Democracy... On the March

Check out the pictures from Lebanon, where the Syrian-backed puppet government has fallen. Or this protest against terrorism in Iraq. people are beginning to speculate about Syria's goovernment facing some problems.

The Iraqis have conducted a successful election, as has Afghanistan. The Saudis recently held elections, for crying out loud (okay, it was for municipal councils, but it's a start). Even Egypt will be holding an open, multi-party election for the first time in its modern history. Even better, they don't want it to be the result of U.S. pressure...

Political analyst Mohamed el-Sayed Said criticized Egypt's constitution as "obsolete, replete with gaps and contradictions" and said other articles in the document should also be changed.

...Egypt, the second-largest recipient of U.S. aid, was the first Arab nation to sign a peace treaty with Israel, in 1979, and often mediates in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.

As the Bush administration presses allies for political change, even reformers in the region are touchy about U.S. interference.

"If this happened by the pressure from the United States, we don't want it," el-Said, the Tagammu leader, said. "In my view, it came from the mobilization of public opinion."

Is the so-called Bush Doctrine a success? Look, it's far too soon to start congratulating the President, and it's a discredit to the people in those nations not to give them credit for the amazing things that are happening there. And democracy is hard, damn hard, and there are sure to be serious stumbling blocks, even for the countries with a jump-start like Iraq. But the President and others deserve credit for believing, in the end, that the people in the Middle East yearn for freedom in the same way people in other nations do. John Kennedy once said "[O]ur most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children's future. And we are all mortal." Maybe we need to add the idea that we all crave the right of self-determination as well. It's a point Christopher Hitchens touched upon nicely in his piece hammering the outdated idea of a violent "Arab street" that would rise up against us. Mark Steyn makes many of the same points.

In the end, we're looking at the possible re-alignment of the Arab world into a free part of the world. We may not like the electoral results in the future, but we already have that in Europe anyway. However, it will be far better for our nation if these nations become legitimate democracies. The fact of the matter is, terrorists are far less common -- and far less successful -- within democratic societies. And in this way, the liberation of Iraq is part and parcel a piece of preventing another 9/11. Andrew Sullivan, who's very critical of our President for many things, hammers this point home...

I think even the fiercest critics of president Bush's handling of the post-liberation phase in Iraq will still be thrilled at what appears to me to be glacial but important shifts in the right direction in the region. The Iraq elections may not be the end of the Middle East Berlin Wall, but they certainly demonstrate its crumbling. The uprising against Syria's occupation of Lebanon is extremely encouraging; Syria's attempt to buy off some good will by coughing up Saddam's half-brother is also a good sign; ditto Mubarak's attempt to make his own dictatorship look more democratic. Add all of that to the emergence of Abbas and a subtle shift in the Arab media and you are beginning to see the start of a real and fundamental change. Almost all of this was accomplished by the liberation of Iraq. Nothing else would have persuaded the thugs and mafia bosses who run so many Arab nations that the West is serious about democracy. The hard thing for liberals - and I don't mean that term in a pejorative sense - will be to acknowledge this president's critical role in moving this region toward democracy. In my view, 9/11 demanded nothing less. We are tackling the problem at the surface - by wiping out the institutional core of al Qaeda - and in the depths - by tackling the autocracy that makes Islamo-fascism more attractive to the younger generation. This is what we owed to the victims of 9/11. And we are keeping that trust.

Our friends on the left are another matter for another day. For now, let's hope freedom continues to spread in the lands of oppression.