THE ROLLING REVOLUTION

Charles Krauthammer writes about what he calls the Rolling Revolution, with the potential to transform the Middle East. Demands for democracy are now heard from the Mediterranean Sea to the Persian Gulf. With some luck, and with the support it deserves and needs from the West, this may well turn into the 1989 of the region. Retract that support, and instead we may once again see the hopes crushed like we did in Eastern Europe in 1956 and 1968.

Some people, considering stability to be the biggest guarantee for our own safety, argues that we should increase our connections with the regimes, urging them to give up a little power, and if they do so, helping them to stay on their thrones. This would be a horrible mistake - not just morally, but also strategically. As R J Rummel has shown in a convincing manner, there's no better guarantee for peace, and in the long run stability, than democratic freedom.

Should the West choose to hold on to the short sighted no-change policies for the region, it would surely backfire in the long run. The oppressed people's in these countries know they have a chance at getting the democratic rights that we say we think it's impossible to live without, and if they fail because we didn't support them their hatred towards us will not be small.

Freedom will be hard earned for the people in the Middle East. We should do our utmost to make sure they get it. For their sake, and ours.

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