Bush Chess

http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=1431 ^ | June 26, 2K2 | Lowell Ponte

[Redcloak]

Well... This is asinine... I just checked the VOA website. The answer is "no"; they aren't broadcasting in Arabic. They've stopped their broadcasts and now only broadcast in English to the region. (They broadcast in Farsi to Iran, but they might as well be speaking Klingon as far as the Arabs are concerned!) Thus Bush's speech has not been heard by those who need to hear it.

[Nick Danger]

Well... This is asinine... Bush's speech has not been heard by those who need to hear it.

You should leave the chess to the chess-players. The strategy is to move the region to democracy, not to have the United States inciting popular riots in all the kingdoms as rapidly as we can. There is no sentiment for popular rule in most of those countries. The concept is foreign to them. If the Saud family falls too soon, the next set of dictators will be the Wahahbi mullahs.

This is a game that will take twenty years to play. Those accustomed to a 45-second play clock are doomed to find it very boring. But this is the struggle for civilization... literally. It won't be quick. We have to bring tens of millions of people out of the feudal period and into the 21st century... without seeming to be doing anything at all.

If you liked Sub Command, you'll like this game. If you're a shoot-em-up fan, you'll probably want to pass.

[JerseyHighlander]

Taking the premise of the article, Bahrain is to be considered the exception to this new paradigm. Or is the rise of the Islamists in Bahrain a transitional phase?

Another point to ponder in this chess match, is Bush's public rejection of Arafat really a signal to maintain the status quo in the PA's election, by giving Arafat a very powerful sound bite de' resistance for the "campaign"?

I don't see Egypt falling in line with this "Islamists won't take the seats of power" concept. They control a huge amount of Egpyt's public opinion making institutions, and almost all the native educated elites are products of the Islamists higher education facilities. Where would the Egyptian non-Islamist Thomas Paine find an audience?

[JerseyHighlander]

An article on the Bahrain elections

[Kermit]

That speech wouldn't have incited riots anywhere. We need to have our message broadcast to those people, exactly for the long term.