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International Herald Tribune


Democracy in the Middle East


March 2, 2011


Regarding “How Democracy became Halal” (Views, Feb. 7): This commendable defense of democracy vis-à-vis the Middle East misses a few salient points. For example, the claim is made that from North Africa to Iran, there has been a resistance to the “ideas and institutions that made representative government possible.” This is not correct. In the early part of the 20th century, for example, Iran had a constitutional movement that was stifled by the British. And in the early 1950s, Iran had a freely-elected constitutional government led by its national heroes, Mohammed Mossadegh and Hussein Fatemi, that the United States, aiding the British, overthrew.


Imagine the Middle East today, had that constitutional government flourished.


Secondly, for believers, the Koran is not only holy scripture, but also a guide to how to live one’s life. And the Koran, in regard to governing, advises governing with the consent of the governed. Can there be any clearer definition of representative government or democracy?


Furthermore, no matter how hard the architects of the war with Iraq try to rewrite history, reality cannot be denied. The so-called freedom agenda of the Bush/Cheney administration was as bogus as the intelligence used to take the United States to war with Iraq.


As the Egyptian democracy movement unfolds, affecting people from North Africa to the borders of India and beyond, it clearly shows that people will only be governed with their consent — nothing less.


Fariborz S. Fatemi


McLean, Virginia


Former staff member, House Foreign Affairs Committee, Senate Foreign Relations Committee