(New York Times) Neil MacFarquhar - Events have combined to give the sense, however tentative, that twilight might be descending on authoritarian Arab governments. The U.S. says it will no longer support repressive governments, and young Arabs, while hardly enamored of American policy in the region, want to test that promise. Even so, the changes wrought in each country thus far appear minor and preliminary. Old rules against basic freedoms like the right to assemble remain unaltered. "You need democrats to produce democracy," said Ghassan Salame, a former Lebanese cabinet minister. "You need people to fight for it to make it real."
2005-03-10 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive