Robert Fisk on democracy in Iraq. Fisk addresses one of the things his critics often accuse him of — bigotry against Arabs:

The moment we suggest that Iraq never was fertile soil for Western democracy, we get accused of being racists. Do we think the Arabs are incapable of producing democracy, we are asked? Do we think they are subhuman?

He goes on to answer it here:

Now there are a lot of Arabs who would like a bit of this precious substance called democracy. Indeed, when they emigrate to the West and settle down with US or British or French or any other Western passport, they show the same aptitude as ourselves for “democracy”. The Iraqis of Dearborn, Michigan, are like any other Americans, and they vote – largely Democrat – and play and work like any other freedom-loving US citizens. So there’s nothing genetic about the Arab world’s inability to seize democracy.

The problem is not the people. The problem is the environment, the make-up of the patriarchal society and – most important of all – the artificial states which we created for them. They do not and cannot produce democracy. The dictators we paid and armed and stroked ruled by torture and by tribe. Faced with nations which they in many cases did not believe in, the Arab peoples had confidence only in their tribes.

He continues further, but you get the point.