The Region: Democracy vs. despots (J-Post Editorial)

The Region: Democracy vs. despots
by Barry Rubin -- Jerusalem Post
Monday, March 8, 2004
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Is the dominant Arab policy of resistance, defiance and confrontation toward the world a means to an end or an end in itself? asked distinguished Egyptian liberal writer Tarek Heggy.
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The problem is that the mainstream Arab political world view sees both the West and Israel as enemies responsible for all Arab problems. Their misdeeds are exaggerated, or fabricated. The atmosphere is one of no compromise. Dissent is treason; foreigners are villains; liberalism is heresy; and conspiracies are everywhere.
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Many regimes, especially Saudi Arabia, tried to export or buy off Islamist extremists, increasing terrorism in the West and Asia; on the other hand, in such countries as Egypt and Algeria the violence made liberals feel it more necessary to support the regime as the preferable alternative.
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Regimes wanted to convince potential supporters of domestic terrorism they were on their side in defending Islam and Arab causes against the American, Israeli, Western, and secular threats. One way of doing this was to distinguish between "legitimate" anti-Western or anti-Israel violence and "criminal," revolutionary terrorism to overthrow governments.
In contrast, a liberal minority argued that terrorism showed internal reform was a necessity. They generally justified the US war on terrorism as helping Muslims fight their own enemy, a radical Islam that distorted their religion and damaged their image.
Liberals viewed such extremism as a response to the stagnation and repression of dictatorships, which left only Islam as an area of free expression. They urged a thoroughgoing reform of education, a tough stand against radical Islamists, an increase in democracy and citizens' rights, and a campaign to increase tolerance toward foreign cultures and peoples.
They suggested the region faced a choice between reform or a radical Islamist terrorist victory. Thus, after a May 2003 suicide bomb attack in Morocco, aimed against Jews but causing mainly Muslim casualties, a liberal Moroccan editor, Aboubakr Jamal, wrote in The New York Times that the violence "endangered Morocco's future as a democracy."
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"To fight terrorism," Jamal warned, "Morocco needs more democracy, not less." Yet he also admitted that even most liberals disagreed with him and supported governmental dictatorial powers to crush the greater threat of radical Islamism.
They feel that "we have to delay democracy in order to save it from those who would use it to kill it We rely on the enlightened despot to preserve our future."
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Read the rest here.

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Liberal Muslims should be the ones America is empowering, not moderate Muslims who are similar to the likes of Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson in their social views.

liberal and even moderate muslims are just fine....

Its the fundamnentalist,reactionary ones that should
worry you.

But we should prefer the liberal ones over the moderate ones. The moderate ones are like Xian fundies in America in their social views. The moderates are not a threat to us but the liberals will fight for progressive values. Granted, right now we need to help both against the fundies right now.

wasn't a fraud used to justify imperialism, it would be justified.

This is a pretty good article, though.

We can have a real "War of Terror," not a faux "War on Terrah."

someone who actually knows what he is doing would be a welcome change, on this and on countless other issues.

...and actually help places like Afghanistan, Sudan, Somalia, and Yemen, so they won't hate us...