The Bush Doctrine Is Winning: Egypt
This month, in his State of the Union Address Bush said

The great and proud nation of Egypt, which showed the way toward peace in the Middle East, can now show the way toward democracy in the Middle East.

Today, Hosni Mubarak ordered the Egyptian legislature to allow multi-candidate presidential elections. Mubarak is certainly no Thomas Jefferson, and Egypt is a backward America-hating pit, but this may be a step in the right direction. We’ve supported “secular” dictators in the Middle East for too long, afraid that democracy would bring the Islamists to power. What we got for the bargain were totalitarian regimes that showed us a tolerant secular face while secretly paying protection money to Islamist anti-American groups. Free elections in Egypt may very well mean a three way run off between the Death-to-America Party, the Death-to-Israel Party, and the Death-to-Married-Women-Seen-in-Public-Without-Their-Husbands Party, and the first few democratically elected governments may well be worse than Mubarak. But power derived in the ballot box tends to be sobering. Eventually, the rulers will have to deliver some sort of economic and social progress or be thrown out of office. The average Egyptian will eventually see that his standard of living is better if he trades with Israelis than if he kills them, and this will have a powerfully moderating influence in the ballot box. - served up by Doctor Bean @ 8:43 PM