– DEMOCRACY AND STABILITY

 

In his meeting in the UN headquarters in New York, on 09/24/2007, with the Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, the USA President expressed his vision of creating a “democratic Palestinian State”. The Palestinian do not have yet a state in its full sovereign meaning but had, already, a democratic system. On 01/25/2006, in the fairest possible elections they have chosen to give the Hamas and its allies 73 out of 128 seats in their Parliament.

The last elections in Egypt took place in 11/2005 in three rounds. In the first round, on 11/26/2005, 76 out of approximately 182 elected candidates, were from Muslims Brotherhood affiliated parties. Only an aggressive intervention of the EGYPTIAN security services, including large scales arrests, prior to the second and third round, prevented the Islamists to gain about 40-45% of the general seats in the EGYPTIAN Parliament.  Any foreign interference or pressure on the EGYPTIAN government, on this matter, was prone to increase the support to the Muslims Brotherhood.

In the fair elections held in Iraq on 01/15/2006 the Shiites gained an absolute majority in the Iraqi Parliament. Almost all the Shiite PM were selected and nominated as candidates by the Iraqi Shiite clergy, the Ayatollahs, and are loyal to the Shiite Islamic leadership.

in the most dangerous country in the World, Pakistan, new Presidential election was set to the 10/06/2007, in just 8 days. President Pervez Musharraf faces a huge Islamic opposition on one side and a secular, relatively liberal, English speaking elite opposition on the other side.

President Pervez Musharraf already began, with his security services – ISI, to crack down on his opposition and to arrest their political leadership. He also declared that if he will not be elected he will remain the supreme commander of the Army, which means, the strong man in Pakistan.

The risk of an “IRANIAN scenario”, where Iranian liberals joined hands with Islamic Militants in order to get rid from the Shah and led, eventually, to the Islamic revolution in 01/1979 might well repeat itself in Pakistan. In no time, the Pakistani nuclear bomb can be turned to be an Islamic nuclear bomb in the hands of a most extreme Islamic regime.

There are winds of change in the Islamic world. In the last elections in Morocco on 09/08/2007 and in Algeria on 05/16/2007, Islamic parties lost seats in their parliaments.

It took 700 years for the Western countries to become Democracies only after a large middle class was established in them. It will take few more decades for the Arab countries to become democracies, slowly and gradually, too. It will and cannot happen in compatible time table to the Political agenda of the USA current regime.

Pushing toward democracy too soon and too hard, as was the case in Iran in the days of President Jimmy Carter in 1978, in Algeria in 1991, in Iraq and  in the Palestinian Authority in 2006, is the best formula to undermine  the stability in the most dangerous places in the World.

* Related topics ; 

• 08/2007 -RETHINKING  DEMOCRACY 
  07/2007 -THE HIDDEN  WAR 
  06/2007 -BUSH’S  EQUATION

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