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US-Middle East Democracy of convenience - Morocco Times
This explains why the United States should first assist and encourage in Arab states, the development of liberal organizations that eventually will be able to compete successfully with extremist Islamic groups, that are now both organized and pervasive.President Bush's notions that democratizing Iraq will have a ripple effect on the rest of the Arab world-bringing prosperity and peace to the region and that democracy is the panacea for Islamic terrorism, are unsubstantiated and misleading. Even a cursory review of the Arab political landscape indicates that the rise of democracy in the Arab states will not translate automatically into the establishment of liberal democracies. In fact, given the opportunity to compete freely and fairly in an election, Islamists will most likely emerge as the winners. And if current sentiments in the Arab states offer a guide, any government formed by elected Islamist political parties will be more antagonistic to the United States than are current authoritarian regimes. In addition, there are no indications that democracy is a prerequisite to defeating terrorism or any empirical data to support the claim of links necessarily existing between authoritarian regimes and terrorism.The data actually says something quite different. An annual study conducted by the State - more available