[Zardoz]

Good article from Aljazeera:

"While enormously powerful at home, it is pitifully weak in responding to foreign challenges."

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')he modern state, we should recall, derives its legitimacy from the right to monopolise and use the instruments of organised violence for the purpose of maintaining internal stability and civil peace on the one hand; and securing its borders, or what is conventionally referred to as national sovereignty, on the other.

Some Arab states have failed on either or both counts. Of these, the worst and most striking has been its impotence to confront external dangers, be it in Syria, Iraq or Lebanon.

[evilgenius]

The Modern Arab state might not be so impotent at confronting external threats if they acted like states toward each other. The phantom alliance that will bring them all together in response to some attack or other has failed to emerge. They consequently stand alone when they could stand together.

Above all, however, there lies the fact that the Arab states have overwhelmingly chosen to buy their way into the modern world. The infrastructure necessary to actually make what the Arabs have bought with their oil money is extensive. No Arab state has chosen to invest in that infrastructure. Many oil producing countries even lack oil related infrastructure. Meanwhile the Arab populations are not getting smaller. This forces whomever that can to flee Arabia for the West. When the time comes it will look very bad for the recalcitrant Muslim millions. Without the oil spigot flowing and with no other means of support developed to support them many will starve or seek to flee. They can only hope that they will not have soured Europe toward them so badly by that time that they are rejected no matter what their plight.

[Miki]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('evilgenius', 'T')he Modern Arab state might not be so impotent at confronting external threats if they acted like states toward each other. The phantom alliance that will bring them all together in response to some attack or other has failed to emerge. They consequently stand alone when they could stand together.

[nwildmand]

what a load of crap miki.

you sound much more intelligent defending the terrorists.

how is it that through all those years of education you still dont have a clue.

[evilgenius]

Does Islam have anything to say about democracy? It existed as a form of government from Athens. It was not highly regarded before the 19th century anywhere. Most people, Aristotle included, thought that it eventually devolved into mob rule.

There is no arguing that democracy is the leading form of government today. I think it is more sought after than understood, though. A lot of developments have to take place in a society, in other words, before democracy is anything other than a transitional form of government.

To put it plainly, are the Arab states developed enough for democracy to work there? I do accept that the US has not been good for the development of democracy in Arabia, but I don't think that the US is the chief reason that it hasn't worked.

I think the Arabs will have to develop a more complex form of capitalism, one that works for their culture, thus bringing in more competition for political power and they will have to jettison the cult of personality in order to succeed at democracy.