THINK OSAMA MEANT FOR 9-11 TO BRING DEMOCRACY?

Democracy stirs in the Arab world: Upcoming elections in Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and the Palestinian Authority are initial steps on still rocky paths to democracy. (Dan Murphy and Ben Lynfield, 12/16/04, CS Monitor)

Over the next two months, three of the Arab world's most troubled polities will hold elections, an unprecedented flurry of democratic activity in a region that has long been marked by dictatorship, corrupt governments, and conflict.

Millions of votes could set a precedent for a continuing process of elections and a gradual political opening, and at least will send a rare ray of light into a politically cloistered world where public attitudes are difficult to gauge and citizens rarely have a chance to pass judgment on their leaders. [...]

"The election is significant within the context in Saudi Arabia - they have to start somewhere,'' says Amy Hawthorne, who focuses on domestic Arab politics for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington. "But they're holding the elections in stages so the process can be halted at any time if it doesn't go well. The vetting process is very strict, and only half of the councils members are elected, so it is nothing close to a solution to the problems that Saudi Arabia is facing," she says.

Ms. Hawthorne says it can be misleading to lump all three elections together "because the contexts and conditions are different" but agrees that in all three cases elections "are not the be-all and end-all."

She's most enthusiastic about the process under way among the Palestinians, who are ironically further on the path to building stable institutions than Saudi Arabia and Iraq, despite not formally having a state of their own yet.

If this is what losing hearts and minds in the Middle East looks like could someone explain how things would be going if we were winning? Would it be like a warmer version of Switzerland or something?

Posted by Orrin Judd at December 15, 2004 9:50 PM