“Bush country”

Sometime ago, a Kuwaiti trader told me that George W. Bush has “created a tsunami in this region.” This man was tired of waiting for an internal reform, he wanted the situation to be changed and if foreign assistance was necessary, so be it. A Jordanian friend told me what was happening today in Lebanon was possible because demonstrators knew the United States would not allow a repression comparable to the one that took place in Hama, Syria. When I visited the Arab world I went to Bush country: everywhere, Arabs are aware that such democratization wave they are experiencing is due to the United States and its actions in Iraq.
_The force of the American power, historically allied to the dominant order, is today in favor of the liberalization of the region. Nowadays, a conservative president offers his country a Wilsonian redemption. This change of politics is reflected in its relations with Hosni Mubarak. In the past, he was the Americans’ man in the Nile and was seen as a mainstay against Islamism. That allowed him to reject Washington’s policy in Iraq and expressed his opposition regarding the Israeli-Palestinian problem. By doing this, he has fed the anti-modernism and the anti-American feeling in his country. Today, the United States demands a political opening of the country and this has led to the emergence of movements questioning his kingdom.
The United States has understood the search for stability through the support of dictators does not work and it was the cause of September 11. Concerning Muslims, Arab laypersons know that demanding sovereignty is no longer convenient. They know they are isolated from the world and must give up certain old aspirations. Iraq, of course, has been the beginning of this new approach. Despite the bombs, the democratic movement develops there like a free press does. What we are witnessing in the Arab world is similar to the spring of the European peoples in 1848. The democratic revolution spreads itself in every country. George W. Bush has been the initiator of this movement.