Flames of Redemption.(Iraq and the Middle East)(Brief Article)

One of your endearing qualities is your impatience," a suave and influential Saudi told some U.S. academics last week. But the Arabs are different from Americans, he warned. Arab leaders know what fragile old mosaics their societies really are. If one--say, Iraq--is shattered, others could crumble. So, is the United States ready to occupy Iraq to avert such chaos? "Does America have the staying power?" the Saudi asked. "Your history is that you don't." The essential message: only fools rush in where Arab leaders fear to tread; the invasion of Iraq could be the end of the Arab world as we know it.

"Good," say many young Arabs, and not just the firebrands. For them the question is not if their stagnant, stifling regimes can survive a war in Iraq, but whether they should. "America invades and everything falls apart? So what?" says a successful entrepreneur in Jordan, which is Iraq's most vulnerable neighbor. "Maybe things would be worse, but at least they'd be different."

This is not to say that President George W. Bush really hopes for dramatic change. He talks about reform for the Arab world, but like his father he's basically a sucker for the status quo. Although his administration is hosting seminars meant to foster more democratic government "The Day After" in Baghdad, all bets are off if there's a pre-invasion coup. Almost any other dictator, any un-Saddam, would be recognized "in a heartbeat," says one U.S. official.

Still, the cards may yet be thrown in the air. "I think the shaky regimes are going to go," Jordan's Prince Hassan bin Talal told NEWSWEEK even before the buildup for war with Iraq had begun. "I think we're on the eve of a new map of the region. Is it going to be a state system? Ethnic? Or tribal? Balkanization? Something outside international norms?" What is certain, said the onetime heir to Jordan's throne, is that "Arabs have been humiliated and marginalized by their own governments." The regimes have tended to make and break laws to suit their interests, even their whims. And democracy? "Everything is ad-hocracy," said Hassan.

If the tremors of change begin in earnest, there's little to hold Arab regimes together. From Algeria to Egypt to Saudi Arabia, the pillars of authority are much the same: a remorseless security apparatus, Muslim preachers who are pliable (or on the government payroll) and narrow tribal loyalties. The sum of these parts is not a ...