To me, most of the Middle East isn't truly ready for democracy. Making democracy work requires significant adjustments - social, political, economic, even religious, and those things all take a great deal of time to evolve and be popularly accepted. If it's rushed, we rarely get what we're after, as pointed out by Bashir Goth writing from the United Arab Emirates:
"The Muslim world heeded Washington's call for democratic change, and ushered Islamists in. This may be leaving a bitter taste in Bush's mouth.
"It all started with Egypt where the Muslim Brotherhood won a record number of seats in the Egyptian parliament, followed by the landslide victory of Hamas in the first Palestinian free and fair elections.
"The surprise rise of the Iranian firebrand president Ahmedinajad also came as another blow to any of Washington's hopes of having a reasonable counterpart to talk to in Tehran. With Islamic parties taking control of the democratically elected parliaments of America's traditional friends in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Bahrain, the Bush administration must have experienced change in Arabia's shifting sands long before the democrats won the latest American elections.
I expect that, given time, these democratically-inspired theocracies may form a basis for evolution to secular democracy but, if we want to help that process along, we'll have to be patient and supportive, even if we have to bite our tongues to do it.
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