Not so much a call for applause as a pause - for considering the implications of Bush's speech last week - from the Executive Editor of the Daily Star of Lebanon, Rami G. Khouri.
He (I'm assuming Rami is a man) doesn't trust the salesman, but is 100% behind the idea. People deserve freedom.
I don't think that anyone in the Middle East has to trust the "salesman", whether we're talking about President Bush or the US. What's important is that the people of the region take the initiative to demand freedom. Freedom's not going to be "imposed" as the Guardian implied yesterday. Rather, the US will support those who claim their right to be free. It seems pretty clear to me that the administration has concluded that none of the other regimes in the area will withstand a serious push for freedom by their own people. Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Egypt will all move to free societies through internal pressure allied with America (& Europe?).
Iraq was different. There was no way Saddam would have yielded to internal pressure as his willingness to kill hundreds of thousands of his own people demonstrated.
However, despite Rami Khouri's claim that last week's proposals "whimsically popped out of a box", these same concepts were inherent in the National Security Strategy document published in September of last year.
I still believe it's a shaky foundation for US security. Mark Mowazer identifies some of the possible pitfalls in an essentially negative piece. But, if Egypt and Saudi Arabia need a model, there are many countries that are free today that were ruled by dictators (Taiwan, S. Korea, many South & Central American countries) supported by the US during the Cold War. Many of those populations are not that favorable to the US, but as far as I know, none of them is actually waging war on America either. If we can get to that situation in the Middle East it will be a win for both the people of the region and the US.
