Spreading democracy in the middle east

Amir Taheri:

KUWAITIS go to the polls next week to elect a new National Assembly, which will in turn approve a new prime minister and Cabinet.

The Kuwaitis will be making history for a number of reasons. This is the first election in which women are allowed to vote. And - much to the chagrin of Islamists, who insist that women are unfit to play any role in politics - a number of women are standing, often on platforms of radial social and economic reforms.

With a native population of 1 million, Kuwait is one of the smallest states in the Arab League. Yet its election is certain to have an important impact on broader Arab politics.

The exercise will help consolidate the idea of holding elections as a means of securing access to power - something new and still fragile in most Arab states. Days before the Kuwaitis were due to go to the polls, the United Arab Emirates announced that it, too, would opt for a parliamentary system based on elections. This means that all but five of the Arab states are now committed to holding reasonably clean elections at municipal and/or national levels.

Some of this new interest in elections is due to the impact of Iraq on the broader Arab imagination. With a mixture of admiration and terror, Arab ruling elites saw how Saddam Hussein's regime - regarded as the strongest of the Arab despotic structures in recent memory - collapsed within three weeks. The message was clear: An Arab regime without some mandate from the people is never more than a house of cards.

...

Democrats voted against liberating Kuwait in 1991 and they want to abandon Iraq now. Perhaps they need to change the name of their party since they clearly are not too interested in spreading democracy.

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