Democracy in the Middle East

As you all know we need to use Twitter for class, and as I was just searching some of the countries there that are currently experiencing the shock wave of revolutionary activity (read: protests) I came accross a tweet by BorowitzReport, which said "Democracy sweeping every Middle Eastern country that Bush didn't invade. #iran #Egypt #Tunisia #Yemen #Algeria". Not only is this some what ironically comical it is true. And I believe there is a reason that the Neo-Conservative Bush Doctrine didn't work in the Middle East. I think it is because he focused on the wrong countries. By wrong countries I mean countries with no history of democracy at all.

Neither Iraq or Afghanistan have any history of wanting a democracy or having reformers that have tried to bring some form of democracy to their countries. However, there are countries in the region (i.e. Turkey and Iran) that have a historical relationship with democracy. To avoid the conclusion that I came up with these ideas on my own, I read the book "Reset" by Stephen Kinzer. Kinzer goes into the historical relationships between Turkey, Iran, and democracy. Atta Turk and Reza Shah both brought reforms to their respective countries.

I will save the details of the reforms and history for another post possibly. But for now it is important to keep in mind the fact that a state can't expect to implant democracy in a country that has no history of it; and I think it is even more important to focus on a fostering democracy in states with that history.