Steyn Told Us So

It's been all-Lebanon-all-the-time, but the latest Mark Steyn, in Tuesday's Telegraph (UK), is another must-read. After reviewing recent pro-democracy news from Iraq, Lebanon, etc., Steyn spots the "root cause":

Why is all this happening? Answer: January 30. Don't take my word for it, listen to Walid Jumblatt, big-time Lebanese Druze leader and a man of impeccable anti-American credentials: "I was cynical about Iraq. But when I saw the Iraqi people voting three weeks ago, eight million of them, it was the start of a new Arab world. The Berlin Wall has fallen."

Just so. Left to their own devices, the House of Saud - which demanded all US female air-traffic controllers be stood down for Crown Prince Abdullah's flight to the Bush ranch in Crawford - would stick to their traditional line that Wahhabi women have no place in a voting booth; instead, they have to dress like a voting booth - a big black impenetrable curtain with a little slot to drop your ballot through. Likewise, Hosni Mubarak has no desire to take part in campaign debates with Hosno Name-Recognition. Boy Assad has no desire to hand over his co-Baathists to the Great Satan's puppets in Baghdad.

But none of them has much of a choice. In the space of a month, the Iraq election has become the prism through which all other events in the region are seen. . .

Three years ago, those of us in favour of destabilising the Middle East didn't have to be far-sighted geniuses: it was a win/win proposition. As Sam Goldwyn said, I'm sick of the old clichés, bring me some new clichés. The old clichés - Pan-Arabism, Baathism, Islamism, Arafatism - brought us the sewer that led to September 11. The new clichés could hardly be worse. Even if the old thug-for-life had merely been replaced by a new thug-for-life, the latter would come to power in the wake of the cautionary tale of the former.

But some of us - notably US deputy defence secretary Paul Wolfowitz - thought things would go a lot better than that. Wolfowitz was right, and so was Bush, and the Left, who were wrong about the Berlin Wall, were wrong again, the only difference being that this time they were joined in the dunce's corner of history by far too many British Tories. No surprise there. The EU's political establishment doesn't trust its own people, so why would they trust anybody else's? Bush trusts the American people, and he's happy to extend the same courtesy to the Iraqi people, the Syrian people, the Iranian people, etc.

Prof Glenn Reynolds, America's Instapundit, observes that "democratisation is a process, not an event". Far too often, it's treated like an event: ship in the monitors, hold the election, get it approved by Jimmy Carter and the UN, and that's it. Doesn't work like that. What's happening in the Middle East is the start of a long-delayed process. Eight million Iraqis did more for the Arab world on January 30 than 7,000 years of Mubarak-pace marching.

Also more than a half Century of empty lefty rhetoric and rallies.

Modern Democrats offer fanciful utopia, not solutions, preferring -- in Tom Carter's words--the "policies of hate." They'll lip-sync the language of liberty--so long as someone else does the heavy lifting.

Realizing I was a Republican in the late 70s didn't seem like a switch. Rather, the Democrats ran from me, just as they abandoned long-time liberals like Cinnamon Stillwell after 9/11. Democrats claim they're "liberal" but oppose the freedoms favored by John Kennedy. They espouse examining terrorism's "root cause," but become hateful or hilariously inconsistent when Bush agrees and acts.

Today's conservatives descend from Burke, Locke, Madison--and President Truman. Current lefties fuse the failed Socialism of Marx and Rawls with the lazy lunacy of Beavis and Butt-head:

Tom Anderson: Alls I'm saying is that you need to get up off your butts and work harder.
Butt-head: Hey, it was free, ***-wipe!
Tom Anderson: That does it. Get the hell off my property and don't ever come back!
Butt-head: Uh, we have just one more question.
Tom Anderson: Well, get it out!
Butt-head: Uh, can we be in your will?

Democrats aren't mature enough to be trusted with car keys, much less the White House.

(via LGF--and kudos for Steyn's praise)