Majority reports
Readers might be interested in this commentary of mine written for Saturday's Daily Star, the theme of which is how the Bush administration's policies in Iraq, which appear to be focused on creating pro-American form majority Shiite rule, might affect other countries in the Middle East where "where minorities lord it over majorities or majorities abuse minorities."

As one alternative to consider I propose the Lebanese model, which, for all its shortcomings, has imposed a consensual power-sharing arrangement between the different communities (one which, surprisingly, survived Lebanon's civil war), in the context of a fairly open and democratic society--albeit one, again, that is often imperfect.

In many ways that's a central question of this website: what types of systems can Arab countries adopt that offer their people political, economic and cultural freedom and economic prosperity, free of overbearing states that stifle innovation.