sufi imdad ali soomro on Bush

Submitted by Gopi (United States), Mar 4, 2011 at 04:33

Dear Dr Pipes:

Something that a lot of people from non-democratic political systems fail to see is that democracy does not guarantee that the elected leader will not make mistakes. Democracy, however, does guarantee that should these leaders adopt bad policies. their policies will be openly criticized and analysed and if the leader is wrong in the eyes of the public, he will be peacefully removed without murder and mayhem. A lot of Americans believed that George Bush picked an unnecessary war and, as a result, his party was promptly punished by the electorate, This is a luxury that is not available even in the best of Islamic countries where democracy is an after thought and preservation of Islam is the declared objective..

If Saddam Hussain were to be a democratically elected leader, even George Bush would not have dared to or bothered to wage a war on him. On the other hand, the political systems that do not provide non-violent methods for power transition, degenerate into a multi-generational theocracies or dictatorships (as we so often witness in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Egypt and almost all other Islamic states.

I believe that people of Islamic societies instead of hoping for a perfect Khalifate or Emirate, should settle for less than perfect democratic systems. If they do so a lot of troubles in the Islamic world will come to an end.

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