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1.4 Most wanted: grassroots micro-security initiatives
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Like the ongoing binary debate about whether the US should stay in Iraq or pull its troops
out as soon as possible, the current focus on defeating Iraq’s militias and armed groups
through military means alone is too one-sided to ensure sustainable security. While
isolating Iraq’s extremist groups and politically accommodating groups representing
legitimate political grievances are important and necessary steps in the security continuum,
a third step is also needed: grassroots micro-security initiatives.
“Unemployment is like a disease, it will kill the people.”
Student, 21
Baghdad, May 2008
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Currently, Iraq is overrun by disenfranchised groups of unemployed youths who,
disillusioned with the benefits that democracy has supposedly brought to Iraq, have taken
up arms and joined militias and armed groups. However, an examination of these angry
young men’s grievances indicates that if these problems were addressed, it is likely that the
vast majority could be won over, disarmed, and motivated to contribute to developing
Iraq’s democracy. As such, the widespread unemployment and the lack of development in
Iraq are real and pressing security concerns, which must be urgently tackled.
Borrowing from best practices in the development concept of micro-credit, micro-security
initiatives, such as the germination of localised, Iraq-branded small to medium sized
enterprises which employ individuals and address macro-level goals of development and
employment within individual Iraqi communities represent the best opportunity for the
international to consolidate Iraq’s fragile democracy.