Arab Spring

With civil war breaking out in Iraq, Palestine, and Lebanon while the weather Gods give DC a respite from summer humidity in favor of something cooler and more pleasant, why not revisit the Arab Spring of 2005? Here's Charles Krauthammer:

The Bush doctrine, which we have pursued since 9/11, is based on what states do internally. We care about their external actions, but we also care about who makes the decisions. The theory is that non-dictatorial regimes—which represent democratic aspirations and adhere to the democratic principles of the rule of law, protection of minorities, and human rights—are more likely to have normal relations with us.

We have now tested the theory. And just recently we have had the Lebanese revolution, the Egyptian announcement about electoral changes, the Iraqi elections, the Afghan elections. Kuwait has just extended suffrage to women, and Syria has announced, however disingenuously, that they are moving toward legalizing political parties, purging the ruling Baath Party, sponsoring free municipal elections in 2007, and formally endorsing a market economy (Washington Post, May 17). What we have seen in the last six months has been simply astonishing—well, astonishing to the critics. I am pleasantly but not entirely surprised.

Nothing, however, can beat this Jeff Jacoby op-ed, which consists essentially entirely of gloating that's mostly conducted via fake exhortations against gloating.