Friedman may be right, sadly. The real story is that free elections do not a democracy make. Freedom is much more than elections. Freedom rests on stable and robust institutions like education, charitable organizations, social and fraternal groups and capitalism within the 'rule of law,' opportunity for all to better themselves, etc. A democracy is not based on religious fervor, but on a basic tolerance of all religions or factions, or none. These requisites are absent in the Middle East. Therefore, what's going on there cannot truly be called democracy, certainly not as we understand it. What we have is a power grab cloaked in democracy. Let us not be deceived.
"What we are seeing in Iraq, the Palestinian territories and Lebanon is an effort by Islamist parties to use elections to pursue their long-term aim of Islamizing the Arab-Muslim world. This is not a conflict about Palestinian or Lebanese prisoners in Israel. This is a power struggle within Lebanon, Palestine and Iraq over who will call the shots in their newly elected “democratic’’ governments and whether they will be real democracies."
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