Ah, for the halcyon days of the Middle East in early 2005. Purple fingers were in the air in Iraq. Attractive Christian youth in Beirut’s Firdos Square were driving the Syrians out of Lebanon. Autocrats throughout the region felt the need to at least pay lip service to the idea of democratic reform, to the point where Newsweek could run a piece explaining “Where Bush Was Right.”
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://talkingpointsmemo.com/?p=181553