Bush versus Democracy in the Middle East

[Boojatta]

Parties of God
The Bush Doctrine and the rise of Islamic democracy

A few excerpts from an article in Harpers, March 2007.

Nawaf Musawi, Hezbollah's foreign affairs chief is quoted by Ken Silverstein as follows:

It's funny how the United States is so strongly in favor of democracy, but it just so happens that all of its friends in the region are despotic regimes. Those regimes remain in power with American support. We also rely on support, but our support is internal, from our people, not external.

Al Qaeda and the Taliban and the Salafist movements in Algeria and Iraq are movements outside the framework of Islam. Their relationship with Islam resembles George Bush's relationship with democracy.

Later in the article, speaking in his own voice, Ken Silverstein says this:

In fact, by scorning politically active Islamic movements and denying their legitimacy, the Unites States is essentially signaling to the Middle Eastern public that electoral politics are a meaningless dead end -- precisely the same message that this public hears from Al Qaeda.

The article also provides a hopeful analogy for the situation in the Middle East by describing how the IRA was transformed from a terrorist organization to a disarmed political organization.