Posted on 02/27/2005 7:49:06 AM PST by Mike Fieschko
Nearly two years ago I wrote that the liberation of Iraq was changing minds in the Middle East. Before March 2003, the authoritarian regimes and media elites of the Middle East focused the discontents of their people on the United States and Israel. I thought the downfall of Saddam Hussein's regime was directing their minds to a different question: how to build a decent government and a decent society. I think I overestimated how much progress was being made at the time. But the spectacle of 8 million Iraqis braving terrorists to vote on January 30 seems to have moved things up to breakneck speed.Evidence abounds. Consider what is happening in Lebanon, long under Syrian control, in response to the assassination, almost certainly by Syrian agents, of former Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri. Protesters have taken to the streets day after day, demanding Syrian withdrawal. The Washington Post's David Ignatius, who covered Lebanon in the 1980s and has kept in touch since, has been skeptical that the Bush administration's policy would change things for the better. But reporting from Beirut last week, he wrote movingly of "the movement for political change that has suddenly coalesced in Lebanon and is slowly gathering force elsewhere in the Arab world." Ignatius interviewed Walid Jumblatt, the Druze leader long a critic of the United States. Jumblatt's words are striking: "It's strange for me to say it, but this process of change has started because of the American invasion of Iraq. I was cynical about Iraq. But when I saw the Iraqi people voting three weeks ago, 8 million of them, it was the start of a new Arab world. The Syrian people, the Egyptian people, all say that something is changing. The Berlin Wall has fallen. We can see it." As Middle East expert Daniel Pipes writes, "For the first time in three decades, Lebanon now seems within reach of regaining its independence."
Minds are changing in Europe, too. In the left-wing Guardian, Martin Kettle reassures his readers that the Iraq war was "a reckless, provocative, dangerous, lawless piece of unilateral arrogance" --the usual stuff. "But," he concedes, "it has nevertheless brought forth a desirable outcome which would not have been achieved at all, or so quickly, by the means that the critics advocated, right though they were in most respects." Or read Claus Christian Malzahn in Der Spiegel. "Maybe the people of Syria, Iraq, or Jordan will get the idea in their heads to free themselves from their oppressive regimes just as the East Germans did," he writes. "Just a thought for Old Europe to chew on: Bush might be right, just like Reagan was."
"Tipping point." And minds are changing in the United States. On Nightline, the New York Times 's Thomas Friedman and, with caveats, the New Yorker's Malcolm Gladwell agreed that the Iraqi election was a "tipping point" (the title of one of Gladwell's books) and declined Ted Koppel's invitation to say that things could easily tip back the other way. In the most recent Foreign Affairs , Yale's John Lewis Gaddis credited George W. Bush with "the most sweeping redesign of U.S. grand strategy since the presidency of Franklin D. Roosevelt," criticized Bush's implementation of that strategy in measured tones, and called for a "renewed strategic bipartisanship." One Democrat so inclined is the party's most likely 2008 nominee, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton. She voted for the Iraq war and has not wavered in her support--she avoided voting for the $87 billion before voting against it. She has kept clear of the Michael Moore left and its shrill denunciations of Bush and has kept her criticisms well within the bounds of normal partisan discourse. "Where we stand right now, there can be no doubt that it is not in America's interests for the Iraqi government, the experiment in freedom and democracy, to fail," she said on Meet the Press February 20. "So I hope that Americans understand that and that we will have as united a front as is possible in our country at this time to keep our troops safe, make sure they have everything they need, and try to support this new Iraqi government." Moveon.org may want to keep shrieking about weapons of mass destruction, but Senator Clinton is moving on.
George W. Bush gambled that actions can change minds. So far, he's winning.
Strategery at it's finest, LOL.
Maybe you can confirm---or someone here---but the crowds in Lebanon were calling for BUSH to intervene???!!!!
.....Bush gambled.....
Betting on a sure thing is not gambling.
Vision is better for some than others, especilly if those others are so deep in a rut the can't see over the edge.
The W stands for BOLD.
I was just thinking the other night when I heard on FOX that the person who did the suicide bombing in Israel was probably sent by Syria, that Syria would probably be our next target. They are keeping Lebanon from being free and they are also harboring terrorists.
I thought it stood for WAYVOS (huevos!) The guy's got guts of steel, no question.
Michael Barone. One of (if not THE) sharpest minds in politics. Of course given the fact that this includes the likes of Juan Williams, that's not saying much.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1351647/posts
I especially like this passage,
"As Claus Christian Malzahn reminded us in Der Spiegel online this week, German politicians ridiculed Ronald Reagan's "tear down this wall" speech in 1987. They "couldn't imagine that there might be an alternative to a divided Germany."
But if there is one soft-power gift America does possess, it is this tendency to imagine new worlds. As Malzahn goes on to note, "In a country of immigrants like the United States, one actually pushes for change. ... We Europeans always want to have the world from yesterday, whereas the Americans strive for the world of tomorrow."
Much to the chagrin of the leftists, there is change occurring in the ME at a faster pace than most people imagined.
The images of Afghanis and Iraqis walking for miles and standing for hours to vote in their first free elections are, perhaps, the most powerful images that we have seen in recent history.
The Iranians, I believe, will soon join the list of free, democratic ME countries when the uprising there succeeds in overthrowing the mullahs and ayatollahs. Syria is going to find itself bounced out of Lebanon and even Saudi Arabia is facing some discontent for the first timne in centuries.
The visionless leftists are the most surprised at these changes. The rest of us are a little smug that we backed the right leader . . . . . TWICE!!!
ping
The Left is completely whacked at the cognitive level. Because another way of stating the above is:
"The means that the critics advocated ... right though they were in most respects... would not have brought forth a desirable outcome."
How could it be "right" to advocate demonstrably ineffective means?
I see much more beneficial effect on the Arab mind from the CONSEQUENCES which have accrued to the perpetrators of terror and the region's figure-heads than from the hope instilled by democracy.
There have been three significant emotional events for the "Arab Street" to absorb. First the summary defeat of the Taliban was an absolute shock to the jihadis who expected to draw us in to Afghanistan, and defeat us as they had the Russians. They expected us to get cut and run faster than we did in Mogadishu. This was a significant emotional trauma for the Arab world in general, and the militant strain of Islam in particular. The second cathartic image for them to digest came with the publication of Uday and Qusay's bullet-riddled corpses; and thirdly and most importantly, the emotional trauma of seeing their biggest, baddest, and most feared removed ALIVE from his spider-hole.
The purple finger has its punitive component also, and that is what is making the Middle Eastern mind more accepting of change, IMHO.
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