From: Mike Lorrey (mlorrey@datamann.com)
Date: Sat Apr 06 2002 - 19:55:16 MST
Mike Linksvayer wrote:
>
> On Sat, 2002-04-06 at 16:11, Robert J. Bradbury wrote:
>
> > The only way out of this mess is to begin to educate Arabs and
> > muslims (and Christans and Jews) in general to "think rationally".
> > You have to free the press, then convert the educational systems
> > and change the governments from monarchies to democracies.
> >
> > You want to do this by gradual political pressure or by example
> > (e.g. our economic growth rate in a free society is greater than
> > yours in a suppressed society) rather than by force.
>
> Strongly agree with all of the above apart from the monarchy->democracy
> suggestion. The countries in the Arab world friendliest to the West are
> all monarchies. Pushing them towards democracy only gives
> fundamentalists a tool to [ab]use and discard. Their societies will
> _slowly_ become more democratic as they become more liberal and
> wealthy. You see slow moves in this direction in some of the gulf
> states or Tunisia for example.
On the contrary, The Kingdom of Jordan and the Emirate of Kuwait both
are as democratic as Britain, with elected parliaments, prime ministers,
and cabinets. It's the countries that are allegedly 'democracies', i.e.
Syria, Egypt, Yemen, etc where presidents are essentially elected for
life, that are the problem with political repression. Kuwait and Jordan
maintain stability the same way Britain does: the monarch has the
emergency ability to dissolve the Parliament (though Britain's is highly
restrained).
>
> See the Robert Kaplan article
> <http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/97dec/democ.htm>. Also see
> <http://mises.org/fullarticle.asp?control=818&month=38&title=A+History+of+Folly+&id=38
> Note that some of the instability in the Middle East can be traced back
> to overthrows of Arab monarchies instigated by the US (opposing
> British(!) influence). This is how Saddam's Baathist party came to
> power.
Iraq was influenced far more by Russia for far longer than the British
Mandate, and the Baathist Party was itself far more influenced by Soviet
aid than anything else.. as the Baathists were in Syria, a French
mandate. If your theory held, the US would have ousted the Saudis for
being British puppets.
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