Reply #1: Interesting. [View All]

Somewhat correct as to the facts of the case, the Islamic
Middle East is largely young and literate, and most of the
more advanced states are already showing the declining birthrates
associated with modernization, and it seems likely that the
US deathgrip on the tarbaby in Iraq and the associated US
propaganda campaign have resulted in a certain inhibition of the
usual enthusiasm with which the US puppet regimes in the area
repress political dissent.

Laggards seem to be Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and the Palistinian -
Israeli settler nexus, where one still finds double digit family
sizes to be common.

Nevertheless, the piece falls down on the implied assumption that
the US foreign policy elites have ever, now or in the past, given a
rats ass about political democracy in the Middle East, or that they
should get any credit for these developments, or that the Iraq war
had anything whatever to do with it.