Throughout the long and complex history of civilization, there have been hundreds of attempts to create a new government. Some have failed, while others have succeeded. They all encountered many challenges. These challenges include having previous leaders relinquish their power, choosing a type of government, the values of the new nation, and how to deal with civil and foreign wars. Two countries who attempted to establish a new government are Iraq in modern times, and France at the time of Louis XVI. Studying these two countries reveals many similarities between the attempt to revolutionize the government. Two of the main challenges that both countries struggled with were overthrowing the previous leaders and handling conflict within their countries.
To begin with, the attempts in France and Iraq to build a new government were slowed
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In France, King Louis XVI tried, but ultimately failed, to protect his power by taking extreme measures. He asked for help from other countries and fled to Austria, he locked the National Assembly out of their meeting place in an attempt to stop them from meeting, and he also defended his actions by claiming that France’s monarchy was a type of government, “under which the nation prospered for 1,400 years.” (“Louis XVI Letter Describing his Flight from Paris”). Similarly Iraq also had a power hungry ruler. President Saddam Hussein tried to protect his power by killing or expelling tens of thousands of his citizens.. He ordered a poisonous gas attack on March 16, 1988 against his own people in Halabja in northern Iraq because the Kurds wanted to separate from Iraq and his rule. More than 5,000 Iraqi citizens died in Hussein’s attack (“Saddam Hussein Fast Facts”). Moreover, the two revolutions were also hindered by high-ranking officials and citizens not wanting to relinquish their
Throughout history, tyranny was seen demonstrated on many occasions, when rulers wanted to have an absolute power over all the aspects of the country they are ruling. One of the famous tyrants in the history of the middle east countries or may be the history of the world is Saddam Hussein. Saddam Hussein ruled Iraq for more than 23 years, he tortured, arrested and killed many people during the time of his reign. In the article of Tales of Tyrants, Mark Bowden is trying to show that Saddam Hussein was a brutal and cruel leader who used violence and ferocity in order to control the Iraqis and plant his fear in them to hide his weakness and insecurity. Bowden uses the repetition of the words “dangerous, intimidate, fear and brutal” to prove that
Saddam Hussein’s main purpose of sending troops to take over Kuwait was to take control of their oil fields, which Hussein believed would be an easy task; however, he failed to understand that the United States and United Nations were keeping a very close watch on the Iraqi’s actions. Hussein also had other motives, such as freeing himself from the debt he was drowning in from the Iran-Iraq War just two years earlier. He set the pretense for war with Kuwait by defining their refusal to give land to Iraq as an act of military belligerence. President Bush ordered the United States to respond just five days after Iraq had invaded Kuwait. If the United States had not taken action, Hussein would have possibly continued to invade other oil producing countries and take control of the United States main sources of oil as well as threaten a number of innocent people’s lives.
Only two weeks later Hussein held a speech, where he accused the neighbor, Kuwait, for draining oil from the Ar-Rumaila oil fields, this was an oil field located along the border, and was a part of both countries. He accused Saudi Arabia and Kuwait for conspiring to keep the prices of oil low to pamper the western oil-buying nations. In addition to Hussein’s speech, the Iraqi troops had already started to gather along the border of Kuwait, ready to invade. President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt was alarmed by this, and started negotiations between the two parts to try to avoid nasty things to happen, and to keep the US from getting involved, but after only two hours, he had to give up, and on August 2 1990, he ordered the invas...
In today’s world, there are several types of governments that control their countries. There are democracies, dictatorships, republics, monarchies etc. Absolute monarchy was a very common form of government centuries ago. Throughout this time period, many leaders, dictators, monarchs made mistakes that the government looks at today. The abuse and misuse of power by absolute monarchs inexorably led to the rise of modern democracy. This is shown through leaders abusing their powers as absolute monarchs, the unreliability of monarchy, and corrupt governments.
In September 1980, a very destructive war with Iran was started by Saddam Hussein. This was a result of an invasion in Iran. This invasion spurred an eight year war. Saddam used c...
