The important thing is not who votes, but who counts the votes. Ever since the collapse of most of the world's communist states, the rulers of Arab countries have had little competition in the art of manipulation. Presidents indulged by Washington, such as Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak (93 percent of votes in 1999) are barely distinguishable from those being threatened by Washington, such as Syrian President Bashar al-Assad (97 percent of votes in 2000), although neither has quite reached Saddam Hussein's level of unscrupulousness. Just six months ago, his presidency was confirmed by a clean 100 percent of voters. And when a legitimate parliament does come together in the Arab world, as has been the case in Bahrain, it is ridiculed as a "macrama," or "gift" of the king.

Other Arab regimes, such as the rulers of the Saudi royal family, which only permits a shadow of co-determination through a council of advisors ("Madshlis al-Shura"), do not even pretend to be interested in discovering the will of the people throughout the ballot box. US Middle East expert Robert Baer believes that if there were free elections in Riyadh tomorrow, Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda would celebrate a "landslide victory." In his opinion, the Arabs' hate for America has become even stronger since the Iraq war, as has their admiration for anyone who rises against the superpower and a corrupt regime in their own country. Baer, who spent many years working as an underground CIA agent in the Middle East, sees the brutal presence of the US military as a further setback to the standing of the West and its political institutions. In contrast, former CIA Director James Woolsey, who is favored by the Pentagon as the new "Minister of Information" in a transitional government in Baghdad, believes in a domino theory, and that the "liberation" of Iraq will serve as a signal for the entire region. In his view, it would be "racist" to deny the Arabs the opportunity for democracy.

Whose opinion is correct, that of the man who knows his way around the bazaar or that of the political professional? And if the Iraqis (possibly in a fully democratic manner) opt for a Shiite, anti-liberal religious state, would this be their much-touted freedom? Is America's fundamentalist Christian savior president falling into a democracy trap with his well-intentioned imperialism?

Anyone traveling from Marrakech to Cairo and Damascus these days is confronted with the most contradictory of impressions. On the one hand, almost no one, thanks to Al Jazeera, has anything positive to say about Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. The Qatar-based television network broadcast the images of Saddam's ouster to every last corner of the Arab world and, in doing so, debunked at least some of the conspiracy theories so widely held in this part of the world. On the other hand, there is virtually no trace of acknowledgment or support for Washington. The prospect of an "American khalif" being in control on the banks of the Tigris embitters the people, even those who have long since become accustomed to the Western way of life, those who squeal at an Eminem concert, shed tears when they watch the film "Titanic," and devour Big Macs at McDonald's.

Many educated Arabs, as much as they would like to see Saddam rot in hell, see America's victory as little more than historical humiliation. They are reminded of 1798 when, after a centuries-long period of Islamic glory, Napoleon broke into their world with superior weapons and a show of Western superiority; of 1916 when, under the secret Anglo-French Sykes-Picot treaty, the Middle East was arbitrarily torn apart and carved up by the two colonial powers; and of the year 1967, when Israel, the neighboring state that had been forced upon them, dealt a devastating blow on the Egyptians and Syrians. Arabs look to America and see, especially in the wake of the terrorist attacks on the Twin Towers, that they are viewed with contempt and mistrust. They believe that the USA holds them collectively responsible for something under which they themselves suffer in their own countries, something to which they, for the most part, are vehemently opposed.

The Arab world's intellectuals are ashamed of their own helplessness. They lament the crippling of their societies and the nepotism of their autocratic rulers. The wave of democratization in Eastern Europe has not swept into their world, and this is most certainly due to the fact that an extreme interpretation of Islam, such as the Wahhabism practiced in Saudi Arabia, makes any enlightenment or emergence of Muslim reformers in the style of Martin Luther unthinkable. But even their economic performance falls consistently behind global standards. Inter-Arab trade, a potential motor for development, makes up barely ten percent of total foreign trade in these countries. Egypt, Syria and Yemen only surpass other countries in terms of population growth and global corruption statistics. In a recent speech in Cairo, French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin implored his audience to consider that "there simply cannot be a fundamental contradiction between progress and Islam, between the modern and the Arab world." His audience clapped enthusiastically. However, Arab self-doubt has rarely turned into self-criticism.

A few commentators from the Middle East seem to have adopted the notion that the current Iraq crisis could also be an opportunity. "We will continue to lick our wounds for some time," said political scientist Abd al-Chalik in Dubai. "But then we will realize that the fall of Baghdad is not the fall of the Arab world, but simply that of the repressive machinery of a dictatorship." In an editorial, the Lebanese newspaper "Daily Star" commented as follows: "Our governments are led by the elite, by those who have no interest in the problems of their people. This is a disgrace, and we must change this!" And Egyptian analyst Mohammed Saïd complains: "Notwithstanding all our criticism of Bush, we can no longer use the West as a clothes hanger to hang up our dirty laundry." But where is the road to democracy, what is the fastest route, the Orient Express, so to speak? And is the American model simply transferable, or is not possible that religion and region could apply their own stamp to the Jefferson-Washington model?

