It is often said that Israel is the only Democracy in the Middle East. That assertion comes with certain difficulties considering that Lebanon has elections, Iraq has elections, Jordan has elections, Egypt has elections, Kuwait has elections, and even Saudi Arabia has local elections. Certainly Iran has elections and a democratic form of government, although true power resides with an unelected and unaccountable Council of Guardians. And Israel, while allowing Arab-Israelis to vote, does not allow Arab-Palestinians to vote. But I don’t want to debate Israel’s democracy. The point of saying that Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East is that the other countries have more or less authoritarian forms of government. And, excepting Syria, those authoritarian regimes are allies of the United States. That’s why Bush’s rhetoric wears so thin.
President Bush accused Iran Sunday of undermining peace in Lebanon, funding terrorist groups, trying to intimidate its neighbors and refusing to be open about its nuclear program and ambitions.
In a speech described by the White House as the centerpiece of his eight-day trip to the Middle East, Bush tried to speak directly to the people of Iran as he urged nations to help the United States “confront this danger before it is too late.”
“You have a right to live under a government that listens to your wishes, respects your talents and allows you to build better lives for your families,” Bush said to Iranians. “Unfortunately, your government denies you these opportunities, and threatens the peace and stability of your neighbors. So we call on the regime in Tehran to heed your will, and to make itself accountable to you.”
Bush is correct that the people of Iran have the right to live under a democratic form of government not emasculated by religious leaders. But what of the Saudis? How about the Egyptians? Or the Jordanians? Do not they not also have that right? As if to drive home the unintentional irony of Bush’s double standard…
Bush is trying to persuade Arab countries to join U.S. efforts to pressure Iran, though many have displayed ambivalence about the administration’s campaign amid a new U.S. intelligence report that concluded Iran stopped a nuclear weapons program in 2003.
The president will travel Monday to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, viewed by many inside and out of the administration as the lynchpin of its efforts to develop an anti-Iran coalition.
Ah, yes…the Saudis…those paragons of democracy. Need I remind you that al-Qaeda is a hybrid terrorist group combining those that oppose the Saudi regime with those that oppose the Egyptian regime. They are not democrats by any stretch of the imagination, but their beef is still with the undemocratic governments of those two countries. Until we understand how empty our rhetoric sounds in the Middle East we will continue to blunder into one morass after another.
See my diary.
And if an election were today in Israel….netenyahu would win.
Elections are not a good measure of whether a society is “democratic” or not, even the USSR had elections.
A functioning democracy needs open and fair elections, independent judiciary and legislative branches, and the rule of law.
Many authoritarian regimes use elections as window dressing to try to disguise their real nature. Just in the past few months we have seen meaningless elections in Zimbabwe, Nigeria, Kenya and a bunch of former Soviet states.
There is no way that any of the Arab states can be considered as having anything remotely resembling a functional democracy. Using these sorts of measures Israel scores better.
no doubt. but iran scores better than any arab state.
Nuke Iran link
Lest we forget: Cheneybush radicalism functions almost entirely beneath the veil of empty rhetoric. They like it alot.
Until we understand how empty our rhetoric sounds in the Middle East we will continue to blunder into one morass after another.
Of course, they don’t care at all. As long as there is one nation to fill the role of villain, they can continue to provide justification for their policies.
I find it embarrassing.
Most news sources and blogs missed or avoided the story Friday about Bush saying the allies should have bombed Auschwitz, this after visiting the Holocaust Memorial in Israel.
Even if one gives Bush the benefit of the doubt that he meant bombing the rail lines to concentration camp and/or the factories where the slave labor worked, not the prisoners in the camp, he conveniently forgets Grandpa Prescott’s work at Brown Brothers Harriman protecting and hiding German investments at the same time that people were being worked to death in German concentration camps in factories that were financed by monies that Prescott Bush and his likes had funnelled into Germany.
Perhaps when he gets home Dubya can run some bombing raids against maquiladoras or other sweat shops of American industry.
The ‘we should have bombed Auschwitz’ remark is so beyond the pale that words become insufficient to convey its horror. In the meantime, most of the congress goes on twiddling its thumbs and looking the other way as this emotionally and intellectually impoverished man goes on leading the country into oblivion and ripping it off. Reid and Pelosi are complicit and deserve as much contempt as the man they are tacitly supporting.
The line about Israel being the ‘only’ democracy in the Middle East does get tiring in it’s repitition especially as that is not completely accurate. Besides how can you have a democracy when church and state are intertwined? The only official form of Judaism recognized by the state is Orthodox.(If I remember right you are not considered Jewish if you are not Orthodox?) If you want to get married for instance in a different sect of Judaism you are not considered legally married or you go outside the country to marry. All communities have religious courts vs civil courts. There are also what are called ‘modesty buses’…where according to Orthodox Judaism means that women have to sit at the back of the bus(even if it’s empty) because women can’t have contact with men.
Of course then there are the Israeli’s who are Arabs who are in segregated schools which are completely underfunded leading to very bad conditions for their schools.
There are many ways in which Israel isn’t a complete democracy no matter how many times politicians here like to say so. And another instance of our msm not reporting factually when it comes to Israel. Like any other country Israel is neither all good nor all bad but for political reasons msm has to basically report on Israel as somehow being all good.
What I get from this Bush trip is that he is now prepared to sell out the right wing Zionist quest to take the West Bank for cooperation from the Saudis and perhaps many other Arab League members to pressure Iran and perhaps to even condone military action.
And just what can Netanyahu offer Bush? Nothing. The Israeli right wing can only hope that Israel’s traditional stalling techniques work until Hillary is elected.
Hillary is not only a Neocon, but an honorary Likudnik. Just one more reason, along with the reinstitution of Republican Lite Clintonism, that she must be defeated in November.