Commentary’s 60th anniversary symposium on the Bush Doctrine includes these thoughts from the redoubtable Reuel Marc Gerecht:
Are Muslim democracies that restrict women’s social rights in practice morally superior to Muslim dictatorships that advance them in theory? I think the answer is an emphatic yes, but the administration has so far shown little desire to argue this possibility, thereby allowing the New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd to suggest that Saddam Hussein, who was the first Middle Eastern dictator to institute rape as an official means of mind control, was more pro-woman than the democratically sanctioned constituent assembly that drafted Iraq’s proposed constitution. Women’s rights are a hot-button issue in the United States. It would be wise for the administration to explain how it intends to handle this issue in the socially conservative Middle East.
We’ll come face-to-face with that test sooner or later. The blogosphere, still a very male environment, needs to get some answers ready too.
Comments