Democracy in The Middle East?

[Valin]

Washington Post:

Dr. Walid Phares
12/2/10

Since the end of the Ottoman Empire, through the many conflicts of the 20th century, the Middle East and North Africa have undergone two countervailing trends: the rise of authoritarian regimes and radical political groups, and the growth of resistance movements struggling against them for greater autonomy.

On the one hand are Syria’s Baath Party, Saudi Arabia’s Wahhabis and Iran’s Khomeinists, along with radical organizations like the Muslim Brotherhood, and terrorist groups like Hezbollah and al-Qaeda. On the other hand are the Kurds, the Berbers, the Copts, the Africans of Sudan, and democracy forces from Syria and Lebanon to Algeria.

(Snip)

The race in Middle Earth is on with us or without us, and the revolution is eventually coming. But the choice is also ours. As previous generations have stood with the Solidarity Workers of Poland and intellectuals such as Vaclav Havel and as they’ve supported change in South Africa, they can and should repeat the great democratic exercise in the Middle East, at least with words. And in the battle of ideas, words are the beginning of freedom.

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The Coming Revolution: Struggle for Freedom in the Middle East [Hardcover]
Walid Phares

After the 9/11 Commission concluded in 2004 that the U.S. was engaged in a war with terrorists and never realized it, they reasoned that “a failure of imagination” had prevented us from seeing terrorism coming. In effect, Americans were simply unable, or in fact disabled, to fathom that there were people who hated and opposed our democracy with such ferocity. But after billions of dollars and almost a decade fighting a war in the Middle East, will we miss the threat again?

With penetrating insight and candor, Walid Phares, Fox News terrorism and Middle East expert and a specialist in global strategies, argues that a fierce race for control of the Middle East is on, and the world’s future may depend on the outcome. Yet not a failure of imagination, but rather, of education has left Americans without essential information on the real roots of the rising Jihadi threat. Western democracies display a dangerous misunderstanding of precisely who opposes democracy and why. In fact, the West ignores the wide and disparate forces within the Muslim world—including a brotherhood against democracy that is fighting to bring the region under totalitarian control—and crucially underestimates the determined generation of youth feverishly waging a grassroots revolution toward democracy and human rights.

(Snip)


"In his book The Coming Revolution: The Struggle for Freedom in the Middle East, Walid Phares shows the free world the real aspirations of the peoples in the Middle East. We cannot ignore the deep desire for freedom by women, youth and minorities in the region. They are the anti-Jihadist majority we need to engage and work with as partners. Phares makes their case clear…”

- U.S. Congresswoman Sue Myrick, member Intelligence Committee and chairwoman, US House Caucus on Counter Terrorism



Walid Phares’ Coming Revolution is a prediction to social and political change which will change the face of the Middle East, and the future of the Planet. Phares is reading us the future

-Magdi Khalil, Egyptian Journalist, Elaph, Middle East Democracy Forum, Cair




While obviously I've not read it yet, I strongly suspect it will go on my short MUST READ list.