Having too much power can lead a person to making wrong decisions and going crooked. During the French revolution, the third estate had to work for long hours and got nothing in return, and the food prices were skyrocketing. By doing so, King Louis XVI took away the rights of the third estate, but the third estate was not happy with the King’s decision. King Louis XVI didn’t give any right to
When a person is in power, situations arouse where they can acquire anything by lying, bribing, conning, or stealing. With these in mind anybody in power could easily become a powerful foe.
The Iraq war, also known as the second Gulf War, is a five-year, ongoing military campaign which started on March 20, 2003 with the invasion of Iraq by U.S. troops. One of the most controversial events in the history of the western world, the war has caused an unimaginable number of deaths, and spending of ridiculous amounts of money. The reason for invasion war Iraq’s alleged possession of weapons of mass destruction, which eventually was disproved by weapons inspectors. Many people question George W. Bush’s decision to engage a war in Iraq, but there might be greater reason why the decision was made. The ideas of George W. Bush might have been sculpted by one of the greatest works of all time, "The Prince."
The authoritarian regimes of the Middles cycled through a pattern of anti-western policy until the globalization effects of economics and information demanded reform. As conservative Arab states try to maintain the autocracy they relied on after gaining independence, their citizens, affected by information and education expansion, challenge their resistant governments as typified by Syria’s unwillingness to capitulate. The proliferation of information and education underscored the protest movements of the Arab Spring because citizens’ contempt for their obstinate governments grew to large under economic pressures, as the current situation in Syria demonstrates.
Pre-invasion Iraq reflected the views and policies of its leader, Saddam Hussein, who made his first political appearance as a supporter of the Ba’ath Party. He was jailed in 1967 for this, and after his escape quickly rose to power within the faction. (Saddam Hussein Biography, 2008) Saddam became known for his political talent and progressiveness, and soon became a popular politician. After working on extensive unification and expansion efforts for the Ba’athists, the man rose to vice chairman of the Revolutionary Command Council. Faced with a tremendous amount of religious, racial, social and economic divisions, Saddam launched a campaign of total control to bring about stability.
An example would be in North Korea, the current leader Kim Jong-Un is the successor of the previous dictator, Kim Jong-Il. Kim Jong-Il ruled North Korea during the 20th century. During his rule there was decrease in trading because their main trading partner, the Soviet Union, had just collapsed. Not only that but there were also a numerous amount of floods and droughts occurred too. This left North Korea in famine, since there was only a certain amount of farming land, this left Kim Jong-Il to worry about his power. With the remaining amount of farming land he instead decided to use those resources for the military instead of the citizens experiencing famine at the time. After this incident, in 2003, it was found out that North Korea was producing nuclear weapons, but Kim Jong-Il said it was only for security reasons. Meetings were held with North Korea and the U.S. would always demand that North Korea remove those nuclear weapons, but every time they would decline. Kim Jong-Il’s health started to descend and that left him to give his power to his son, Kim Jong-Un. After his father’s death in 2011, Kim Jong-Un continued doing nuclear tests even if that meant that North Korea wouldn’t be accepted into the international community. In addition, North Korea has suffered in economically and faced poverty because of famine and food shortages that occured
Power is a very interesting thing to hold. Many good-natured men have been destroyed by power and turned away from their morals as a result. When giving a man absolute power, it’s ingrained in the human brain to take it to a new level. This ideal is present in every type of government, regardless of whether it’s a dictatorship or a government supported by autonomy. Modern day government suffers from this power hungry greed.
Governments around the globe have created
In those countries that have not experienced government upheaval, a common outcome of the Arab Spring has been sustained civil unrest, political instability, and the extension of political and economic concessions by leaders seeking to appease protesters. Many questions could arise as one contemplated those events. One of these questions would be: Why has the Arab Spring produced different results across the Middle East? This paper is a humble attempt to suggest some answers to this sort of these logical questions.
The abrupt end of decade long dominating regime in three weeks had created a political vacuum, that is evident in shifting coalitions and divisions among religious groups, ethnic groups, regional groups and even classes (Barnett et al. 2003, 25). US did not realize, moreover, the depth of the hostility between Kurds and Arabs, Sunnis and Shiites, and the members of different tribes and local religious groups. Furthermore, to deal with destruction in Iraq new plan was decided by the US. The plan was to pull out all troops and hand over the responsi...