It turns out that. like Americans, Arabs "LOVE a winner, and will not tolerate a LOSER!!"
Posted on 03/15/2005 4:23:11 PM PST by CHARLITE
"Virtually no one in Washington expected such a snowballing of events following Iraq's elections," recently explained the deputy editorial editor of the Washington Post, Jackson Diehl.
Said another way, virtually no one in Establishment D.C. expected things would snowball the way Bush had predicted. Still, reports Diehl, the evidence is obvious: "Less than two years after Saddam Hussein was deposed, the fact is that Arabs are marching for freedom and shouting slogans against tyrants in the streets of Beirut and Cairo--and regimes that have endured for decades are visibly tottering. Those who claimed that U.S. intervention could never produce such events have reason to reconsider."
The tottering tyrants to whom Diehl refers are "the desperate dictators of Syria and Egypt," the new targets of the perennially outraged Arab street. What's key here is the switch in demons, the shift in the minds of the raging fist-pumpers who jump up and down in the streets, a change in which devils they're blaming for their unrelenting humiliation and destitution. Always before, it was the Great and Little Satan, America and Israel. Now it's the crooked devils in their own nearby palaces, homegrown demons like Bashar Assad and Hosni Mubarak.
"These are autocrats whose regimes had remained unaltered, and unchallenged, for decades," explained Diehl. "There has been no political ferment in Damascus since the 1960s, or in Cairo since the 1950s. Now, within weeks of Iraq's elections, Mubarak and Assad are tacking with panicked haste between bold acts of repression, which invite an international backlash, and big promises of reform--which also may backfire, if they prove to be empty. They could yet survive; but quite clearly, the Arab autocrats don't regard the Bush dream of democratic dominoes as fanciful."
In a mountain hideout in Lebanon, Washington Post reporter David Ignatius saw much the same story as Diehl had seen in the streets of Cairo. Ignatius interviewed Walid Jumblatt, the patriarch of the Druze Muslim community in Lebanon and, until the recent assassination in Beirut of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, a man who went along with Syria's occupation.
"I dined Monday night with Jumblatt in his mountain fortress in Moukhtara, southeast of Beirut," reported Ignatius. "He moved there for safety last weekend because of worries that he would be the next target of whoever killed Hariri. We sat under a portrait of Jumblatt's father, Kamal, who was assassinated in 1976 after he opposed the initial entry of Syrian troops into Lebanon."
Like Diehl, Ignatius sees the shift in devils during his talk with Jumblatt: "Over the years, I've often heard him denouncing the United States and Israel, but these days, in the aftermath of Hariri's death, he's sounding almost like a neoconservative. He says he's determined to defy the Syrians until their troops leave Lebanon." More broadly, Jumblatt tells Ignatius that the spark of democratic revolt in Baghdad is spreading throughout the Arab world.
In Lebanon, Ignatius saw a growing rage that was about more than the assassination of Hariri, about more than Syria's occupation. "People want the truth about who killed Hariri," he explained, "but on a deeper level they want the truth about why Arab regimes have failed to deliver on their promises of progress and prosperity."
They want the truth about why the Muslim world is, as Pakistan's General Pervez Musharraf described it, "the poorest, the most illiterate, the most backward, the most unhealthy, the most unenlightened, the most deprived, and the weakest of all the human race."
It's easy for a once mighty civilization to blame outsiders for its decline, explains the renowned Middle East scholar Bernard Lewis. At first, the Mongols were the top scapegoat, then the Turks, then the French and British, and, most recently, "the Jews" and Americans.
The best hope for the future, suggests Lewis, lies with a change in the question. Instead of asking "Who did this to us?," the world of Islam needs to ask, more self-critically, "What did we do wrong?"
The good news is that's exactly the question that is now, finally, being asked by growing numbers of people all over the Middle East.
Ralph R. Reiland is an associate professor of economics at Robert Morris University and a columnist at the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.
BUMP
No one has ever made a dime betting against George W. Bush
Don't worry though liberals - it's Not In Your Name and you won't be blamed for it.
bttt
---
They want the truth about why the Muslim world is, as Pakistan's General Pervez Musharraf described it, "the poorest, the most illiterate, the most backward, the most unhealthy, the most unenlightened, the most deprived, and the weakest of all the human race."
---
Wow. He nailed that one. I'm surprised he is still alive.
Bush foes concede Iraq policy benefits
By James G. Lakely in THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1358983/posts
Link to original article:
I wonder how many of them are going to jump on to the band wagon now that this is out?
It's going to be like seeing the media pretend it was Reagan's friend before the Berlin Wall came down all over again. Twice in a 9 month period! When will they ever finish their back tracking?
I've always trusted George W. Bush! I never have a single reservation.
Imagine that, History repeating itself.
"Those who claimed that U.S. intervention could never produce such events"
Has someone created a compilation of the names, dates, and quotes, of the naysayers? This could be very useful.
And the odds of them doing so are...?
It turns out that. like Americans, Arabs "LOVE a winner, and will not tolerate a LOSER!!"
You mean that Arabs are blaming their OWN corrupt governments are not us? Say it ain't so. /sar.
It's easy for a once mighty civilization to blame outsiders for its decline, explains the renowned Middle East scholar Bernard Lewis. At first, the Mongols were the top scapegoat, then the Turks, then the French and British, and, most recently, "the Jews" and Americans.The best hope for the future, suggests Lewis, lies with a change in the question. Instead of asking "Who did this to us?," the world of Islam needs to ask, more self-critically, "What did we do wrong?"
Claudia Rosett reports from Beirut in the New York Sun:
*** QUOTE ***
Unlike the Hezbollah demonstrators with their chants of "Death to America," many in the crowd were friendly to Americans. "Thank's Free World," (sic) said one poster, held high by a woman in a bright red jacket, Rawya Okal, who told me: "We thank Mr. Bush for his position." Overhearing this in the throng, a middle-aged man in a green baseball cap, Louis Nahanna, leaned over to say, "We love the American people"--adding, "Please don't let Bush forget us. Your support is very important."
Asking more people what they thought of Americans turned up the same refrain. From a young driver, Fadi Mrad, came the message: "We want to change. We need freedom. Please don't let Bush forget us." From a group of young men came not only the message "Our hope is America," and "We believe in democracy in the Middle East," but also praise for Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz. There was also an invitation from one of them, young Edgard Baradhy, for his heroine, Ms. Rice, to come to Beirut "and I am ready to take her for coffee."
At one point, two young men sitting on a sidewalk mistook this reporter for a Frenchwoman, and called out "Vive la France!" The European nation's president, Jacques Chirac, has also come out in support of the democratic movement. When I told them that I was American, they got to their feet and came over to say, "Welcome to Lebanon."
*** END QUOTE ***
One thing seems clear: America must continue, even step up, its support for democracy in the Middle East. That's the only way we will ever appease the Arab street.
Don't forget Senator Kerry told us not to overstate the importance of the Iraqi election. Ummmm, could he have said that for political reasons? I'm starting to wonder...
Holtz
JeffersonRepublic.com
pray that arab freedom does not lead to another Iran. iran may change but 20 years of a messed up egypt could be a big problem.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.