The Yes Buts Keep on Coming

Richard Cohen, recently returned from Saudi Arabia, is forced by what he has seen to acknowledge that something important is happening throughout the Middle East. It must have killed him, a long-time Bush skeptic, to write:

Given what's happening, it's understandable that many eyes have shifted to Washington with a new sense of appreciation. Could it be that the neocons were right and that the invasion of Iraq, the toppling of Hussein and the holding of elections will trigger a political chain reaction throughout the Arab world? It would be the Middle East equivalent of what happened in Eastern Europe when the Soviet Union finally sank to its knees, took one last breath and crumbled.

Of course that possibility is immediately followed by the caveat. Cohen writes that the Middle East is not Eastern Europe, that the people there are different, even apparent adoption of western styles and manners mask profound differences in cultural modes. Words like "freedom" and "democracy" mean something different in the Middle East than they do in the West. He writes:

Now some of us may be prematurely celebrating the changes in the Arab world, possibly mistaking them for what has happened in quite different places.... "Something's coming" -- but, believe me, it may not be what we expect.

That's right, Richard. It may be worse, or it may be better. Keep hoping for the worst, though, maybe it will happen, and you will be able to bask in a glow of schadenfreud, but Bush just might be right. None of us knows for sure, but I for one am banking on Bush.

Read the whole thing here.