"HeyBub" wrote in message
m...
Scott Lurndal wrote:

I guess I'm a bit of a pessimist on the issue. The "factors" of
discontent in that middle east are driven by religious fanatics who
cannot face the fact that it is that religion that's keeping them in
the

Do you have any scholarly cites for this, or is this just your
opinion?

There's the empirical evidence. Of the 50-odd predominately Muslim
countries in the world, only two (Malaysia and Turkey) are democracies
(maybe Iraq). The rest are monarchies (Morocco), theocracies (Iran),
oligarchies (Egypt), thugocracies (Lybia), or out-and-out anarchies
(Sudan, Somalia).



Really? .......... How about:

Indonesia - the worlds largest muslim population (88% of 245 million) -
democracy

Pakistan - the worlds second largest muslim population (97% of 165
million) - democracy

Your "empirical evidence" looks a little shaky to me.