what's the opposite of schadenfreude? that's got to be what most of the angry left is feeling about these developments. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A58850-2005Feb27.html?sub=new -- A Mideast Makeover? Popular Protests Spur Changes From Autocrats By Jackson Diehl Monday, February 28, 2005 As thousands of Arabs demonstrated for freedom and democracy in Beirut and Cairo last week, and the desperate dictators of Syria and Egypt squirmed under domestic and international pressure, it was hard not to wonder whether the regional transformation that the Bush administration hoped would be touched off by its invasion of Iraq is, however tentatively, beginning to happen. Those who have declared the war an irretrievable catastrophe have been gloating for at least a year over the supposed puncturing of what they portray as President Bush's fanciful illusion that democracy would take root in Iraq and spread through the region. They may yet be proved right. But how, then, to explain the tens of thousands who marched through Beirut last Monday carrying red and white roses and scarves -- the colors of what they call the "independence intifada" -- and calling for "freedom, independence and sovereignty" from neighboring Syria? Or the hundreds of Egyptian protesters who gathered that same day at Cairo University, in defiance of thousands of police officers, to chant the slogan of "kifaya," or "enough," at 76-year-old President Hosni Mubarak? The best evidence that something is happening comes from the autocrats themselves. Mubarak, under mounting pressure from the Egyptian political elite, on Saturday abandoned his plan to extend his term in office through an uncontested referendum later this year. Instead he announced that the constitution would be changed to allow for a multiple-candidate election for president. His most credible liberal challenger, Ayman Nour, remains in jail on trumped-up charges, and Mubarak's reform may prove to be little more than a ruse. But the old autocrat's attempt to crush the opposition movement Nour helped to create has clearly backfired, forcing him to improvise. Syrian President Bashar Assad looks even more desperate. Last week his regime issued a new promise to redeploy its troops in Lebanon, trying to deflect the growing pressure of both the U.N. Security Council and a newly united Lebanese opposition. Assad, like Mubarak, hoped the elimination of his most likely liberal adversary, former Lebanese prime minister Rafiq Hariri, would stop an incipient freedom movement. Instead, he has touched off one of the largest demonstrations of "people power" in the modern history of the Arab Middle East. It's not over: A general strike is scheduled for today. These are autocrats whose regimes had remained unaltered, and unchallenged, for decades. 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. The Lebanese uprising is far more advanced than that of Egypt. But Mubarak has taken the boldest action, in part because he has almost as much to fear as Assad from the Beirut intifada. A forced Syrian withdrawal from Lebanon might spell the downfall of the Assad dynasty in Damascus. Either way, in the absence of Syrian coercion, the Lebanese parliamentary election in May would become the third free democratic vote in the Arab world this year. That would make it politically impossible for Mubarak to extend his own tenure by patently undemocratic means. Mubarak's dramatic announcement on Saturday was an effort to preempt that problem. But Egypt's "kifaya" movement -- which has been demanding a democratic presidential election in unprecedented and rapidly growing demonstrations -- won't be satisfied if the proposed reform doesn't allow candidates like Nour to challenge Mubarak, and on a playing field leveled by the lifting of emergency laws and restrictions on the media. For now, Nour is still in jail; until he is released, Mubarak's concession to democracy will have no credibility. Virtually no one in Washington expected such a snowballing of events following Iraq's elections. Not many yet believe that they will lead to real democracy in Egypt, Lebanon or Syria anytime soon. But it is a fact of history that the collapse of a rotted political order usually happens quickly, and takes most of the experts by surprise. In early 1989 I surveyed a panoply of West German analysts about the chances that the then-incipient and barely noticed unrest in Eastern Europe could lead to the collapse of the Berlin Wall. None thought it possible; most laughed at me for asking the question. If a Middle East transformation begins to gather momentum, it probably will be more messy, and the results more ambiguous, than those European revolutions. It also won't be entirely Bush's creation: The tinder for ignition has been gathering around the stagnant and corrupt autocracies of the Middle East for years. Still, 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.
