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| Syria-Lebanon-Iran |
| Bush Country - The Middle East embraces democracy |
| 2005-05-23 |
| Wow. Just wow. (Severely EFL.) "George W. Bush has unleashed a tsunami on this region," a shrewd Kuwaiti merchant who knows the way of his world said to me. The man had no patience with the standard refrain that Arab reform had to come from within, that a foreign power cannot alter the age-old ways of the Arabs. "Everything here--the borders of these states, the oil explorations that remade the life of this world, the political outcomes that favored the elites now in the saddle--came from the outside. This moment of possibility for the Arabs is no exception." A Jordanian of deep political experience at the highest reaches of Arab political life had no doubt as to why history suddenly broke in Lebanon, and could conceivably change in Syria itself before long. *snip* To venture into the Arab world, as I did recently over four weeks in Qatar, Kuwait, Jordan and Iraq, is to travel into Bush Country. I was to encounter people from practically all Arab lands, to listen in on a great debate about the possibility of freedom and liberty. I met Lebanese giddy with the Cedar Revolution that liberated their country from the Syrian prison that had seemed an unalterable curse. They were under no illusions about the change that had come their way. They knew that this new history was the gift of an American president who had put the Syrian rulers on notice. The speed with which Syria quit Lebanon was astonishing, a race to the border to forestall an American strike that the regime could not discount. I met Syrians in the know who admitted that the fear of American power, and the example of American forces flushing Saddam Hussein out of his spider hole, now drive Syrian policy. They hang on George Bush's words in Damascus, I was told: the rulers wondering if Iraq was a crystal ball in which they could glimpse their future. *snip* As I made my way on this Arab journey, I picked up a meditation that Massimo d'Azeglio, a Piedmontese aristocrat who embraced that "springtime" in Europe, offered about his time, which speaks so directly to this Arab time: "The gift of liberty is like that of a horse, handsome, strong, and high-spirited. In some it arouses a wish to ride; in many others, on the contrary, it increases the desire to walk." It would be fair to say that there are many Arabs today keen to walk--frightened as they are by the prospect of the Islamists coming to power and curtailing personal liberties, snuffing out freedoms gained at such great effort and pain. But more Arabs, I hazard to guess, now have the wish to ride. It is a powerful temptation that George W. Bush has brought to their doorstep. From your pen to [insert diety of your choice]'s eyes and heart, Mr. Ajami. Read the whole thing at the link. |
| Posted by:Barbara Skolaut |
| #5 Amusing note: I wonder what the tally would be if you counted "old Europe" as blue States, and all the countries indebted to the Bushes and Reagan as red States. |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2005-05-23 17:23 |
| #4 Ajami's a treasure. Interesting to compare a real scholar like him, who's traveled frequently and extensively in the region during the last three years and who has deep expertise in modern Arab politics, with a clown like Juanito Cole, who hasn't even been to Iraq, has no expertise in the modern Arab world and can't even speak arabic. |
| Posted by: thibaud (aka lex) 2005-05-23 15:08 |
| #3 Excellent piece, Barbara - Thx! And infintely more compelling than the absurdly pointless Trail of Turds. |
| Posted by: .com 2005-05-23 14:21 |
| #2 I forgot to give the url. It is http://faculty-staff.ou.edu/L/Joshua.M.Landis-1/syriablog/ |
| Posted by: mhw 2005-05-23 14:07 |
| #1 In syria the Josh Landis has an article on a discussion they had on whether it would be better to have regime change now or wait five years. Its remarkable that such a conversation should happen (and Josh tends to be somewhat pro Assad). |
| Posted by: mhw 2005-05-23 14:06 |