[Mb-civic] U.S. Embrace Can Be Fatal to Arabs

[michael at intrafi.com]

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U.S. Embrace Can Be Fatal to Arabs 
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The opposition in Lebanon owes no thanks to Washington.

By Adam Shatz
Adam Shatz is literary editor of the Nation.

March 28 2005

Only a year ago, American supporters of the Iraq war were in despair. The spread of the Iraqi insurgency — and of anti-American sentiment throughout the Arab and Muslim world — had undercut the claim of Paul Wolfowitz and others that Saddam Hussein's downfall would spark a wave of democratization in the region. If democracy meant burning cities, suicide attacks, life-threatening checkpoints and Abu Ghraib-style torture, Arabs and Muslims wanted nothing of it, something deeply reassuring to their autocratic rulers. 

The complete article can be viewed at:
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-shatz28mar28,0,794515.story 

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