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I get irritated when I see people on the left or the right indicate the democratic votes in Islamic countries are a bad thing. My quarrel with the Iraq War isn't the elections, nor do I believe that Israel and the U.S. should have blocked Palestinian elections. We screwed over much of the Middle East by backing dictatorships that had little popular support and were awfully corrupt. We must reap what we sow. If the people of a country want an Islamic theocracy or Islamic parties in power, that is their right as sovereign nations.
At the same time, the Neocons are delusional if they think that democracy in most Middle Eastern countries is going to result in secular , pro-American and pro-Israeli governments; maybe 30 or 40 years ago elections would have produced secular (though not pro-America/pro-Capitalist) and maybe some decades from now. Either back democracies and accept that they're going to be anti-Democratic and are going to fuel continued resentment or back democracy in the Middle East and acknowledge that it's likely to lead to Islamist control, at least for the time-being. Democracy, moreover, should not be imposed by force but encouraged through trade, through diplomatic engagement, and through the funding of opposition movements; the people of a given country should be the ones to bring about the change.
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