Iraq under the reign of Machiavelli's Prince and Socrates' Golden Guardian
"Insurgent groups in Iraq warn that democracy could lead to passing un-Islamic laws, such as permitting homosexual marriage, if the majority of people agreed to it. 'Democracy is a Greek work meaning the rule of the people, which means that the people do what they see fit. This concept is considered apostasy (abandoning what one believed in) and defies the belief in one God-Muslim's doctrine." (San Francisco Chronicle, 31 December 2004, A3).
Machiavelli's advice regarding the conflict between the Iraqi insurgents and President Bush would be explicit, regarding the governance of Iraq -- do not leave governance up to the democratic will of the people, for this will only stimulate chaos and revolt and allow minority clerics to stimulate discontent amongst fundamentalist sympathizers in Iraq. Instead, install a New, pragmatically governing Prince who will neither rule by majority rule, passing apostate laws to discomfort the populace, but who will not be unduly influenced by the political desires of clerics to dominate the government. (A heredity prince would be impossible in this situation, given that Iraq does not have an extant royal monarchy.)
Machiavelli would see a democratically elected, Constitutional Prince as anathema and unwise in this situation. In Chapter V of The Prince, he specifically denotes what should be done concerning the governance of "those states which have been acquired," as Iraq has, through warfare and occupation. For states unlike Iraq, that "have been accustomed to live under their own laws and in freedom," such states should be allowed to remain free and constitutionally governed. "Because such a government, being created...
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