Two views on how the wind is blowing in the Middle East after the Iraqi elections

Richard Cohen in the Washington Post says that there are unmistakeable signs of change and surveys these from Saudi to Egypt: “Even in Syria, the regime -- maybe the region's most goonish -- has recently showed signs of accommodation. It first announced that it would someday pull its troops out of Lebanon (just not yet, if you please) and then arrested Saddam Hussein's half-brother, Sabawi Ibrahim Hassan, and 29 other desperados who allegedly have been financing and directing the insurgency in their native Iraq.” But his conclusion contains a warning that celebration may be premature for the change may not be what we expect. The intrepid New York Times writer Thomas Friedman concedes that “America has treated the Arab-Muslim states for 50 years as a collection of gas stations” but is more hopeful that Arab-Muslim youth want real change and he profiles Irshad Manji whose book "The Trouble With Islam Today," and her web site www.muslim-refusenik.com call for a reformation of Islam: "There's no bigger idea for the Muslim world today - and consequently for all of us - than reopening the gates of independent thinking, or 'ijtihad,' " she said. "That's the main point of my book - to show that Islam once had a pluralistic tradition of critical debate and dissent, and that we Muslims need to rediscover this tradition to update Islam for the 21st century. That's not being radical. That's being faithful."