[Mike AI]

Rox, its worth trying. If not, one group will doinate the others and take all the money from oil. I really do not care if that happens, as long as the regime does not make weapons of mass destruction, support terrorism or anything else.

something I read, which sums up my posistion:

It's important to understand that democracy, and the ability choose one's leaders, is not an end in itself. Every democratic government needs basic mechanisms to guarantee perpetuation of its institutions and preclude certain behaviors. In the US, the Bill of Rights more or less fulfills the latter role, and a remarkably enduring social consensus (which broke down, really, only in the antebellum American South) guarantees the former. A democracy that immediately self-destructs after the first election, a la Algeria, or that merely lends popular sanction to blundering bellicosity at home and abroad, a la Pakistan, is of little use to its people or the world at large. How, then, to tame the inherent instability of popular choice? How do we curb the all-too-likely extremes?

The preferable choice, of course, is to foster social values that lead to the maintenance of democratic institutions. At first glance, this seems unlikely. I am, for my part, quite convinced that Europe and America have developed relatively successful democratic political cultures largely because of the heritage of the Protestant Reformation; what the Islamic analogue would be there, I've not a clue. This is not the space to explore Islam's compatability with democracy -- it is enough to note that Islamic-majority nations have a mostly sad, fruitless history when it comes to the democratic experiment. (We have to hope Islam is compatible with democracy, and with classical notions of liberty, because the alternative is too awful to contemplate.) But there are three bright spots, and we should examine them in turn.

The first bright spot is Turkey. Turkey is often and justly derided for its abominable treatment of ethnic minorities, its barely-suppressed retention of the Ottoman urge to conquest, and its perpetually rickety economy. Most of all, Turkey suffers because its political perpetuity is, in essence, subject to a self-imposed Platt Amendment: if democracy in Turkey is threatened, it will be saved -- and destroyed all at once -- by the Turkish military. Democracy is synonymous with "secularism"; and so Turkish democracy is preserved only through a wrenching cultural divorce from history, and the creation of an alienated class of ruthless armed guardians. Ideal? Hardly -- but still worlds better than, well, almost every other Islamic-majority nation.

The second bright spot is actually a few bright spots which I'll class together, because they are so similar. Morocco, Qatar, Bahrain and Jordan are monarchies whose rulers have seen fit to allow limited popular participation in parliaments of various forms. However, they must constantly be on guard against extreme elements that would seize the state in order to destroy it; therefore they cannot allow their democratic projects to culminate, and they must continue to maintain some sort of repressive apparatus. Democratic culture here is alternately imposed and encouraged from above, and therefore not necessarily reflective of societal wishes. Again, imperfect, but also a sight better than most of their neighbors.

The third bright spot is, surprisingly, Iran. The "extreme elements" are already in control there, and they've been in control for almost a quarter-century. The crimes of the Iranian theocracy, which exercises and maintains its rule through an unelected Council of Guardians, need no elaboration here: what is important is that the democratic culture there seems more or less rejectionist towards the self-styled "Islamic Republic." And what is especially important is that the democratic culture seems to be -- unlike in Turkey or the monarchies -- genuinely reflective of social desires, and not a potentially alienating project from on high. It is important not to be starry-eyed when making such assessments (what will happen to Michael Ledeen's career when a mullah wins an election?), but in truth, it looks like the Iranians may be furthest along in the Middle East when it comes to constructing a real, functioning democracy.

Which brings us back to Emma's question: what good would it do to install democracy in Islamic lands if all it accomplished was to bring Islamists to power? The answer, I think, is this: it's the risk we run, and the price we pay. All the alternatives have already failed. A democratic Saudi Arabia electing Wahhabist firebrands to office would be a terrible sight and a menace to the rest of us. But we must ask: are we safe now? Do the Wahhabist firebrands not exist now? Time to be bold. Time to let the people of the Middle East learn their own lessons, as the people of Iran seem to be. Time to let them learn by making mistakes -- with the novel recourse of an electoral corrective when they do.

And time to accept that while we cannot guarantee the best outcome, we can guarantee our best effort. The greatest of failures is the failure to try.