Middle Eastern Glorious Democracy Or Inapporpriate crediting

This week has been the week of optimism about democracy in the middle east. Fair enough. After all, Iraq’s elections did go surprisingly well [apart from the Assyrian voter lock-out], Egypt is promising reform, Syria is about to free Lebanon, Palestinians have an elected political leader, Saudi Arabia held some elections… Lord, could this great change be the effect of Bush’s greater middle east democracy initiative?

Well, as always I call for moderation in tone. The Economist, usually equally moderate, has the following cover page title: “Democracy stirs in the Middle East”. Bill Clinton and Bush Senior express their praise for Bush’s policy. Time magazine is of course following this trend with it’s article “three praises for the Bush doctrine”.

I have two issues with this line of thought.
First of all I think it is unfair to immediately associate the Bush doctrine with the recent tide of change in the middle east. This is a bit like those who claimed Reagan cause the Soviet Union to collapse when really, the USSR collapsed because it just didn’t work; because of internal reasons, principally. In the middle east, democracy has been peeking its nose for a while; of course, surely it must help to put American pressure on unelected Arab leaders; and the Iraqi elections surely showed, to some, that democracy is feasible in this part of the world. But in the Iraqi elections, the greatest losers were the Sunnis; the winners –Kurds and Shia- are otherwise minorities in the Arab world, Iran being the only nation with a Shia majority. In fact, most Arabs –Sunnis- probably aren’t too pleased with the defeat of their fellow Iraqi counterparts, though again, the Sunnis decided to boycott the elections, and got what they essentially asked for: no voice!
No, I think democracy in the Middle East is something that will and would have come along regardless of America’s war on Iraq. It has been a few years already since Arab satellite TV has become a mainstream. That has been a great catalyst of liberation for Arabs. It shows Arab media acting with true freedom of expression, of course usually with a tone of Anti-Americanism, but also with no fear to talk harshly of Arab leaders; and also with the power to change cultures from western Africa to Pakistan. This is change that originates from countries like Qatar or Dubei, not the USA, and it is powerful.

The second issue however, is that the change is still very weak. All this praise for what exactly? In Saudi Arabia, the [council] elections were minute, and only men voted! One baby step at a time I suppose.
In Iraq, as I said, in addition to the Sunnis, Assyrians, Turkmen, Shabak and Yezedis –nearly all of the country’s minorities- were locked out of the elections due to massive and organized fraud by Kurds and even Baghdad election officials.
In Lebanon, sadly, Hizbollah, and thus Iran by proxy have a hand ready to cause havoc should things no go as desired. And Syria has not even confirmed yet that it will fully pull back [but I do believe they will]. Again, Syria was not going to occupy Lebanon for ever; sooner or later, they would have also left, and the massive revolts show this was also due. As for Syria, the Baathist regime is no where near releasing its monopoly.
In Palestine however, optimism is worthy. Palestinian militant groups have shown, in the past, their ability to restrain themselves from striking Israel; And the prime minister Mahmoud Abbas is doing quite well at making sure they do this. Of course things are still a bit shaky, but, if Israel also keeps to its promises, things may well turn out right after all. This happened because of Arafat’s death, but admittedly, it was eased because of America’s discrediting of the man.
In Iran, the conservatives have taken over the country, however change there is also only a matter of time.
Lastly, Egypt’s leader is talking of elections but perhaps political opposition should be freed from jail first?

So a lot of this “democratic change” is lip service to Bush’s doctrine. I wouldn’t even be too surprised if the elections in Saudi, for example, were some sort of a “present” for Bush, a favor he’d ask: “please hold some dummy elections and make my doctrine look better”. A lot of the change was otherwise due anyway, and American pressure helped, but did not initiate it.