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Originally Posted by powerclown
Therein lies one of the most complex and profound problems facing the me. I agree with you 100% that they need to open up their societies and outsource, but of course those you outsource to need to have governments-societies-economies ready and able to absorb the influx of "outsiders". The one thing anathema to tribal societies is the outsider. And of course you can't be in a religious war with them - bad for business.
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It's not the outsiders that influx, but the culture. As soon as an HP call center opens in Bagdad and US callers start to call in, they will suddenly be bombarded with US culture, anything from the MTV generation to the ultra conservative to the ultra liberal to the yuppy, etc. All these new ideas could be seeded. I'd be interested to see if the ME becomes what Asia was 100 years ago, suddenly overrun by Western culture and eventually controled by it.
In the short term, it would be great because it would stabalize the econemy. In the long term we could see the extinction of more unique cultures.
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Originally Posted by powerclown
The first thing that needs to happen, imho, is for people to have more of a say in their lives, more - brace for it - democratic! forms of government. That is priority one (and obstacle one). Second, separation of church and state. Three, once these tenets are stablished, new ideas will flow and your adaptation will occur. Thats where I would start anyway.
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Iraq is quite a way from anything but a theocracy. Once the puppet government is removed (which will happen soon), Iraq will probably look like Iran.
Sectarian fighting is the x-factor in the whole thing. I wish that a promenant Middle Eastern Islamic leader would welcome someone of an other sect, be it Shiite or Sunni to show that the two (barely distunguishable) doctrines of belief can live in harmony.