Iraq's new government is a real threat to the Arab world -- and the despots controlling other nations in the region know it. As promised, the United States will turn over control of Iraq on June 30 to a new government whose leaders, President Ghazi Yawar and Prime Minister Iyad Allawi, were selected Tuesday. Not only will this new Iraqi team put together an assembly to choose the first representative national council for the Iraqi people, but direct elections will be held as early as January, marking the first time when the population of an Arab nation may achieve genuine freedom.
The freest Arabs in the Middle East currently live in Israel, where over 1,000,000 of them hold full citizenship, electing their own representatives to the Knesset and enjoying other freedoms enjoyed by all Israeli citizens. In no other country in the region do Arabs, or anyone else, for that matter, live freely. Just look at Iraq's neighbors.
In Saudi Arabia, to the south, the Saudi royal family rules with no institutional check on its authority. Although the Saudi government has announced some limited reforms, Saudis cannot elect their own leaders, do not enjoy freedom of religion, a free press or freedom of assembly. Women in the kingdom may not obtain identity cards or an exit visa, nor can they be admitted to a hospital without permission of their fathers, husbands or, in the case of widows, their sons. According to Freedom House, which rates civil and political rights around the world, Saudi women may not study engineering, law or journalism, and are not permitted to drive automobiles or travel outside the home unless accompanied by an adult male family member.
Syria, to the west, is ruled by one of the most repressive governments in the region, despite early hopes that Bashar Assad, son of the tyrannical Hafiz Assad, would loosen the Baathist Party's grip on the people when he took power after his father died in 2000. It didn't happen. Not only do Syrians enjoy no civil or political liberties, but the Syrian government is one of the chief sponsors of international terrorism in the world. What's more, Syria essentially controls its neighbor Lebanon, which was once one of the freer nations in the Middle East.