Comment by slibhb
20 hours ago
Which Arab regimes, today, are "US installed"? Iraq is the only plausible answer.
As far as stability, I don't know. My view is that Arab democracies are unstable because they will elect Islamists. Dictatorship/monarchy has proven far more stable. Syria is trying to buck the trend; we'll see how it goes.
Maybe more accurate to say “Western-installed” although generally I don’t like grouping Europe and the US together as some coherent entity in this case it’s probably accurate.
All of the Gulf monarchies as well as Jordan are essentially western creations that were created as states mostly by the British and then heavily reinforced by the US from the 70s onwards
> Arab democracies are unstable because they will elect Islamists.
why does that imply instability?
Fundamentalists tend not to be pragmatists.
i don't think you know much about islamist parties and are just grasping for reasons to justify suppressing democracy in certain places.
ennahada (tunisia), pks (indonesia), jui (pakistan) are all examples of islamist parties that have compromised or reached across the aisle at various points just off the top of my head.
besides, isn't the point of democracy to allow people to be led by those who represent their principles? if they are in power, why should the majority expect their elected leaders to compromise those principles?
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Because every Islamic theocracy to date has been profoundly destabilising for its neighbours and the world, and always ends up imprisoning and immiserating its own people. No one wants more Irans or Afghanistans. (Or Saudi Arabias, though that's not said out loud as often.)
but neither Saudi Arabia nor Afghanistan's leaders were voted in ...
and secular/socialist/monarchic dictatorships have arguably worse effects on their neighbors and citizens - e.g. Saddam, Assad, Nasser, MBZ in UAE, MBS
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