CHAUTAUQUA – Wednesday morning lecturers at Chautauqua Institution zeroed in on tensions flaring in the Middle East, particularly in Iraq.

Shadi Hamid, senior fellow for the Brookings Institute Center for Middle East Policy, and Stuart W. Bowen Jr., former special inspector general for reconstruction in Iraq, discussed the history behind the Middle East and more specifically, Iraq’s current state in a lecture titled, “Iraq: The Throes of Democracy.”

Hamid said while democracy is valued and accepted by Americans, there may be challenges when it comes to democracy in the Middle East.

“Democracy is nice in theory. If you ask people in the Middle East about democracy, they will say that it is good,” he said. “It’s one thing to believe in democracy as an abstract concept, but it is another thing to actually practice it. Democracy has consequences, and elections have consequences.”

He said in America, despite the differences in citizens’ beliefs, Americans are tied together because they believe in the ideals and morals of America.

When someone is elected that a group doesn’t like in America, there may be concern but it is generally possible to move past it, he said.

“(In the Middle East), when someone you don’t like wins an election, it is existential. It is a zero-sum game,” Hamid said, adding the voters can feel threatened by the candidate. “You see that as a fundamental threat on what you hold dear, and that can lead you to resort to violence to support a military coup because you aren’t willing to live with the consequences of elections. What we’ve seen in the Middle East is Islamists come to power through democratic elections, (such as) the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, the Dawa party in Iraq, and so on and so forth.”

He added that this leads to a stark divide between Islamists who believe that Islam and Islamic law should play a role in public life, and individuals who are more secular.

Bowen said that divide is presented in the face of the Iraqi government today.

“Haider al-Abadi came into a broken country, (which was) arguably a failed state as ISIS was controlling 30 percent of the territory and things were getting worse. He didn’t have much to work with,” he said. “On June 10, 2,000 fighters from ISIS caused 10,000 Iraqi troops to turn and run. In the past year, ISIS has expanded, and Abadi hasn’t done enough.”

Bowen said that in May, ISIS took control of Ramadi, while revenue has plummeted in Baghdad due to the drop of oil prices.

“Corruption has continued. Thus, this summer, when the electricity broke, the people took to the streets,” he said. “Three weeks ago, thousands were in Baghdad, in Basra and beyond protesting against the failure of the Abadi government to provide basic services, and corruption (in government). Again, who stepped through forward in this latest move toward reform? Grand Ayatollah Sistani.”

Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani plays a large role as a respected, high-ranking Shi’a cleric in the religious and political realms in Iraq.

“He conferred extensively, as I learned from my Iraqi sources in Baghdad, with the prime minister, and said ‘You need a new agenda because those militias that are in the street that are saying ‘You might be gone soon,’ might get their way unless you begin to implement meaningful reform.’ That reform has come about in the last 10 days dramatically.”

Bowen said the prime minister proposed the dismissal of three deputy prime ministers and three vice presidents, including Nouri Maliki, former vice president of Iraq, who fled to Iran.

“Prime Minister Abadi hasn’t done enough, and again, the driving force is … around Ayatollah Sistani,” he said. “Islamism has somewhat of a negative connotation in America, but it has broader connotations in the Middle East.”

Hamid added that Islamism has a variety of factions with a lot of diversity in the Middle East.

“On the extreme right of the spectrum, we have the fanatics of the fanatics. So, you have groups like Al Qaeda and ISIS, and in some ways, ISIS is too extreme in some ways for Al Qaeda,” he said. “On the other end, we have what I would call ‘mainstream’ Islamist groups, like the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, Ennahda in Tunisia, the AK party in Turkey … and as I said, these are groups that believe Islam should play a more central role. These more mainstream groups generally participate in parliamentary elections, they are generally non-violent and they are also gradualists.”

Hamid said these more mainstream Islamist groups are not looking to seize power overnight, but are looking to gain more power over time.

It is important to make distinctions between the different groups, he added.

“We don’t have to like Islamists, but we do have to understand them. For those of us who are secularized, we have trouble understanding this,” he said. “I was talking to a young member of the Muslim Brotherhood, and I asked him why he joined. He told me, ‘I joined the Brotherhood because I want to get into heaven.'”

While some might not understand the logic behind this thought pattern, Hamid said it is a fairly logical idea.

“That’s actually pretty rational. What could be more rational than seeking eternal salvation?” he said. “We have these reforms in Iraq, but they were endorsed by the religious establishment. There still is this question of religion popping up, where it’s hard to get real reforms done unless you have clerics or religious personalities that are driving it.”

The power of religion offers something that politics cannot, Hamid said.

Bowen added that ISIS as a religious and political hybrid entity, at this point, can offer services the regular government cannot.

“The irony with the power of religion within ISIS is that ISIS is providing power to the people under their jurisdiction – electricity, that is. Whereas, the government of Iraq is not able to do that now,” he said. “We’re going to have to deal with ISIS for years to come. The investment we’ve made to date in trying to bolster the Iraqi military has not really paid off yet – we’ve trained 11,000 troops, and that’s bad math.”

Bowen asked Hamid if it would be possible to see a democracy succeed in an Islamic setting.

“A large majority of (citizens) want more Shariah law, not less. You have large numbers of people who say clerics should play a role in politics,” Hamid said. “Not all people’s religions and cultures end at the same end point, and we may have to come to terms with religion playing a role in these countries for a long time to come.”

Middle Eastern counties have to find their own balance of politics and religion, he said.

“These counties have to come up with their own balances, and it probably won’t look like us,” Hamid said. “We all have to find balance, and not everything is American style democracy.”

Bowen said the only way to rebuild Iraq is to have the Iraqis and the surrounding areas fight the fight with support from the U.S.

“It is their fight with our support, not our fight with their support,” he said.

Hamid said that the current U.S. stance is to move away from the problem, and see who steps up.

“We’ve stepped back too much under the Obama administration, and we’ve seen how that works. When we step back, people do step in, but it’s usually bad apples,” he said.