Blog Credo

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.

H.L. Mencken

Sunday, June 30, 2013

Where I Agree With The Moustache Of Understanding

No, no THAT Morrissey...

I tend to think that Tom Friedman repackages stale elite conventional wisdom in a wrapping of crappy prose.

But he did say one thing over a decade ago that I agree with.  If you bring democracy to the Middle East, the Islamists will win.  But having won, they will have to produce good governance.  The key is not the first democratic election in an Islamic democracy, but the second.

We are seeing some of that in Egypt right now.  Morsi is not delivering public goods the way he should.  Islamists built their credibility on the efficient delivery of charity, jobs and basic health care.  Now that they have to run a state, they have to do everything well.

The best case for Egypt and Tunisia?  A Turkish style guided democracy, where the military insures fair elections.  As for Libya and Iraq, they just have to avoid civil war.

Hmmm, what do Libya and Iraq have in common...?

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