Editorial: Democracy’s march

Thursday, March 10, 2005 | 9:22 a.m.

The yearning for freedom and democracy that has arisen in the Middle East is remarkable, especially when you consider its acceleration has developed in just a couple of months' time. Shortly after the new year, Mahmoud Abbas, a moderate, was elected president of the Palestinian Authority, succeeding Yasser Arafat. It's inconceivable that if Arafat, a terrorist leader, were still alive today that serious peace negotiations, which are under way between Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, would be happening now. Then, at the end of January, there were elections in Iraq, as millions braved the threat of attacks by insurgents and cast their votes to start the process of establishing a constitution and electing a new government. And late in February, after a Lebanese political and business leader, who opposed Syrian troops in his country, was killed b y a suicide bomber, tens of thousands of Lebanese took to the streets and called for Syrian occupation to end. In response,! the Syrian government has said it will withdraw its troops from Lebanon.

Still, even with these history-making advances, there have been setbacks. Palestinian terrorists have tried to scuttle peace talks through attacks against Israelis. The violence in Iraq has increased since the election, as terrorists there try to derail the nascent government. In Lebanon, the terrorist group Hezbollah staged a massive rally this week (dwarfing that of the previous anti-Syria demonstrations) and proclaimed its loyalty to Syria's president. The situation in Lebanon, which experienced a civil war from 1975 to 1990, will be tense for some time.

It's tough to know what will happen in the near term in the Middle East, a region -- with the exception of democratic Israel -- that has been ruled by dictators, strongmen or colonizing European powers for centuries. It's very possible that this stirring of democracy, which President Bush has championed, could be suppressed temporarily by violence and oppression. But if history is any guide, once people breathe in freedom -- no matter where they live in the world -- its power ultimately will overwhelm that of tyranny.