Absolutely: both Iraqis and Palestinians have a chance to escape the curse of absolutism.(The Middle East)

IN January 2005, elections are to be held in Iraq and the Palestinian Authority. There are hopes that both elections will mark a break with an unbearable tyrannical past, and throw up new leaders who will have enough legitimacy to modernize and democratize the two societies.

Every existing democracy has been through some such drama, when either peacefully or violently a people has devised the means to replace absolutism with representative government. Nothing prevents Arabs from following the many past examples of opting for democracy and institutionalizing it. Ask any Arab what form of government he would prefer, and he is virtually certain to reply, "Democracy." And what does this mean? At the very least, some sort of accountability for the leadership, and a respect for human rights.

Arab history and society, unfortunately, present a consistent record of absolutism, and there is no base on which to build democracy. On the contrary, Arab rulers have always understood that democracy and Western power go together, and have somehow to be defeated together, either by resistance or trickery. In that spirit--and as long ago as 1830--Muhammad Ali, then absolute ruler of Egypt, told the young Disraeli, who was visiting him, "I will have as many parliaments as the king of England. But I have made up my mind, to prevent inconvenience, to elect them myself."

To prevent inconvenience in his turn, Saddam Hussein was the sole candidate in presidential elections, his gunmen were out on the street, and he obtained a 100 percent vote. In 1996 Yasser Arafat arranged for an elderly schoolmistress to stand against him, his gunmen were out on the street, and he obtained 88 percent of the vote. Both absolute rulers duly claimed legitimacy. Without irony or sarcasm, all sorts of people, including successive French presidents, described Saddam and Arafat as properly elected, and humbly addressed them as "Mr. President." After Arafat's death, the U.N. flew its flag at half mast, a mark of respect it did not show President Reagan.

The respective scales and resources of Iraq and the PA are so very different that the similarities between Saddam's absolutism and Arafat's are all the more telling. Both men enriched themselves. The U.N. Oil for Food program, and other scams, gave Saddam at least $21 billion, and perhaps twice that. With the money, he bought loyalty, built palaces, and ensured the financial future of his family abroad (plus a mistress). Given his much more limited circumstances, it was a staggering feat for Arafat to skim off $3 to $5 billion from naive sponsors such as the European Union and Israeli governments blinded by the Oslo Accords. He too bought loyalty, and villas for his cronies rather than palaces for himself. Il Corriere della Sera reports that Mahmoud Abbas, a possible successor after the elections, struck a deal with Arafat's widow, Suha, whereby she is to receive $22 million a year from Arafat's secret accounts. The average annual wage in the Gaza Strip is $600.

Again, the scale was different, but Arafat's brutality was comparable to Saddam's. Both killed enemies and dissidents to the limit of their capacity, by the hundreds of thousands in Saddam's case, by the thousands in Arafat's. The late chairman's security services have killed more Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza than they have Israelis, and they have killed many times more than the Israelis have ever killed in resisting successive insurgencies. Gunmen shoot victims in broad daylight and saunter away untouched from the crime, never to be arrested. Unfortunate men are accused of collaboration with Israel, brought before a tribunal without benefit of a lawyer or witnesses, and shot or sometimes lynched. Among those tortured in prison are journalists and human-rights activists.

Finally, Saddam and Arafat equally made sure to keep would-be successors under firm control. ...