LIBERAL REACTIONARIES, CONSERVATIVE REVOLUTIONARIES:

Democracy in Arabia?: Liberal scoffers underestimate its prospects. (Amir Taheri, 06/28/2004, Weekly Standard)

[T]he process of change triggered by the liberation of Afghanistan and Iraq shows no sign of coming to a close. In liberal circles in Europe and North America, the idea that George W. Bush could inspire any democratic revolution may provoke derision, but in the Middle East, U.S. action in Afghanistan and Iraq is seen as marking the end of an era--the era in which the region's politics was dominated by pan-Arabism and Islamism.

The Taliban was the epitome of Islamism: No one could claim to be more Islamist than Mullah Muhammad Omar. The Iraqi Baath represented the most radical version of Arab nationalism, inspired by Nazism and communism. If anybody could have created the pan-Arab Utopia, it was Saddam Hussein. The defeat of those two "models" has given democrats in the Muslim world a chance to get their message through to the masses previously captivated by Islamism and pan-Arabism.

"The genie will not return to the bottle," says Iraqi scholar Faleh Abdul-Jabbar. "There is a growing feeling in the region that the days of despotic regimes are numbered."

"The thing is, this is open debate that wasn't there three or four months ago," Jordan's King Abdullah told the Washington Post last week. "Once you open that door, it is very hard to shut it. So countries that are resistant to it are now having to look at the issues of reform."

One reason for this optimism is the belief that the Bush administration is determined to shift the United States from being a supporter of the status quo in the Middle East to being a champion of democratic change.

"The United States understands that its security is contingent on change in the Middle East," says Saudi novelist Turki al-Hamad. "The Americans have learned that as long as our societies are not reformed, they cannot be safe."

It would seem impossible to overstate the psychological effect our handing over power in Iraq at the end of June will have, marking the moment when it becomes undeniable that our goal in the Middle East is not empire and oil but democracy and peace.

Posted by Orrin Judd at June 19, 2004 8:44 PM