Wednesday, February 02, 2011

All Hail Robert Kagan

This to me, really nails it:

"There’s no way for us to go through the long evolution of history without allowing Islamists to participate in democratic society."

“What are we going to do — support dictators for the rest of eternity because we don’t want Islamists taking their share of some political system in the Middle East? We’ve got to put our money where our mouth is."

“Obviously, Islam needs to make its peace with modernity and democracy. But the only way this is going to happen is when people speaking for Islam take part in the system."

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

What a bunch of horseshit! Israel is a dictatorship? Islamists can have a seat a the table when they start acting like civilized human beings, instead of tribal barbarians.

Angus said...

don't see where you get any Israel reference there anon, I don't see one.

rmv said...

its a reflex with some conservatives

glide over the history of US propped dictatorships and attack a non-sequitur strawman, add a bit of (not-so) latent racism for the garnish

Matt Gilliland said...

Israel is a democracy... for Israeli Jews. Dictatorship for everyone else.

Anonymous said...

It's hard to encourage democracy in a country where the populace apparently wants to murder you.

(Regardless of whether or not they actually want to, and regardless of whether or you deserve it.)

Angus said...

Guys, this isn't really about Israel. The US has supported and enabled dictators in the Middle East, in Latin America, in sub-Saharan Africa all in the name of "national security".

I am thrilled to see that just maybe, it's not going to work for much longer.