Iraq Issues

2 Pages 590 Words

Psychological Approach to the Reconstruction of Iraq
Iraq is politically divided along ethnic, religious and ideological lines. The religious groups are vociferously opposed to the continued presence of American troops. The nationalist feel the Americans should not get involved and to let them settle their own affairs. Therefore other apparently small groups organized around particular events are injuring and killing Iraqis, while American troops engage in necessary activities and acts to keep themselves from harm.
The apparent contradictions between American ideologies, local customs and cultural

beliefs may create too a wide chasm for the current council in place to lay the basis for democratic

voting, and a new Western-Islamic hybrid constitution. An imposed American ideology of one

man, one vote, is antithetical to Iraqi thinking in which a clan, tribe, and the religious group

that an individual belongs are one’s primary affiliations. However in a society organized around

tribes and concepts of one man one vote leaves open the terrible possibility that once the majority

gets into power it becomes their opportunity to “get even”.

The great psychologist Abraham Maslow (1908-1970) studied the values, which

motivate people and help determine their actions. He concluded that all of us fall somewhere on a

multi-layered hierarchy of Needs (attitudes and behaviors). The population of people representing

the lowest levels of socioeconomic development (poor), the uneducated, and those who are

for the most part left out of the larger society—there is no sense of the future. They’d rather live

work, and struggle, from day to day. As people move up in prosperity, if they are fortunate and

hold fairly routine ordinary low-level jobs, their focus broadens somewhat and they begin to

concentrate on the things that will keep them employed. They still have a narrow,

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