“To promote peace and stability in the broader Middle East, the United States will work with our friends in the region to fight the common threat of terror, while we encourage a higher standard of freedom. Hopeful reform is already taking hold in an arc from Morocco to Jordan to Bahrain. The government of Saudi Arabia can demonstrate its leadership in the region by expanding the role of its people in determining their future. And the great and proud nation of Egypt, which showed the way toward peace in the Middle East, can now show the way toward democracy in the Middle East.”

- President Bush during the 2005 State of the Union

It is no coincidence that following President Bush urging Egypt to move more towards Democracy that Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak today announced Egypt will allow presidential challengers to his position.

An open election has long been a demand of the opposition but was repeatedly rejected by the ruling party, with Mubarak only last month dismissing calls for reform as “futile.”

The sudden shift was the first sign from the key U.S. ally that it was ready to participate in the democratic evolution in the Middle East, particularly historic elections in Iraq and the Palestinian territories. Mubarak’s government has faced increasingly vocal opposition at home and growing friction with the United States over the lack of reform.

“We have moved a mountain,” said Rifaat el-Said, leader of the opposition Tagammu party. “This should open the gate for other democratic reforms.”

Freedom is on the march in the Middle East. Egypt’s opening towards further democratic reform is just the latest sign of a new-found mindset.

This is clearly a historical time period for the Middle East. In the past four years alone, we have witnessed three new democracies (Palestine, Iraq and Afghanistan), a former terrorist state give up their WMD program (Libya) and democratic ferver spreading throughout the region. There are still countries resisting such changes, Iran and Syria, but make no mistake about it, freedom is on the march.

The Politicker linked with Freedom Is On The March