Response #2

Fareed Zakaria's "The Future of Freedom" and Thomas Friedman's "Petropolictics" both offer insightful views on why democracy has yet to flourish in its ideal form in the Middle East and other oil-laden countries. Friedman offers that there is a direct correlation between the ability for democracy to succeed in a country whose pockets are lined deep with oil revenues. Zakaria tends to focus more on how democracies are set up in countries, arguing that democracies can only succeed is the rule of law and constitution are set prior to elections, rather than vice-versa.
Friedman's argument begain when he noticed how a single country -- Bahrain -- was the only one to begin a full-fledged fair democracy in the middle-east. He noted the connection between it's dwindling oil supplies and revenues as contributing factors. Upon further review, nearly every other middle-eastern country had failed to support a working democracy because their oil-wealth allowed the government at hand to acheive complete control. It also allowed for a complete failure of building an otherwise sustainable economic system in the country because oil profits could trump any other neccessity. Friedman's argument really doesn't finger ethnicity or the Islamic religion as a whole because of his additional comparisons to Venezuela and African countries whose primary religion is not Islam. Friedman's conclusions on how oil affects politics and the economy do not hold an explicitly positive outlook for the future of Iraq because they are another country that benefit heavily for its massive oil supply. Iran is in the same boat because before oil prices elevated to the $40-60 range, Iran had been pushing economic reform and for a better society, but today that progress has been directly impeded by the amount of green the leaders in Tehran are seeing.
Zakaria's approach to the situation doesn't as much deal with the factor of oil in the equation as it does to the way the original structure of the government is founded. He essentially builds on Freidman's theory. Zakaria has concluded that the incorrect way to create a stable working democracy is by providing elections first and then a rule of law second. According to Zarkaria, he feels that the odds of these newly elected leaders in countries where democracy is a foreign ideal will never work because it becomes an illiberal democracy. Sure, the leaders are or were voted to office, but they have no stipulations to follow once they are there. Zakaria believes that people should draft the rule of law prior to the election of leaders because then it provides accountability and a greater understanding on how their leaders should operate within a checks and balances system. Again, Zakaria does not single out Islam or ethnicity as the primary motive as to why this order is needed in establishing government, but he rather points at human nature and instinct as to why the system does not operate efficiently. For these very reasons are why Zakaria is opposed to the way Bush has handled the situation in Iraq, and it's hard not to agree with him. The Constitution of Iraq still doesn't have a deep meaning to it's people and their leaders aren't true believers either, which coordinates to create a situation where democracy has a very slippery slope to reach the top. Iran again is the same way as there are elections, but the President in Tehran is not held to standards set forth in a democratic constitution.
It's hard to find faults in either system that Friedman and Zakaria outline because they both have real-life tangible examples of how their theory has or has not worked in the world today. I have to agree with both principles as it's very easy to realize that democracy is not happening in the countries where these situations are present, but it other countries where the Constitution took hold or the oil reserve is dwindling, practices are changing and democracy and liberalism are finding stepping stones to the top.