For every Arab intellectual who believes the Americans in their assertions of wanting to promote future self-determination of the people of the Middle East, there are certainly hundreds who distrust Washington. Democracy in this region has never been an American priority. Until now, Bush & Co. has had excellent cooperative relationships with authoritarian regimes from Riyadh to Cairo, and even, for many years, with Saddam Hussein. Arab opinion leaders believe that a few basic conditions must be met to ensure that Saddam's deposal will have a positive domino effect in the Middle East. In their view, Washington should quickly transfer the central role in Baghdad to the UN, and it should deposit oil revenues into a trust administered by the global community, so as to eliminate the suspicion that the purpose of America's war has been to exploit natural resources and gain access to military bases. Instead, the Arabs see that the man issuing orders in Baghdad is Jay Garner, a retired general with strong connections to the US weapons industry and to the right wing of the Israeli Likud party, and whose most memorable statement to date is: "If George W. Bush had been our president at the time of the Vietnam War, we would also have won that war."

The Americans face a dilemma. If they withdraw quickly, they will leave behind a country in chaos. If they remain in Iraq longer than six months, the Arab world will feel justified in its prejudicial view that Washington's true interest lies in establishing a puppet regime. The Middle East is also responding with indignation to provocative threats against Syria and Iran. Even critics of the systems in these countries find intolerable the notion that the US military may be planning further attacks. In fact, such plans may even jeopardize the democracy movement in Teheran, which has emerged as a result of conditions specific to Iran.

Progress in the Middle East hinges on the Palestinian problem. For decades, Arab intellectuals of every stripe have criticized Washington's one-sided, pro-Israeli policies and its application of a double standard. The Americans, themselves so outraged by France' threatened veto of an Iraq war resolution, have used their own veto more than 30 times to prevent condemnation of Israel's policy of occupation. Decisive improvements on the Palestinian issue can only occur once the "roadmap" in the direction of a Palestinian state has been publicized and, more importantly, put into action. In the Arab view, the key condition is that the Palestinians should not be the only ones asked to make commitments, such as to taking decisive action against terrorist groups. Commitments should also be demanded of the Israelis, such as to an immediate moratorium on settlements, as well as the dismantling of its bases in West Jordan, which are in violation of international law.

Even if all this occurs, democracy will not simply descend upon the Arab world like manna from heaven, and it will not be a US-style democracy. It is by no means racist to address cultural differences between the Christian West and the Muslim Orient, and to incorporate these differences into representative models of government. Islam must not necessarily stand in the way of a pluralistic society. There are even verses in the Koran that call for co-determination, and nowhere does the Koran explicitly call for a religious state (a view, of course, not held by Islamists). This has little in common with the American electoral motto of "winner takes all," and not even with the Anglo-Saxon view that when one candidates wins an election with 51 percent of the vote, the remaining votes become irrelevant. The root of the Arab word for government ("hukuma") is a word that also denotes wisdom ("hikma"). Historically, the ruler is an individual who guarantees justice in a consensus with religious precepts. The complete separation of church and state, a cornerstone of Western democracies (which, incidentally, should also apply in the land of the born-again Christian Bushists), remains essentially a remote goal in the Middle East.

In an interview with Der Spiegel, Moroccan author Tahar Ben Jelloun calls the US promise of a "model democracy" for Iraq "pure fantasy; a web of lies, ignorance and propaganda." Nonetheless, some of the conditions for positive development already exist in Iraq. The older generation is well-educated, and the memory of at least the beginnings of a pluralistic era probably hasn't faded entirely. And the country's wealth of natural resources could be used to fund reconstruction. Of central importance for the Iraqi people, at least initially, are a functioning administration, police and courts, the formation of a "truth commission" to process past crimes, and a free press. A flourishing economy based on a transparent legal system is a much higher priority than quick elections. In tribal societies that have been liberated from tyranny, but which lack a tradition of pluralism, votes are generally cast according to ethnic or religious affiliations, which can tear apart a nation. But access to the polls is also a fundamental right. In the event that an extreme Shiite group prevails in fair and free elections, perhaps at the end of next year, Washington should not intervene. After all, there is a risk to non-manipulated elections: They do not always turn out according to one's wishes.

Sometimes, as in the case of Iran or Algerian regional elections, the pendulum swings back against the Islamists. They too can be caught in the democracy trap. The people of the Middle East, like people everywhere, are not interested in relinquishing their rights under Taliban-like regimes. At present, the trend seems to be moving away from the Islamists in such countries as Algeria and Egypt, but not necessarily in the direction of Western democracy. Pan-Arab movements are becoming increasingly popular. In this turbulent, angry, but hopeful region, things are in an historically unprecedented state of flux.