"My friends, a future of liberty stands before you. It is your right. It is your dream. And it is your destiny." These were the words of President Bush as he spoke about his goals for democracy in the Middle East, but with civil unrest pervading the region, the realization of those goals is very much in question. In a region with such a complex history and unique traditions, can democracy ever truly thrive?
The Middle East is comprised of only authoritarian regimes and patrimonial leaderships, as military regimes and as monarchies. None of the states is a real democracy, and none of them have the above-mentioned ingredients of democracy. The existence of parliaments, political parties, and elections is not important, since they do not share the whole political process and do not participate, or even influence the decision-making process. Democratization of the Middle East is a long process and still far away. What one can find are civilianizational processes in some military regimes, but even these are not leading to democratization. There is no political liberalism and not even economic liberalism.
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