WASHINGTON — Over 60 dramatic hours ending Monday, events in the Middle East highlighted both the hopes and risks of change in the region as the Bush administration pursues its agenda of reform.
In Lebanon, an unpopular, Syrian-backed government was brought down by pressure from the streets. In Egypt, the head of a one-party state loosened his decades-old grip on power by announcing plans for multiparty elections. And in Syria, an authoritarian regime handed over Saddam Hussein's half-brother to Iraqi authorities.
Within the administration, the developments were quietly hailed as signals that the president's vision to spread democracy in the Middle East was not naive and misguided, as critics had said, but an idea Arabs genuinely wanted to embrace.
Despite this windfall of good news, however, Middle East specialists inside and outside the administration remained cautious.
"I've been working on the Middle East too long to be crowing from the rooftops that we've won," a senior State Department official said.
If any proof for that prudence were needed, it appeared early Monday in Iraq, when a suicide car bombing south of Baghdad left at least 115 people dead and about as many wounded in one of the deadliest attacks since the U.S.-led invasion in March 2003. William Quandt, a White House advisor in the Carter administration during the late 1970s -- also a time of hope for the region -- said he was heartened by the sight of thousands of Lebanese taking to the streets of Beirut to demand free elections and the withdrawal of Syrian forces from their soil. But he added: "It's unsure where this will lead."
The largest, best-organized opposition group in the country, he noted, was the Shiite Muslim militant group Hezbollah. The organization is strenuously anti-American, yet an important player in Lebanese politics. As a major supplier of social services to the country's large Shiite population, Hezbollah would probably poll well in free elections.
In Egypt, President Hosni Mubarak's decision to allow his country's first direct, multiparty presidential election this year could also complicate the U.S. agenda in the region, even though a senior administration official Monday called it a "positive and welcome step."
A truly democratic election in Egypt could result in major gains for hard-line groups, including the banned Muslim Brotherhood, also strongly anti-American, some specialists argue. Backers of Bush's efforts to spread democracy in the region counter that strengthening radical groups is a risk the U.S. must be willing to take.
