I have a new piece in the Wall Street Journal’s Opinion Journal where I make the case that Lebanon is now what we hope Iraq someday will be: Lebanon the Model.
BEIRUT, Lebanon--Of all the rationales for demolishing Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq, the most compelling was the Middle East's desperate need for at least one free Arab democracy to act as a model and an inspiration for oppressed and demoralized citizens in the others. So far it is not working out, despite the recent successful elections. Most talk of Iraq on the Middle Eastern street revolves around occupation, terrorism and war. Iraq is not yet a model for anything. It looms, instead, as a warning. Hardly any Arab wants his country to become another Iraq. In time that may change, but right now that's just how it is.read the rest! »Lebanon, though, is an inspiration already--despite the assassinations and the car bombs that have shaken the country since February. I have an apartment in Beirut, and I recently traveled to Cairo. Arriving back here was like returning to the U.S. from Mexico. Almost everyone I met in Egypt--from taxi drivers all the way up to the elite--was profoundly envious when I said I live in Beirut. "It is a free and open city," I told them, but they knew that already. Many Americans and Europeans still think of Beirut as a hollowed-out, mortar-shattered necropolis where visitors are well-advised to bring a flak jacket. Egyptians, though--at least the ones I talked to during my stay--know the truth.
Michael,
Just to clear out the obvious responses to this article:
1. Lebanon took a civil war to happen, same for Iraq?
2. Someone might say, yes just like the war in Lebanon drew in Syria, the same happen will happen in Iraq with Iran.
I understand that you mean that where Lebanon is now is the model - not how it got there. (The same, of course, can be said of Iraq). But the comparison to Lebanon's civil war and Syria's intervention are too obvious not to make.
Its way past my bedtime, but I hope to come back to this later.
I think Turkey's less than perfect governmental model is what Iraq should be striving for. Not perfect, but islamofacism is illegal. The Turks did have the guidance of Attaturk to guide them away from the arab nightmare. Perhaps there is another "Attaturk" waiting in the wings in Iraq. We can only hope.
Israel is the first democracy in the Muslim world.
Michael,
Some good points above. But let me get us off track somewhat and say how much I appreciate your reporting from Lebanon and its environs (the Libya piece was awesome, if depressing.)
Keep up the good work! (But come back to the Northwest someday, too.)
Israel isn't in the Muslim world. It borders it, but...