I just spat my drink out through my nose, or would have if I’d been drinking, when I came across this subtitle at Reason: Palestine, not Iraq, is the best shot at an Arab democracy. I suppose in part that’s because I was recently planning on using the same comparison to make the point that externally imposing democracy is more likely to succeed than, well, anything at all in Palestine.

After running through the usual pie in the sky hopes naive liberals commonly hold of a peaceful Palestinian people laying down their arms and taking up democratic politics, or at the very least living under “one authority, one law, and one gun,” Jonathan Rauch proceeds to a tired and error-riddled analysis of Iraq. Ignoring all the lesser idiocies, he concludes with this astounding statement:

Above all, there is this: If a successful democracy emerges in Palestine, it will not be at the point of an American gun. In the very shadow of Jerusalem, an Arab people will have found their own path to democracy, and the government’s legitimacy will be unassailable.

So, then, those democracies in Germany, in Japan, in France, and so on — they’re assailable? Somebody should tell them, although I suppose it’s too late to bring back their respective Saddams from retirement.

Anyway, Mr. Rauch, if you sincerely believe the tripe about imperial American democracy, then let’s make a bet: by whatever plausible measure, Iraq’s democracy will advance far more rapidly than Palestine’s. I’ll bet that Iraq will hold more elections (generally agreed to be fair), or will have a higher per capita income, or will have more independent news sources, or will have more Christians and Jews and atheists living openly, or will be more democratic than Palestine by any other reasonable measure in 1 year, 3 years, 5 years, etc., etc.