It’s not all Communist dictators in the New York Times today: there’s an interesting piece by Thomas Friedman (writing from Cairo), which is well worth a look, not least for Friedman’s view on how the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is complicating progress in the wider region.

Friedman doesn’t claim to have the answer as to how to resolve the current impasse (who does?) and it is clear that he sees how the conflict is often used as a device to enable the Arab world to avoid resolving its own massive and, all too frequently, self-imposed difficulties. Nevertheless, he concludes as follows:

“I am convinced that much of the anger over U.S. policy is really a cry of help from people who know what they have to do — to democratize, liberalize their economies — and who know that they will be lost for another 50 years if they don’t, but can’t do it because these ideas are promoted by a power they feel is indifferent to their deepest hurt.”

“I am not talking about what is right, or what is fair, or even what is rational. I am talking about what is. And if we ignore it, if we dismiss it all as a fraud, we will never fully harvest the positive changes that could come from regime change in Iraq. The Egyptian playwright Ali Salem says: “We have an Egyptian proverb: `The drunk is in the care of the sober.’ You are the sober. Don’t forget that.””