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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 10-Aug-2008
Iraq's Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr turns from arms to "culture"

Web Log - August, 2008

Iraq's Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr turns from arms to "culture"

This follows several Sunni "Tribal Awakenings" to expel al-Qaeda.

Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr ordered most of his militiamen to disarm on Friday, but said he will maintain "small and limited" élite fighting units to resist Americans.

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According to an al-Sadr spokesman, al-Sadr is creating a cultural wing that will be part of a complete reorganization of the Mehdi Army to "transform it into a social organization" from a militia.

On the Sunni side in Iraq, the "Anbar Awakening" that drove most of al-Qaeda out of Iraq is more and more being seen as one of series of "Awakenings" that are uniting the Sunni tribes against the radical Islamists. For example, the assassinated original founder of the Anwar Awakening is being "praised ... as a martyr and as a true non-sectarian Iraqi patriot."

"Iraqi and Arab progressives have long tended to view the persistence of tribes and tribalism as a negative phenomenon that is keeping the Middle East from developing modern societal relations based on voluntarism and a modern political system. ...

Recently, [Iraqi] liberals have begun to rethink this view of the Iraqi tribes, and, in light of the successes of the tribal Awakenings Councils, have begun to argue that the tribes can be a force for progress and a positive alternative to Islamists.

Iraqi author Hussein Karkush wrote ... that the tribes are relatively secular and that the Awakenings are essentially Iraqi civil society's revolt against political Islam."

The Iraq situation has been a remarkable test case for the validity of Generational Dynamics that's turned out to be incredibly successful.

Many people describe this web site as "too negative," because it focuses on the increasing danger of world war. That focus is quite appropriate, inasmuch as most countries of the world, those that fought in WW II as a crisis war, are in a generational Crisis era.

But from the point of view of validating generational theory, the contrast between countries in Crisis and Awakenings eras has been startling.

At the end of the 2006 war between Israel and Hizbollah, I wrote a lengthy analysis in "Aftermath of Lebanese war: The winners and losers." What was really striking is how closely the Hizbollah warriors of Lebanon, a country in a generational Awakening era, followed their precise generational archetype.

In fact, if you want to say that many discussions on this web site are "too negative," then you'd have to call the discussions of Lebanon and Iraq as "extremely positive." In both cases, there were widespread claims by pundits, analysts, politicians and journalists that the countries were near or in civil war. In both cases, this web site said that a civil war was impossible, because the country was in a generational Awakening era, or that if anything like civil strife broke out, it would fizzle quickly.

Today, we can look back at the last few years, and see that generational theory has been remarkably successful in predicting certain types of outcomes. In particular, the predictions that Lebanon and Iraq would follow typical Awakening-era behaviors were completely counter-intuitive, were completely opposed to the analyses and predictions of pundits, analysts, politicians and journalists -- and were completely correct.

(See "List of major Generational Dynamics predictions" for more information about these predictions.)

On this web site, there are three kinds of discussions, and I phrases like "according to generational theory" or "my expectation is" to distinguish among them:

The facts are presented using the highest journalistic standards, quoting only the most highly credible mainstream sources.
Generational analyses are based entirely on generational theory, irrespective of my opinion or the opinions of pundits and analysts. Unlike generational analyses, the analyses by pundits, politicians, analysts and journalists are wrong about 50% of the time. There is no web site or analyst in the world with anything remotely close to the predictive success of this web site over the past five years.
My opinions and expectations, which a reader may or may not agree with. I am not a disinterested observer of what's going on in the world. This web site is highly personal to me. I've had many, many sleepless nights because I could foresee what was coming. I sympathize with the problems of web site readers who write to me, because I'm in exactly the same boat.

The point is that this web site gives you the information you need to know, and tells you how to evaluate it. In particular, you may disagree with my opinion on something, but you can't disagree with the Generational Dynamics analyses because of their success record. Moqtada al-Sadr's recent announcement that he's disbanding his militia, is a striking confirmation of that.

This is a good time to remind you that you can write to me with comments and questions. You can write to me at mailto:comments@GenerationalDynamics.com, or else use the "Comment" link at the top of every page. It may take a few days or a couple of weeks to get back to you, but so far I've been doing OK keeping up with the e-mail messages. (10-Aug-2008) Permanent Link
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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 10-Aug-2008 Iraq's Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr turns from arms to "culture"

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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 10-Aug-2008
Iraq's Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr turns from arms to "culture"