Democracy in the Middle East

Submitted by Taha Abdulla Baharon (United Arab Emirates), Jan 8, 2006 at 10:34

I was surfing the Internet when I came across your website hence your article titled " Articulating American Ideals to Muslims" in which you say, " the Muslim world needs to understand the basics of what makes the West thrive – and thereby be inspired to emulate it" and you have expounded on this philosophy by quoting President Bush who said before you, " we need people in America who can go and say to people, living in freedom is not the American way of life, it is a universal way of life.

We're not saying your democracy has to be like ours. We're just saying give your people a chance to live in a free society; give women a chance to live freely; give young girls a chance to be educated and realize their full potential. And the best way to do that is to have those of us who understand freedom be able to communicate in the language of the people we're trying to help".

Reading these two statements any Muslim would wish you really mean what you say but the two statements make one recall the famous Islamic saying "A word of truth meant to deceive". Following the Middle East democratization policy we saw the emergence of the "Arab Liberals" who are now playing havoc in the Middle East politics by parroting what is actually based on false premise. The argument that the introduction of democracy in the Middle East will see the end of international terrorism and solve all our problems is a farce, nothing could be further from the truth.

The sole concern of the Muslim World today is decades of the Israel occupation of Palestinian lands while America prefers to see the continuation of the never ending peace process because the existence of the "the low intensity conflict", as the situation is in Palestine, is a valid pretext for American interference in the internal affairs of the Muslim World - read Henry Kissinger's rules of conflict in his book " Diplomacy".

Despite the incalculable damage on its credibility the US still regards itself as a paragon of truth and Democracy. It expects us to regard WMD hoax, false anthrax exhibition at the General Assembly, existing torture in Abu Ghuraib and Guantanamo, Secret prisons worldwide, renditions, planting of pro-American articles in Iraqi newspapers and host of other dirty tricks as things of the past. We should also forget and forgive deaths of one hundred thousand innocent Iraqis and complete destruction of Iraqi infrastructure!

Henry Kissinger has once described President Suharto in the following terms, "He may be son of a bitch but our own son of a bitch". Similarly, Middle East dictators are own sons of a bitch. We prefer to live under them and settle our internal affairs peacefully. We will be democratic in our own sweet way and in our sweet time, without outside interference. If the US wishes to help the starting point should be Palestine. There are Men, Women and Children there who are in more urgent need of liberation and democracy than anybody else anywhere in the Muslim World.

When President Clinton failed to persuade Chairman Arafat to accept peace agreement on Israeli terms he concluded his arbitration efforts by saying, "Time doesn't heal wound in the Middle East, it heaps salt on it". As far as we are concerned the wound here refers to the suffering of our brothers in Palestine and the healing may only be achieved when proper treatment is applied.

---

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".