{"id":59921,"date":"2012-01-02T21:29:57","date_gmt":"2012-01-03T05:29:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.discovermagazine.com\/gnxp\/?p=15229"},"modified":"2012-01-02T21:29:57","modified_gmt":"2012-01-03T05:29:57","slug":"iraq-not-as-bad-as-yemen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.razib.com\/wordpress\/2012\/01\/02\/iraq-not-as-bad-as-yemen\/","title":{"rendered":"Iraq: not as bad as Yemen"},"content":{"rendered":"

You probably know that the USA has officially withdrawn from Iraq. And you probably also know that in many ways Iraq became the de facto 51st American state for nearly a decade (I remember that my phone’s news app had an “Iraq” section back in 2007). Looking back 10 years ago I recall my attitude being “how bad could we mess this up?” I had expected a “Mouse that Roared”<\/a> scenario, American investments would leave Iraq in a better position. In a general impressionistic sense I got the sense that I was drastically wrong, but over the past few years poking around Google Data Explorer<\/a> it’s clear that you can make this case quantitatively too.<\/strong> Iraq just jumps out as a shockingly messed up country (the World Values Survey<\/a> will also confirm that Iran is a much more enlightened country when measured by the yardstick of post-materialist values!).<\/p>\n

Below is a taste of what I often see (I’ll keep life expectancy on the x-axis):<\/p>\n

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