Ranking Political Freedom in the Middle East
The BBC has an interesting piece: The Economist Intelligence Unit has just published its Index of Political Freedom, a ranking of 20 Middle Eastern countries, based on 15 different indicators of political freedom and civil liberty.
The results may surprise you. Here are the top 5:
- Israel
- Lebanon
- Morocco
- Iraq
- Palestine
Sounds like good news to me! The element of "surprise" is pointed out even by the BBC, which notes rather pedantically:
There is a wide range of democratisation across the Middle East, a survey by a leading research and advisory firm has found. . . . Though there are few surprises at the bottom of the table, the top five may raise eyebrows. It contains three of the most volatile parts of the region: Lebanon, the Palestinian Territories and Iraq. BBC Middle East analyst Roger Hardy says there is unquestionably a new mood in the region, but progress has been uneven. Lebanon is free in a very particular sense: it is no longer under military occupation. Most Palestinians do not enjoy that freedom, and yet they have just had local elections and are preparing for parliamentary ones in January, our correspondent says. As for Iraq, its high score is a bit surprising, given the level of violence there, our correspondent says. Iraqis no long live under a dictatorship and now have plenty of publications and political parties to choose from. |
Nobody is saying the obvious, though: that democracy and freedom in the Middle East are not only possible, but capable of growing. A likewise obvious fact is that if not for the controversial American action in Iraq, that nation would assuredly still be under dictatorship and nowhere near the top 5 in this ranking.