The END Of The "Arab Exception"

[kpete]

The end of the Arab exception?
...it seems clear that some basic premises of US policy towards the region have been rendered invalid.
The bigger casualty is the ‘Arab exception’: the idea that the concept of democracy is not really applicable in Arab countries and that foreign policy therefore amounts to a choice of which dictator to support.
by John Quiggin on January 29, 2011

The idea that the US can legitimately use its military power to ensure continued access to oil resources rests, in large measure, on the (not entirely unfounded) assumption that those controlling the resources are a bunch of sheikhs and military adventurers who happened to be in the right place, with guns, at the right time. Without the Arab exception, the idea of oil as a special case, not subject to the ordinary assumption that resources are the property of the people in whose country they are found, will also be hard to sustain.

http://crookedtimber.org/2011/01/29/the-end-of-the-arab-exception/

[Hydra]

1. No

The propaganda is strong. There are still people who think we need to nuke the Middle East into oblivion and take over "for their own good."

This is going to hurt that mindset if Egypt pulls off a true democracy, but there will still be people who treat it like Venezuela, where it's a "dictatorship" when people hold their own elections without our help.