This was in Sunday’s LA Times from Joshua Muravchik:

Violence will keep many Iraqis from the polls. Fatah’s presidential candidate, Mahmoud Abbas, will not face any serious challengers. Syrian occupiers will keep a majority of Lebanon’s legislators in their pocket. Saudi municipal councils will remain half-appointed, and women may not be allowed to participate in voting to fill the other half. But the skeptics are too cavalier. The sudden plethora of elections signifies a gathering momentum for the idea of popular sovereignty and a corresponding delegitimization of the various rationalizations for authoritarianism — heredity, national unity, divine will and the like.
The hoariest excuse for Arab dictatorship has been the need for an iron fist as long as the Arab nation is under challenge. We can’t risk reform while Israel occupies Palestinian land, they have said, an excuse that has carried weight despite its illogic. But even the most passionate Arab nationalist will see its hollowness if the Palestinians themselves, although not yet a state, are conducting politics by democratic methods.
And won’t it be humiliating if the Iraqis under occupation select their own government while other Arabs, untouched by foreign domination, aren’t permitted to do so?
Sure, the elections result from pressures, foreign and domestic. But the people bringing the pressure aren’t going to be satisfied with empty rituals. 2005 will be the year of Arab voting and perhaps, as well, of the birth pangs of Arab democracy.