WHAT IS YOUR FREEDOM TO ME IF YOUR SLAVERY AIDS MY SECURITY?:

From father to son, Arab despotism may have merit (Shlomo Ben-Ami, January 09, 2008, Daily Star)

The problem of succession in the secular Arab republics highlights their predicament in the transition to a post-revolutionary phase, for succession in regimes failing to build strong institutions always risks triggering a systemic crisis. While the decision by some to favor dynastic succession may be democratically lacking, it is not entirely devoid of merit. Arguably, it is a choice for economic modernization, for an end to the politics of conflict, and for positive political change down the road.

Years of Western-backed repressive authoritarianism nipped in the bud any potential growth of a liberal alternative to incumbent Arab regimes, and turned any abrupt move to free elections into a dangerous exercise in Islamic democracy. A democracy that produces governments led by Hamas, Hizbullah, or the Muslim Brotherhood is inevitably bound to be anti-Western and opposed to a US-inspired "peace process" with Israel.

But only briefly, then the same democratic forces that brought them to power will force them to Westernize further in order to raise living standards. Meanwhile, hereditary successions in Syria and Egypt just postpone the day when Islamists take over democratically, they don't avoid it. Seif al-Islam in Libya looks like the exception--a dictatorship version of the merely monarchical Mohamed of Morocco--who may liberalize fast enough to avoid a period where a party more extreme than we would prefer gets to govern.

Posted by Orrin Judd at January 10, 2008 6:21 PM