Daistallia 2104
20-12-2004, 18:33
The Coming Arab Revolt (http://www.strategypage.com/onpoint/articles/20041215.asp)
Interesting opinion piece:
Mark it on your calendar: Next month, the Arab Middle East will revolt.
However, generals with tanks and terrorists with fatwas won't be leading the revolution. This time, Arab moderates and liberal reformers -- the Middle East's genuine rebels -- are the insurgent vanguard.
Put a circle around Jan. 9. That's the day Palestinians go to the polls to elect a president. In the desperate, divided and terrorized Palestinian statelet, electoral politics (ballots) are replacing pistol politics (bullets). That is a revolution -- a worldview-shattering, history-creating revolution.
Draw another circle around Jan. 30. That's Iraq's first election day. Underline the two weeks prior to Jan. 30. That will be a savage fortnight in which terror campaigns and political campaigns collide. Democratic candidates will be assassinated and polling stations will be blown to bits, as Saddamite and Al Qaeda reactionaries -- the Middle East's ancien regime of tyrant and terrorist -- attempt to force an oppressed people to submit one more time to the yoke of fear.
But they are going to fail. Even if Iraq's election shifts to February (unlikely, since Iraqi leaders such as Prime Minister Iyad Allawi and Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani oppose any delay), the ultimate vote will produce a triumph for the oppressed.
Interesting opinion piece:
Mark it on your calendar: Next month, the Arab Middle East will revolt.
However, generals with tanks and terrorists with fatwas won't be leading the revolution. This time, Arab moderates and liberal reformers -- the Middle East's genuine rebels -- are the insurgent vanguard.
Put a circle around Jan. 9. That's the day Palestinians go to the polls to elect a president. In the desperate, divided and terrorized Palestinian statelet, electoral politics (ballots) are replacing pistol politics (bullets). That is a revolution -- a worldview-shattering, history-creating revolution.
Draw another circle around Jan. 30. That's Iraq's first election day. Underline the two weeks prior to Jan. 30. That will be a savage fortnight in which terror campaigns and political campaigns collide. Democratic candidates will be assassinated and polling stations will be blown to bits, as Saddamite and Al Qaeda reactionaries -- the Middle East's ancien regime of tyrant and terrorist -- attempt to force an oppressed people to submit one more time to the yoke of fear.
But they are going to fail. Even if Iraq's election shifts to February (unlikely, since Iraqi leaders such as Prime Minister Iyad Allawi and Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani oppose any delay), the ultimate vote will produce a triumph for the oppressed.