The Arab democratic movement cannot yet be dismissed as a sham or failure

Evidence

It is, to say the least, a plausible hypothesis. It has been true in the past, and it may prove true in the future. But it is too soon to dismiss the Arab democratic movement as a sham or a failure, and there are many signs of a new interest in freedom, and a new understanding of what it means. — Bernard Lewis, From Babel to Dragomans, 1731

Categorization

• XREF: Relevant to debates over Western ‘cynical accomplices’ of autocrats (hypothesis 1734) and the post-9/11 democracy-promotion question.