Federalism and Civil War

Mahmoud al-Mashhadani, speaker for the Iraqi parliament, is quoted by the Washington Post as saying:

The United States is a federated system and it is leading the world. But this was after the Civil War,” Mashhadani said. “So must we go through a civil war in order to achieve federalism?

Now, I was personally under the impression that the United States was in fact federal from the very beginning, and actually became significantly more centralized in governance following the Civil War, but then I didn’t study at Baghdad Medical College, which is of course renowned for its American History courses.

I guess he knows a lot that I don’t. For example, I also didn’t know that:

Jewish, Israelis and Zionists who are using Iraqi money and oil to frustrate the Islamic movement in Iraq and come with the agent and cheap project.

2 thoughts on “Federalism and Civil War”

  1. He probably meant “do we have to go through civil war to achieve *stable* federalism?” I say no: just look at Australia, Germany, Canada, Brazil, India and every other federal country that hasn’t had to.

    The question is whether a civil war will be needed to sort out the contradictions in the Iraqi federal system. I don’t think the Sunni-Shia-Kurd differences are quite comparable to the basic problems caused by having half of the nation dependent on slaves and the other half opposed to the very concept…

  2. But then, there are the federal countries that have had to. Nigeria, Brazil, Mexico. Glad to see their politicians are as well read as our own.

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