Can Democracy Defeat Terror ? Yes , it can and will do

Stefania, Free Thoughts:

An article for the Foreign Affairs urges the US to not pressure the Middle Eastern regimes to hold free and fair elections. READ MORE

It claims that if elections are held, Islamists would win. That might be true if they are allowed to enter the political process. The right thing to do, and the author of the article forgets to mention it, is to pressure the Arab regimes NOT TO ALLOW the Islamist parties to participate in free elections.

Foreign Affairs' columnist joins the Arab dictators' excuse that without them would be the disaster

The columnist insults ALL those genuine Arab secularists who are languishing in jail or are beaten up by the police when they rally against their regime (as it has happened recently in Egypt).

Claiming what the columnist has claimed is like to say that the Middle Easterners are not able to choose.

And that is EXACTLY what many leftists and islamists claim.

The Bush Administration has a CORRECT VISION based on PROMOTING DEMOCRACY AND FREE ELECTIONS througout the Middle East, while at the same time pressuring to ban the Islamist parties.

And yes, Democracy can defeat terror. Even if democracy might not mean pro-US gov'ts, as Nathan Sharansky affirms, it's better dealing with an unfriendly democrat than with a "pro-US" tyrant.

After all, someone should ask the columnist how has the US benefit from "pro-US" regimes like the Egyptian, the Saudi or the Pakistani ?

The result of decades of appeasement has been visible on Sept. 11, 2001. The arab regimes may tell us , in English, that they like us, but IN ARABIC they speak against us. Their press is strongly anti-american and applauds to the killing of Americans in Iraq and Israelis.

Pakistan secretely funds madrassas as does Saudi Arabia.

Democracies, though imperfect, don't fund nor export hatred.

And Promoting Democracy and Free Elections is the right thing to do. And the Bush Administration should not hear to the appeasers. He should listen to all those Middle Easterners who, according to credible surveys, are disliking Bin Laden and starting to see the US differently than they used to previously.