Is Democracy Possible in an Islamic Country?

If you don't ask yourself that question, you may think that President Bush and his neo-con advisors are pursuing an idealistic, but hardnosed policy. If you have looked at all the countries on the globe that are majority Muslim, you have probably noted that none are at all democratic. Well, the secular government of Turkey may be a shakey exception. This article by Andrew Greeley is a compelling dissection of our policy in Iraq. Extrapolated, it is an indictment of our many experiments in "regime change" from Chile to Nicaragua to Cuba to South Vietnam to Iraq and even Afghanistan. In every one of those instances we deposed a regime only to find that what came afterward was as bad or worse. And, right now, our leaders are thinking that it would be good for the United States if there was regime change in Iran, Venezuela, Cuba, and North Korea, to name the obvious few. My not-so-dramatic prediction is that whatever government is installed as a result of our meddling will be as bad or worse than the regime we found inconvenient.