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Arabia
Rice Backs Riyadh's Pace of Reforms
2005-02-05
Well, that's the way the Soddies are spinning it, anyway...
Saudi Arabia should be allowed to experiment with democracy at its own pace and not be criticized as a dictatorship, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said yesterday. "Obviously countries are going to move at their own pace, they are going to move toward the liberalization of their politics in the context of their own traditions, religious, historical and others," she told a news conference at the end of her talks with British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Foreign Secretary Jack Straw. "No one can seek to impose a particular model or a particular set of solutions to the question of how one answers the universal aspirations of people for liberty, the simple right for people to be able to say what they think," she said.
On the other hand...
"But we do expect that there should be movement toward reform in all of the countries of the Middle East." Rice said that building democracy often takes time, as it did in the United States, when equal rights were not immediately extended to groups such as women and blacks.
Posted by:Fred

#6  Republic of Eastern Arabia.....
ahhhh, our 51st state and 2nd part of the ANWR "resource-security" park
Posted by: Frank G   2005-02-05 12:04:11 PM  

#5  Part of a 'controlled denotation' would be the creation of the Republic of Eastern Arabia, a 40 km wide strip of land ...
Posted by: Steve White   2005-02-05 11:55:36 AM  

#4  Once again, I think this is a mask of everybody's true intentions. If the US wants SA to have a slow evolution from dual monarchy and theocracy to democracy, the *last* thing it's going to do is let it take place in a natural, Darwinian manner. Instead, the US will intertwine its efforts into every single nuance of the process, to insure that it is as dull as a planning & zoning meeting, not some disaster like the fall of the last Czar, or the Shah of Iran. The optimum result will be the retention of the smart & powerful faction of the Saud family keeping much power and wealth, but through democratic means, and the purging of the stupid & weak parts of their family along with those Wahabbis who pretend to power, which is most of them; and an evolution of the national religion to middle and upper class Sufist Islam.
Posted by: Anonymoose   2005-02-05 9:05:38 AM  

#3  too true: While the sight of the adult male members of the House of Sa'ud decorating the lamp-posts in Riyadh would be gratifying in so many ways, you're right--a "controlled detonation" is better. I suspect we've been seeing one in progress for the past three and a half years.
Posted by: Mike   2005-02-05 7:28:12 AM  

#2  controlled detonation I like that term. I think the middle east holds a lot of surprises over the next few years. One is the controlled dismantling of the saudi regime. The good news is they get to keep Mecca.
Posted by: phil_b   2005-02-05 7:22:42 AM  

#1  I think she's right -- and more importantly, I think we have a stake in the Saudis not imploding.

Not an excuse for status quo, which is clearly untenable anyway. But let's make this a controlled detonation, not a runaway nuclear event. Makes the cleanup easier and keeps the costs down.
Posted by: too true   2005-02-05 7:06:00 AM  

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