Just read in the chronicle about how the pro-Syrian, Labanese Gov was broken up. (resigned). Great news if all this happens, the 15,000 Syrian troops in Lebanon are supposed to withdraw now. All the protests seemed to finally have done their job.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,148962,00.html -- BEIRUT, Lebanon — Lebanese Prime Minister Omar Karami (search) announced the resignation of his pro-Syrian government Monday, two weeks after the assassination of his predecessor, Rafik Hariri (search), triggered protests in the streets and calls for Syria to withdraw its thousands of troops. "I am keen that the government will not be a hurdle in front of those who want the good for this country. I declare the resignation of the government that I had the honor to head. May God preserve Lebanon," Karami said. Karami made the announcement during a parliamentary debate called to discuss Hariri's Feb. 14 assassination in a bomb blast that killed 16 others. The announcement prompted cheers from more than 25,000 flag-waving demonstrators protesting against the government and its Syrian backers outside. The resignation was the most dramatic moment yet in the series of protests and political maneuvers that have shaken Lebanon (search) since Hariri's killing. Many in Lebanon blame Syria (search) for being behind Hariri's slaying and have pressed hard since then for the resignation of the pro-Syrian Lebanese government and for Syria to withdraw its 15,000 troops positioned in Lebanon. Both governments have denied involvement in Hariri's assassination. Earlier Monday, Karami asked the legislature to renew its confidence in his Cabinet, which took power in October after Hariri's resignation in a dispute with Syria, the main power broker in Lebanon.
And check this out! "SADDAM Hussein will be forced to sit in a Hannibal Lecter-style cage during his trial." “The security at the court is going to be immense. “Saddam will be housed in an underground cell and will travel to and from the courtroom cage using an elevator. “When he’s in his cell he will be under 24-hour surveillance by security staff who will watch him from behind a toughened glass shield. “The Americans and incoming Iraqi coalition government can’t afford any slip-ups. By the time it’s over, the courtroom will be the safest place in Iraq.” http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2-2005092223,00.html
this is what you want them to feel so that it will confirm all that you've been brainwashed to believe. peace.
I think the situation in Lebanon is VERY exciting, especially since all the religious groups and sects are uniting against the Syrian occupation with the catalyst of Hariri being executed last week.... I don't know Basso, if you mean to say that us liberals or opponents to the invasion of Iraq should be back-pedalling now that events seem to be "snow-balling" towards democracy in the middle east, then you aren't solid footing. Working backwards to support or justify results via the means is a slippery-slope. It's like playing blackjack, when you get dealt a 12, you either hit every time or stay every time. In either case you are taking a risk; by indicating that the ends justify the means then you are bound by that assumption in every other situation--I think you can see the danger inherent to that rationale.
it's sort of parallel to the earlier cognitive dissonance thread. do liberals hope for the success of the iRaqi elections, aware it may validate W's strategy? same here- if the situation in lebannon and now egypt is at least partly a result of W's forward strategy of freedom (no scare quotes), will the left hope for democracy in those countries?
first they tried to label anything said against GWB and his Iraqi-WMD war as being traitors now they are trying to twist everything into the left being against democracy demonize your opponent...it has worked for centuries, why stop now?
Liberals at least this liberal hope for the success of Iraqi democracy, but feel it doesn't validate Bush's strategy. I'm also incredibly excited about Lebanon and hopeful about Egypt. However, I don't believe that Bush is responsible for any of these things. To suggest Bush deserves the credit is to deny the efforts of those who have struggled, been imprisoned, and suffered for democracy in their countries.
how do you figure? of course, the poeple of those countries deserve the credit for what has happened thus far, and it's far too early for any of us who supported the iRaq war to engage in triumphalism, but if you think for an instant that the events in lebanon or egypt, or for that matter the renewed peace process between the PLO and israel, would have happened absent the war and the elections that followed, you are delusional.
