Islamic democracy

There is a school of thought that Muslims living in the Middle East can't deal with democracy, because they have no cultural background for it. This school may be right, because nations didn't even exist through most of that region until the 20th century, and the various peoples for centuries lived under the loose leadership of tribal chiefs, dictators, colonial powers and whatever else you can think of that's not representative. Karl Marx said every culture goes through a series of systems: feudal, then capitalist, then socialist. (A thinking socialist would claim that's why the Soviet Union failed: It went directly from feudalism to socialism. But there are no thinking socialists.) So by that model the MIddle East is definitely still stuck in their version of feudalism.

Another school of thought says this first attitude is just racist, and that the western world must do everything we can to bring this better way of life to oppressed people wherever they are. This school may be right as well, particularly since Muslim populations have not been shy about visiting the West, imigrating there and/or getting Western educations. They are perhaps even more interested in making a buck than westerners. So there is quite a large portion of Middle Eastern Muslims who are educated, sophisticated and want a better material life, and it's reasonable to expect them to be the ruling class of a representative government. The real challenge in this scenario would be to keep corruption under control, as that has been the problem in keeping an elected government in power in Pakistan and other third-world nations.

While Bill Clinton was president (remember? it's hard to imagine, isn't it) conservatives made a big stink about how the U.S. shouldn't be involved in nation building, and for the most part they were right. It's not really rational for us to think that cultures that have existed for thousands of years want to throw everything out the window and be just like us. Now, though, there's a cadre of conservatives in power (Bush/Cheney/Rice/Rumsfeld/&c.) who appear to be doing just that. And they are right to do so. Why am I being such a hypocrite? Because the people of Bosnia or Serbia were not hell-bent on killing us; Islamic fascists are. If we wipe out one dangerous government and leave a vacuum in its place, an even worse bunch of leaders will take over. This is literally what happened in Afghanistan in the 1980s-90s. So to take out an enemy government is not enough; we must replace it with a friendly government. Fortunately, we have finally learned that a West-leaning strongman is not a good solution, and we're certainly not going to convert all the Muslims in the Middle East to Christianity. The only other alternative is to try democracy (or constitutional republic, actually). Democracies are the only governments that do not try to take over the country next to them. It may not work, and it certainly will not work if we give up on it too soon, but it seems to be our best hope while we wait for Christ.