Someday that will come back to haunt France, a dish best served cold.

The cheery photo-op handshake between these democratically elected terrorsts-in-chief is nauseating. But not surprising.

The West’s sense of the self, our idea of individual rights, our conception of a balance between religion and state, and basic ideas about democracy come from philosophical underpinnings that stretch back to the Greeks.

It’s a philosophical and social foundation, and a sense of ‘the self,’ that Muslim cultures do not share. Have not participated in. Or in which they’ve only peripherally participated.

In other words, there are fundamental differences between the cultures of the West and the Middle East. Differences that the neo-cons were blinded to, in driving the West into this latest war in the Middle East.

That is why I think our Iraqi adventure was, while well intentioned, tragically conceived. (The errors in followup to the invasion – not enough troups, war-profiteering, the question of abusing prisoners that may have valuable information, are all relatively insignificant and unimportant.) The conception of freedom isn’t universal, nor is the understanding of freedom.

Hence, the intractable position in which we find ourselves in in Iraq.

Ok, take your best shot. But be civil. (And, no, I’m not racist. Just realist.) This is the theory that I think rationally frames the problem, and I think it makes sense.

I’m not going to abuse Patterico’s hospitality by revisiting this question (if you missed or have forgotten my stance on this, it should be available in the archives, and I do hope you’ll refer to my 10-point answer and not Patterico’s sloppy surmise).

As to your second question:
“I’m trying to figure this one out: if Asinistra were Iranian, and made the same comments about the President of Iran that she has made, here, about the President of the United States, would she still be free to continue to post such comments?”

Here’s something you people will never ever understand about us people. If I were Iranian I might or might not still be free to post my opinions, but you can damn well bet that I would state them anyway, and there’s no fucking authority figure in this country or that one who would stop me without a bullet.