Can Iraq ever become civilized again?

Reuters News, Jan 16,, 2007

Baghdad - Bombers killed 70 people, many of them young female students, at a Baghdad university on Tuesday, one of the city's bloodiest days in weeks. In all, at least 105 were killed in bombings and a shooting in the capital on a day when the United Nations said more than 34 000 Iraqi civilians died in violence last year. Four United States soldiers were killed in a bomb attack in northern Iraq.

Its hard to see how Iraqis can build a stable government in a culture where, when they are not killing Americans, they spend their time killing each other, each other’s children, or even their own sisters and daughters. This is one of those cases where culture matters a great deal, and a culture that is this steeped in hatred and blood feuds and religious violence and tribal conflict and honor killings doesn’t seem to me to have much prospect of advancing in the world, despite all the glowing promises of the current American administration.

No doubt the violence is perpetrated by a minority of the population, but it wouldn’t be possible if the culture of the majority didn’t allow it to happen, and even condone it to some degree.