Democracy in the Islamic world is not a fantasy - it's coming soon

A century ago, a bilious political debate spluttered across the Western world about whether Catholicism was compatible with democracy. These anxieties were still so prevalent when the Catholic John Kennedy ran for the US presidency in 1960 that there were serious political rows over whether he would take private orders from the Pope. Today, these arguments sound ludicrous. Nobody sees the fact that two-and-a-half of our three party leaders are Catholic (Tony Blair seems to be half-in the Catholic church) as a disturbing development, but the debate has shifted towards Islam. Can Muslims really be democrats?

There is a significant minority in the US political élite that characterises Islam as irretrievably anti-democratic. They actively seek the "clash of civilisations" predicted by the Harvard professor Samuel Huntington. The far-right Republican commentator Ann Coulter says: "We [the US] should invade their [Muslim] countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity." The Rev Jerry Falwell – who has been praised by George Bush and Dick Cheney, and has a huge fan base – has described the Prophet Mohamed as "a terrorist" and "a paedophile" (he had a 14-year-old wife).

To his credit, President Bush has turned his back on this disturbing aspect of his political constituency. It is important to praise him on the rare occasions that he does something right. His speech to the American Enterprise Institute on Wednesday was a clarion call for a Middle East and an Islam that support democracy and freedom of speech. He explained: "The US has no intention of determining the precise form of Iraq's new government. That choice belongs to the Iraqi people. Yet we will ensure that one brutal dictator is not followed by another. All Iraqis must have a voice in the new government."

My position is that the best route to a democratic Iraq is to support the Iraqi democrats and the wishes of the Iraqi people. And their message has always been clear: overthrow Saddam – by war if he refuses to go into exile – and rebuild the country. The 5 million-strong Iraqi exile community overwhelmingly supports this route, and the evidence we have from within Iraq suggests that the people there agree. Such anti-war campaigners as George Galloway have tried to write off the exiles, who have fled their country in fear of their lives (and often endured torture), as "CIA stooges". The implication that the entire exile community has effectively sold its families (almost all of them still have relatives in Iraq), friends and country for a few dollars is so offensive that I can scarcely bring myself to respond.

The US is not doing this because of a sudden burst of altruism, but because of a new sense of enlightened self-interest. It used to believe in fostering sympathetic authoritarians in the Middle East, but now it realises that such client states have a vested interest in not educating their populations – an ignorant, illiterate people is much easier to repress. However, these bitter populations are more likely to become fundamentalist and more likely to rage against America, as the Americans have finally learnt. As Mr Bush said: "The world has a clear interest in the spread of democratic values, because stable and free nations do not breed the ideologies of murder. They encourage the peaceful pursuit of a better life."

There are some serious concerns about the structure of post-war Iraq, where, in the unlikely event of the war lasting more than a week, there will be a humanitarian crisis. It would be acceptable to retain the structure of the existing regime for a brief transitional period – but to retain it for a year, as the Americans propose, would indeed risk, in the words of one leading exile, "Baathism with an American face". This might not be sustained for long – everyone agrees that, as in Kosovo or in northern Iraq after Desert Storm, there should be a transition to civilian democracy under UN supervision within a few years – but it would still be unacceptable.

Similarly, sending Turkish troops into northern Iraq is a horrifying prospect, but, again, once the "risk" of Turkish Kurds rising up and trying to establish a Kurdish state fades, the troop presence will be unsustainable. By trying to bring Turkey into the EU – a move the British government is leading – we force it to give up the death penalty and greatly improve its human rights. A long-term occupation would not be compatible with EU membership, and the US itself has no interest in a long occupation.

If, however, Messrs Bush and Blair are lying and Iraqi democracy does not emerge in the next few years, I will still be on the side of the Iraqi democrats and will still argue for Iraqi democracy. I find it hard to believe that many of the anti-war campaigners – who are even now crusading to prevent the removal of the biggest obstacle to Iraqi democracy, Saddam Hussein – will care enough to keep up the fight. Yet we need to admit – and as as an evangelising atheist, I am not especially happy about this – that democracies that emerge in the Middle East soon must have a distinctively Islamic flavour, or there really will be resistance to the democratic project. Islamic democracy is not a contradiction in terms; indeed, it is the best way to undercut Osama bin Laden. Majority rule and respect for human rights are not incompatible with a non-fundamentalist following of the Koran.

There are two primary methods we can use to help the spread of democracy. Some Middle East regimes are amenable to pressure for democratisation; the Syrian government has been courted by Tony Blair, and, although there is still has a long way to go, it has declared amnesties for hundreds of thousands of political prisoners and begun to ease press controls. In Iran, the elected government of Mohamed Khatami is crafting a distinctly Islamic democracy, whose arguments for freedom of speech are rooted in Koranic precepts (and are being persistently blocked by ultra-conservative mullahs). In Qatar, the satellite channel al-Jazeera, a force for democratisation and accountability, has been given a base, and there is now an elected parliament with women politicians. It is simply ignorant to say that the Muslims of these countries are not capable of democracy.

But there are some authoritarian Islamic regimes that will not be pressed towards democracy, of which Saddam's is the worst. I suspect the House of Saud will prove similarly obnoxious. In these cases, we have two choices: leave their peoples to rot, or overthrow their tyrannical leaders. (Of course, it would be better for the people to overthrow their dictators, but in an efficient police state this is almost impossible.) The democratisation of Arab and Middle East countries is one of the most exciting progressive causes in the world. It is sad that so many of us, living in comfortable democracies, seem to have forgotten the great promise that democracy offers to oppressed peoples.

johann@johannhari.com