A tale of three cities.

• Author: Thomson, John R.
• Position: Kabul, Beirut, Cairo

THE WORLD watches as resident Bush relentlessly promotes democracy in the turbulent Middle East and Central Asia. Criticisms vary: Democracy is a confection of the West; Islam is in fundamental conflict with democracy; and most repugnant (and semi-racist), Arabs are unprepared for democracy. But in a journey to three Arab and Central Asia capitals, I found democracy developing at a dramatic pace. In Kabul, Beirut and Cairo, leaders and masses alike earnestly seek something better. The real regional debate, Arab and non-Arab, urban and rural, is not whether democracy but what form of democracy.

Few serious commentators favor rigid rule by monarch, military or mullah. Some put forth a vague form of governance wherein Allah perfectly instructs worldly leaders and followers alike, and a few others wrap themselves in theocratic, "Islamist" political garb to selfishly grasp corrupt control of governments from Tehran, Islamabad and Kabul to Algiers, Tripoli and Cairo. But the lack of progress throughout the entire region has proved to all but the most stubborn that another, yes, foreign form of government--democracy-is the best option to try.

Kabul: It's About Time

THREE AND a half years after liberation by the United States, there is an air of expectancy in the Afghan capital and throughout the country as it prepares for September's parliamentary elections. The elections will cap four steps agreed to in late 2001 at a unique conference in Bonn that included representatives from every sector of Afghan society. An Emergency Loya Jirga and subsequent Constitutional Loya Jirga were followed by presidential elections last October. Parliamentary elections complete a remarkably determined exercise by formerly fractious Pashtun, Tajik, Hazara and Uzbek ethnic groups, Sunni and Shi'a Muslims, and innumerable lesser tribes and sects.

Afghanistan's democratic development has experienced numerous inter-party vendettas, often settled by assassination, but enormous political progress is undeniable. The reason, according to a resident diplomat: U.S. strength and generosity, combined with Afghans' fierce, resolute will. "The Afghans have fire in their hearts", he says admiringly, "for getting it right and for creating democracy."

It takes raw determination and enormous political aptitude to run Afghanistan. Detractors notwithstanding, President Hamid Karzai has demonstrated both. Mullawy Abdul Rahman, formerly Taliban security chief of Kabul, barely hides his disdain for what he terms Karzai's "naivety" and "indecisiveness." Yet Abdul Rahman is one of four former Taliban leaders running for parliamentary seats as a direct result of Karzai's determination to provide a climate where all views are represented.

Other criticisms abound. A senior sub-cabinet member considers Karzai slow to make decisions, citing a six-month delay in giving Ismail Khan, former warlord and governor of Herat province, a ministerial post, removing him from his comfortable fiefdom, where he created what many consider the country's most attractive, efficient and corrupt city, Herat. Yet Zaid Haidary, a member of the Emergency and Constitutional Loya Jirgas, faults the president for impatiently going around fellow Afghan-American and Minister of the Interior Ali Jalali, in naming governors, considered a prerogative of the Interior Ministry.

Returning Afghan refugees, especially those with long experience in the West, bring much needed expertise to their mother country. Nearly thirty years of abysmal education and economics have left a generation of Afghans unprepared to build a modern nation. What the 24 million natives who did not leave have in abundance, however, is a steely determination to support--and defend--the creation of the foreign concept called democracy.

First Deputy Minister of Defense Yusuf Nuristani, educated in the United States and holder of dual passports, sees the situation as "a symbiotic relationship, although sometimes, of course, there are issues." Nuristani takes justifiable pride in serving as director of the International Foundation of Hope while in America. "The foundation created the largest nursery in the country", he noted when we discussed the country's rampant deforestation and urgent need for alternatives to poppy farming, "with two million fruit trees that can be a major source of alter native livelihoods for poppy farmers."

Multiple voices were raised during my visit, complaining that the government must move faster against the poppy scourge and the attendant corruption of officials. As Afghanistan accounts for 90 percent of heroin production worldwide, the criticism makes superficial sense, until one considers the enormous challenge of replacing the narcotics industry (representing 60 percent of Afghanistan's GDP) without strangling the struggling economy, creating mass starvation and fomenting open rebellion.

Poppies are grown by more than 80 percent of Afghan farmers, who comprise 80 percent of the population. Eradicating poppy cultivation and introducing alternative pursuits will clearly take time. Yet...