You just have to shake your head when you read an article like this, and you have to wonder how someone could post it on a day where 106 people were killed in the latest bombing in Iraq. And as for the “regional transformation that the Bush administration hoped would be touched off by its invasion of Iraq,” I thought it was about WMD? If you can’t make the goal I guess you move the goalposts. I certainly hope that the people of the ME are relived from the oppression they’ve been under in so many places, but we’re a long way from being able to say that that’s happening. The voter turn out was encouraging but there are obvious and huge questions about even that. Most of that turnout was from the south and north where it was in their strategic interest to use this process this way. In the south the mullahs ordered the people to vote, so did they vote because they believed in democracy or did they vote because the mullah’s told them to? This is an obvious question that those who would like to spin event in the ME into self-serving political propaganda conveniently brush aside. Let’s assume that the people do understand and believe in democracy, for a moment. Is the situation in Iraq such that the violence can be stopped and the boarders secured and a real functioning democracy can be established? There are very serious, ongoing questions about this. Many still think that this is headed for a civil war now. And what about the lesson of Algeria? Clearly democracy is not an end in itself, and yet there are those who are trying to tell you that it is, for the sake of their own political purposes. For completeness, what appears to be happening in Lebanon is a good thing, but there surely are some mysterious happenings around what’s been going on. Lebanese people are amongst the most progressive in the region and they have been democratic (of sorts) country in the past. What’s new is the strong response to Syrian interference, which is a very good thing and it’ll be great if they can kick the Syrians out somehow. It’s been tried in the past but maybe this uprising will bring enough support together to be able to kick them out and keep them out. On the face of it, though, this is related to the assassination that took place last week and doesn’t have anything to do with the American war in Iraq. Likewise large portions of the population of Egypt have been moving forward for years and they were on a path to greater democracy on their own. It may well have been the American money and attached strings that held them back in the past, as has been the case on so many places around the world. My Egyptian friends certainly feel that America has tried to control Egypt by controlling its leaders. So it would be hard for any objective person to credit Bush in any significant way with these developments, unless this administration has done something to get out of the way of this happening. As I said, I suspect that there is more here than meets the eye, especially in Lebanon.
..that have their hands more than full in Iraq as so are no threat to anyone else in the area. Further, there is no real threat of any more coming since the well, both in terms of manpower and money, is almost dry. I’m sure this is why we are hearing the bold talk from Iran. The US has shown itself to be much weaker than I’m sure anyone expected and now Iran feels free to proceed to talk tough because they know there isn’t a lot the US can do about it, short of bombing raids. But this war isn’t that far spending the US into submission either, so I’m not sure that any prolonged attack of that sort would be possible or effective in the long run either. It’s the age old story. You can have a big weapon but if you don’t know how to use it it’s no good to you. It has become clear over the course of this war that the US didn’t know what it was doing from either an intelligence or strategic standpoint, and as a result it has lost a huge amount of power and respect globally. So there is a power vacuum now Europe and others are going to have figure out how to deal with, while Iran and Russian and others exploit their new freedom to play games and advance their own power.
What happens if the people of Middle Eastern countries elect a democratic government that it openly hostile to the U.S.? What if the Egyptians decide to elect a government that would rather ally with Syria and Iran? A democratically elected Middle East could still hold the world hostage by controlling the flow of oil. What would the U.S. do then? Invade and overthrow a democratically elected government that was simply handling its natural resources as the wished?
Proclaim me delusional if you want. But what happened in these places has been in the making for years before Bush was even elected. Bush didn't cause the massive protests in the streets. The new Iraq hasn't been in existence long enough to claim that it served as an example of what was possible. But the elections in Palestine happened because Arafat died, and because of the Palestinians. Lebanon happened because of continued opposition to the Syrian controlled government, and massive protests that caused the leaders to see the writing on the wall. Mubarak is making a move towards reform because of the outcry in his own nation. For years and years there have been arab groups pushing for democracy, the idea didn't just occur to them because the U.S. invaded Iraq. Iraq showed the other nations that the U.S. doesn't have enough troops to totally handle the job in that country, not that it is strong enough to walk in and occupy every other nation in the region. I would think Iraq emboldens more nations than it scares. Again the reason for invading Iraq being about spreading democracy didn't surface until the WMD claim was clearly not going to work out. Bush may have had the idea before the invasion, but that would make him a liar since the reason stated was WMD's. One of the reasons that the opinion of the U.S. in the region has been low is that the U.S. has been seen as propping up dictatorships in the middle east. What is it about the Iraq invasion that makes you think it plays a key role in reform movement in the middle east? Rather than call one another delusional let's spell out our reasoning as much as that is possible.
They have already <i>been there</i> in the 1950's. It didn't last. United Arab Republic Neither Syria or Egypt could be considered prosperous..........so what would be the basis for them to join forces? Egypt is predominately Arab (a collection of several groups that collectively are called Arab) with most being Sunni Muslim. Iran has a majority Persian population with most being Shia Muslim. Egypt is on fairly good terms with Israel and is having positive involvement in the Palestine - Israel situation. Iran is substanially <i>different</i> from Egypt in the foreign policy - political situation of Israel and the Palestinians. Egypt & Iran have very little in common and forming some type of alliance in the future is what I would consider to be a huge longshot.
