Many (most/all?) of these Middle Eastern states are authoritarian (Syrian/Iraq), theocratic (Iran), monarchistic (Saudi Arabia/ Jordon) or semi-authoritarian with a democratic patina (Egypt/Kuwait). Only Turkey is arguably democratic and relatively stable. Turkey is a secular democracy guaranteed by a strong military. Turkey got that way only after some extremely harsh history, viz. disintegration and collapse of the Ottoman Empire resulting from World War I. The Ottoman Empire was a 500 year old theocracy that was utterly rotten to it's core. The modern Turkish political model has been attempted unsuccessfully by other Middle Eastern states, i.e. Egypt, Syria and Iraq. I don't think the Turkish political model will work unless the recipient country goes through the whole cycle of disintegration and collapse thus invalidating the theocratic option. This means that much of the Middle East will have to go through disintegration and collapse (presumably as theocracies) before they are ready to adopt a Turkish style democracy. It is my understanding that many of these Middle Eastern authoritarian regimes are hanging on by their finger nails, i.e. Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, etc. The populace of many of these countries have been radicalized by Islamic fundamentalism. The people in power have to walk a tight rope in terms of their relationship with the U.S., i.e. support the U.S. antiterrorist coalition thus avoiding American/European rath but risk a local popular uprising by doing so. There is a very real risk of a domino effect, i.e. a popular radical Islamic uprising in Saudi Arabia, followed by Pakistan, etc. There are disturbing parallels between the current situation in the Middle East and the situation in Europe just prior to World War I. World War I was triggered by a single fanatic murdering the Archduke of Austria thus triggering a domino effect. We can't build a wall around the Middle East and walk away. As we have seen, for various reasons they'll sneak into our coutry and murder our people. Besides we need their oil. We could conquer the whole sorry outfit and put it under a military governor. However that would mean killing a bunch of people (millions?). We'd probably have to use scorched earth tactics with nukes, germs, gas, etc. We could easy turn into first class bastards if we follow that path. This is very scary stuff.

Gary