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Author Barry Rubin has insights on the current status on movement towards Democracy in the Mid-East:
FrontPage: Tell us about the battle for the soul of the Middle East.
Rubin: Briefly, every Arab country plus Iran and the Palestinians has long been led by dictatorships—Lebanon and Iraq are currently different. These leaders have failed to deliver on their promises but they have not fallen. This situation is at odds with trends in the rest of the world. The regimes have survived through a mix of techniques, including repression and corruption, the use of anti-Americanism and anti-Israel rhetoric, playing ethnic politics, and other methods. The main challengers to them have been radical Islamists who in a sense have the same basic world view. They simply want to substitute Islamism for Arab nationalism. As I put it, this means they are saying that the mistake is not bashing one’s own head against a stone wall but merely not doing it hard and long enough. Now the liberals have emerged as a third, but the weakest, alternative. In every Arab state plus Iran and the Palestinians, the future is going to see a struggle between these three forces that is going to go on for a very long time. We cannot assume the regimes will soon fall or that the liberals will inevitably win. In my opinion this three-way battle is and will be the greatest political drama of our time.
...Rubin: I was never enthusiastic about the war although I recognize the moral importance of freeing the Iraqi people from such a terrible regime. Iraqis are now often advocates of pluralism. An Iraqi intellectual went to Beirut and urged the Arab Inter-Parliamentary Union to condemn the repression of the Saddam Hussein regime. One Lebanese politician said to him that he was tired of all this Iraqi whining. Why should they complain when every Arab country has mass graves?
...The clear answer about Iraq is that if Iraq does become stable and works it will become a role model for democracy and moderation in the region. If it doesn’t, it will become a cautionary tale.
...FrontPage: Are you optimistic about the democratization and modernization of the Arab world?
Rubin: Over the next 50 years, yes. Over the next 10 years, no. I think this will be a long-term trend—with an emphasis both on the “long-term” and “trend” parts. But of course the pro-democratic individuals in the Arab world know that they have no choice but to wage the struggle, both out of individual conscience and to save their societies.
