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has passed through since the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. The fact that it was a democratic revolution that deposed the Shah only to replace secular despotism with an intolerant theocracy appears to have eluded Washington's policy-makers. It is little wonder that the electoral process in Iraq and Palestine has produced nasty surprises for the US Administration, after which Egypt's dodgy democracy received more American accolades than it deserved.

Before the invasion of Iraq, Secretary of State Colin Powell reportedly told Bush to remember that "if you break it, it's yours". A similar admonition should be made to those seeking to impose a Western-style democracy on Eastern nations. A dogmatic belief in the rectitude of your own political institutions does not automatically bestow the right to impose them on others. At the very least, it is necessary to understand in great detail what the consequences of doing so might be and to be ready to accept and deal with them rather than simply rejecting them, as happened after Hamas's electoral victory in the Palestinian parliamentary elections.

If the French journalist was right that democracy is never given by Rulers, only taken by people, then how much less likely is it that democracy can be granted not even by the Rulers, but by distant Powers? And if Iraq, Germany or Japan are to be cited as examples of cases where that has been done, let us remember that first it was necessary to visit utter destruction on those societies and then to spend years or decades nursing them back to health. Is that a sensible model to think of applying to the hub that supplies most of the world's oil and gas?

Learn more about this author, Paul Cowan.
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