The Middle East/Arab countries are special when it comes to democracy!
"... In the Middle East, democracy often means not freedom or prosperity, but instability, civil war, and suffering. The collapse of regimes in Iraq, Syria, Libya, and Yemen led not to flourishing democracies, but to bloodshed, sectarianism, and humanitarian disaster. The Arab Spring, once celebrated as a democratic awakening, mostly left behind failed states and stronger autocracies.
Meanwhile, the Gulf monarchies—Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Oman, Kuwait—have delivered relative stability, economic growth, and rising living standards without adopting liberal democracy. Even non-oil monarchies like Jordan and Morocco have provided more stable governance than their republican neighbors.
To many in the Middle East, democracy is not an abstract ideal. It is associated with civil collapse. People prize security and opportunity far more than abstract political freedoms, especially when "freedom" appears to bring chaos.
This does not mean Arabs are somehow anti-democratic. It means that in societies where institutions are weak, divisions are deep, and external interventions are common, the democratic experiment is fraught with dangers too often ignored by idealistic outsiders.
Western policymakers chronically underestimate how traumatic the past two decades have been for the region. "Democracy promotion," regime-change wars, and political experiments have left deep scars. For many Middle Easterners, a flawed but functioning government is preferable to the gamble of a sudden democratic transition. ..."
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