Islamic fundamentalists swept the Parliamentary elections in Kuwait last weekend, creaming the liberals who campaigned to give women the vote and to bring the country closer to democracy. Islamic parties doubled their Parliamentary seats in Morocco’s national elections last September. In May 2002, Islamist parties in Bahrain won over half of the contested seats in that country’s first democratic election in decades. Religious parties also won big last year in Turkey and Pakistan.
Bush completely misses the point.
Islamic parties don't win because of a lack of democracy in the Middle East - indeed, they win big in the very countries that are making slow but steady steps toward building real democratic processes. And Islamic fundamentalists don't garner support because those who support them are not lovers of freedom. They win because they are not corrupt and because they provide what other parties and the West do not: food, schools, support systems.
Sweeping into Iraq and installing a democratic regime, whatever that might look like, will do nothing to establish the kind of democracy George Bush wants in the Middle East. If Iraqi voters are truly free, they will cast their lot with the religious parties. And if they are not free, if their choice is between American puppets A and B, we will have another Iran on our hands.
In the meantime, the American presence in Iraq has given the Middle Eastern nations yet another reason to resent the ideals of democracy we claim to represent. The Islamic organizations, parties and religious leaders will be the direct beneficiaries of that resentment.
And G.W. might realize he preferred dictatorships after all.
