The most influential surviving Lebanese advocate for independence from Syria is Walid Jumblatt, the Druze Muslim community leader. Jim Geraghty points to this Jumblatt quote in the WaPo article by David Ignatius today as something the Bush administration "should be shouting from the White House rooftop..."
"It's strange for me to say it, but this process of change has started because of the American invasion of Iraq," explains Jumblatt. "I was cynical about Iraq. But when I saw the Iraqi people voting three weeks ago, 8 million of them, it was the start of a new Arab world." Jumblatt says this spark of democratic revolt is spreading. "The Syrian people, the Egyptian people, all say that something is changing. The Berlin Wall has fallen. We can see it."
It's obviously way too early for gloating or "I told you so's", but it must be terribly galling for the Bush-haters to see the trends in the Middle East beginning to break much as George Bush suggested they might if we were able to plant the seed of democracy in Iraq. They are loathe to credit this President for any positive development, but Bush's leadership is so clearly the catalyst for the liberalization movements in the region, that it's getting tough for even the most rabid of partisans to deny it. The fallback position then, is likely to be ignoring it.
Posted by dan at February 23, 2005 11:40 AM