The Democratic Genie

Clearly the January 30th elections in Iraq have produced ripples throughout the entire Middle East. What the end results will be in the various countries is still unclear. Reuel Marc Gerecht looks at the possibilities.

HAVE THE IRAQI ELECTIONS PRODUCED a democratic earthquake that has changed forever the fundamental political dynamics in the Muslim Middle East? Only the culturally deaf, dumb, and blind--for example, Michigan's Democratic senator Carl Levin--can't see what George W. Bush's war against Saddam Hussein has wrought. The issue is not whether the basic understanding of contemporary Muslim political legitimacy has been overturned--it has--but how forcefully the regimes in place will resist the growing Muslim democratic ethic.