Democracy is Rule of Law Accepted by and Not Forced Upon the Governed

Submitted by M. Tovey (United States), Jun 21, 2012 at 14:37

All I did in the first response is to get you to clarify your stance based upon your perceptions of what is happening, elaborating with the obvious posturing of the various participants, yet really opining with my more jaded view of what is believed to really be happening. Too many had said already that this perspective does not tally with theirs; but that OK. My validation will be in the outcome I have prepared for.

To start, it is my personal opinion that no form of democracy will totally work for any of the national identities in the Middle East-none. Some might work better in the interim –Israel being the best example based upon its ideas of personal freedom for the individual under a lawful setting- and Egypt being one of my worst version examples since the military will not allow for individual expression of freedom. Syrian tends to even more extremes as it pertains to curtailing liberties that will oppose the governing forces.

You allude to a perception of how you think 'shadow' influences are being exploited to promote an outcome favorable to say, America; and you might be correct in making that assertion-to a point. But if it were that simple, the complexities of what we are really seeing cannot be fully explained by saying that the Gülen movement is the sole basis or even a majority proximal cause for exerting influences to establish a certain outcome.

I do not support an American style of democracy in the Middle East and have indicated so before. The variety of the obvious reasons have been elaborated upon before, but the simple explanation that I would put forth is that under the 'rule of law' that is the basis for such governance requires consent of the governed, something we have yet to see anywhere in the Middle East, even under shari'a law, which requires compulsory observance-it's simply not compatible and those that think it is are just plain wrong.

I have not made the common mistake to say that Iran is the main protagonist in the Syrian conflict, though I understand how you would think I would make that assertion-Iran makes itself an easy target for doing so. Iran is and does put itself out there in its attempt to advance the cause of Islam and the Iranian leadership are not apologetic about it at all. Further, this is little secret to the knowledge that they do have proxies to advance their cause as well-but that's all they are-proxies.

That being said, let's get to your 'real question:' "why does the U.S. government want an Islamic reign in the Middle East…..?" I am in the minority of my opinion being contrasted with the typical American conservative point of view; and though I could use your phrase of many being misled, I would do so with the caveat that there are levels of diversions going on to prevent exposure of true motives leading to true outcomes. Proxies are being used by opponents of the Iranian influences as well and all of it is leading up to a show down.

I will not elaborate why, but Islamic influences are indeed at the root of much of what the United States involved with in the Middle East, so much so that it would not be hard for someone to reveal that the Egyptian uprising that was at the forefront of the 'Arab Uprising' that toppled all those secular autocracies like that of Mubarak and Ghaddafi and the others were part of a plan to align a Middle East for political purposes yet to be revealed. Notice that those which are still kingdoms are relatively in the margins for the moment, though their time might yet come.

And the final point to be made, that while one might assume mistakes were made by previous forms of the American presidency that dangerously tinkered with the Middle East in one way or another, the current Administration has a different agenda and the Islamic revolution has been colored differently than was previously characterized by previous administrations. The posture with the Russians would be then viewed in another light and the Task forces of each of these entities would be in a tactical posture of a different sort. It remains to be seen how situation plays out and if the issues will be resolved.

Note: Opinions expressed in comments are those of the authors alone and not necessarily those of Daniel Pipes. Original writing only, please. Comments are screened and in some cases edited before posting. Reasoned disagreement is welcome but not comments that are scurrilous, off-topic, commercial, disparaging religions, or otherwise inappropriate. For complete regulations, see the "Guidelines for Reader Comments".