Tell me again: Why must Moslem democratization be a good thing?

The Indian citizen living in the West who writes to me from time to time has another thought-provoking observation:

Do you know the name of that prominent leader of the Muslim world who passionately and deeply believes in regime change in the Middle East?

He is Osama bin Laden…. Bin Laden has been on record as saying that the apostate Muslim rulers of the Middle East are the immediate enemy of devout Muslims. And by apostate he means any ruler who doesn’t rule his country strictly according to the conditions of Sharia’a law (basically, anyone who does not impose Taliban type rule). And this is one of the reasons why he has become so popular. It is because Muslims see Israelis controlling Jerusalem, they see American soldiers in Iraq and Saudi Arabia and then they see that their rulers aren’t doing anything other than lodge the odd protest. So when Bin Laden says, “Your rulers are corrupt”, they are at one with Bin Laden.

Westerners don’t understand how powerful that appeal is. And this is the force that would be unleashed by democracy in the Middle East. Regime change, Osama-style. Oh, I’m sorry, Michael Ledeen-style!

It strikes me that the concern raised by my correspondent used to be part of the conventional understanding shared by most political Americans: that Moslem democratization was to be approached very cautiously, as it was likely to release Moslem radicalism. What happened to that understanding?

I solicited Michael Ledeen’s reply to this, and he wrote back:

There are very few “musts” in history. Things are never so bad they can’t get worse, as, for example, the opponents of the Shah of Iran discovered when they brought Khomeini to power. Of course there are cases where democratic processes totally destroy democracy itself, just ask the Fuhrer. And I quite agree that if Osama were ever elected to rule a country, he would not advance the cause of democracy.

But I also think that the “popularity” of Osama and his ilk is often exaggerated. I don’t think all those Iraqis and Afghans risked their lives to vote for a new caliphate. I am quite convinced that if Iran had free elections they would choose a secular, democratic government. Perhaps there are some countries in which the majority of the people are anti-democratic and would freely choose a regime even more tyrannical than the one they have now. But they are few and far between. Perhaps the demonstrators in Kazakhistan are such, I’m not very well informed on that. However your Indian correspondent isn’t very well informed about my views, since I am calling for support for democrats, not for fanatics.

I wrote back:

Thank you . However, I don’t think he was saying that you support fanatics, but that you support democracy, and that in the Moslem world that means fanatics coming to power.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at May 25, 2005 05:33 PM | Send