May 27, 2005

Al-Jazeera Lauds President Bush's Statements on Egyptian Reform

Yup. Honest. It's true. And really not all that surprising. While a lot of Americans, particularly those on the right, see much of the Arab press as hopelessly anti-American, it's more complicated than that. If there's one thing that many Arabs and the press they support loathe it's the autocrats and oligarchs who've held power for decades with an iron fist. So when you have someone powerful who's influential in supporting their reign criticizing them (democracy lovers are probably exhaling "finally!") it's going to get the sort of praise that is often in short supply for the US government at the moment (what with Abu Ghraib and usual Bush policy of coddling Mubarak and the royals of Saudi, Kuwait, and the UAE). The merits of particular policies and alliances can be debated. But this should reinforce that it's not so much that "they hate us" as "they hate our policies".

Posted by armand at May 27, 2005 03:14 PM | TrackBack | Posted to International Affairs


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