Winds Of Freedom In The Mideast

CBS' Tom Fenton On A Ripple Effect Of Images & Events

(CBS)  Tom Fenton covered the major news events in Europe, the Middle East, Russia and Africa during his 34-year career as a CBS News correspondent. He writes about world affairs from his Listening Post in London and other locations around the world.

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A week ago, I wrote that something is in the air in the Middle East. Now, with the latest events in Lebanon, it is clear that the winds of freedom are gathering strength. And whether America's Arab and European critics like it or not, much of the credit for this dramatic change must go to the Bush Administration's determination to spread democracy to a part of the world that has never known the real thing.

Of course there are other factors. The death of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat made possible free and fair elections in the Israeli occupied territories. The assassination (presumably by Syria) of the popular Lebanese politician Rafik Hariri, sparked a grass roots revolt in Beirut. The relatively new phenomenon of independent Arab satellite television is also playing a major role

The American invasion of Iraq, which swept away the repressive regime of Saddam Hussein, was the initial catalyst. Although the aftermath was costly in both American and Iraqi lives, the Election Day images of Iraqis flashing their ink-stained fingers sent shock waves throughout the Arab world.

One of Lebanon's leading politicians, Walid Jumblatt, called the Iraqi elections the Arab equivalent of the fall of the Berlin Wall. If millions of Iraqis could vote for their future in the midst of a bloody insurgency, millions of Arabs in other countries that are peaceful and technically free began to ask why they, too, could not have real elections.

All the more so, now that the Arab satellite channels are broadcasting pictures of young Lebanese waving flags and making "V for victory" gestures in Beirut's Martyrs Square. The rest of the Arab world has watched with amazement as a spontaneous grass roots movement brought down an unpopular government that had been imposed by neighboring Syria. This, too, is heady stuff.

Authoritarian Arab leaders - clinging to power through control of the media and repression of dissent - are now feeling pressure from within and without. Anti-government demonstrations have been held in the streets of Cairo. President Mubarak is beginning to feel the heat and has opened the door for multi-candidate presidential elections.

President Bush has been encouraging all of these developments: by quiet diplomacy in the case of Egypt, and by more muscular public pronouncements in the case of Syria. Even Saudi Arabia, one of the least democratic regimes in the region, has been enlisted in the cause, helping to put pressure on Syria, and opening up its own country to a few baby steps towards democracy.

The Syrian regime now sees itself as Washington's next target. Bashir Assad, whose grip on power was already unsteady, is under intense pressure from both the U.S. and France (Syria's former colonial master) to pull out the Syrian troops that have occupied Lebanon since1976. He has agreed to eventually remove them, but the timetable is still vague.

Things could still go horribly wrong (and indeed usually do) in the Middle East.

Iraq's insurgency and factional infighting could derail that country's efforts to build a stable state. Lifting the lid in Egypt could release a resurgence of Muslim radicalism. Lebanon could relapse into civil war. The Syrian regime could collapse, creating a dangerous power vacuum in a pivotal country. And Iran's race to build a nuclear deterrent could provoke a military reaction from either the United States or Israel (or both). But for the moment, things are going well for Washington.

In a speech two years ago, President Bush spoke of the "freedom gap" in the Arab world, and said, "It is presumptuous and insulting to suggest that a whole region of the world - or the one-fifth of humanity that is Muslim - is somehow untouched by the most basic aspirations of life."

At the time, many critics dismissed his grand design for the Middle East as unrealistic. It may still be a long shot, but it no longer seems impossible.