Commentary magazine, founded in 1945 by the American Jewish Community, has an article by Sohrab Ahmari, an Iranian-American journalist, about "The Failure of Arab Liberals". We do not disagree that we are failing and increasingly marginalized in the new Egypt, however the reasons Ahmari shares to justify his verdict are either irrelevant (who cares what Mona Eltahay thinks?) or through the eyes of a conservative pretending to think like a liberal (fixated on the Israeli dimension which is strange given that liberals in the U.S. are generally more supportive of the Palestinian side). Excerpt from the article below:
The moral and cultural crisis of Arab liberalism is serious. It threatens nothing less than the future of freedom in the Middle East. Yet, as daunting as it may seem in light of recent developments, there really is no other path than the freedom agenda as far as U.S. policy should be concerned. After the Arab Spring, the U.S.-led order in the region is frayed, but it still stands. If it is to persist and thrive, that order must be decoupled from classical Arab authoritarianism.
Image: FPOur liberal allies in this fight are deeply flawed. Disengaging from the region and adopting a “humble” posture, however, will only leave them more vulnerable to the Islamists—and to their own worst urges. As a number of writers have already suggested, the Middle East today is desperately in need of an ideological plan similar to the Marshall Plan deployed in postwar Europe. But to make the investment worth its while, the United States should not hesitate to assume the role of the democratic teacher, as it did in Europe, to shape and articulate a Middle East liberalism that is at peace with Israel, that refrains from anti-Western rhetoric and prioritizes individual and minority rights over the whims of demagogic mobs. There is no other cure for the Algiers syndrome.
