Mr. SCHIFF. Mr. Speaker, the terrorists who attacked this country on September 11 emerged from part of the world where oppression of popular will often finds its outlet in Jihadi extremism and hatred of the West, especially the United States.
Throughout much of the Muslim world, brittle, autocratic regimes jealously guard wealth and political power, while the vast majority of the citizens languish in poverty. Despite the Arab world's vast oil wealth and its rich cultural and intellectual history, the region has languished, in large part, because its leaders refused to enact the liberalizations necessary to unleash the power of hundreds of millions of people.
After the 9/11 attacks, the President and other senior administration officials vowed to ``drain the swamp'' that birthed al Qaeda and other radical Islamists. Now, after two wars, thousands of casualties and hundreds of billions of dollars, the people of the Arab and greater Muslim world are beginning to drain the swamp on their own.
Last fall, the people of Afghanistan, who only 3 years ago were suffering under the medieval yoke of the Taliban, voted in large numbers in that country's first presidential election, and later this year, they will return to the polls to select a new parliament.
In early January, the Palestinian people took concrete steps to end the Arafat era's corruption and embrace of terrorism and elected Mahmoud Abbas as their new president.
Later that month, in an inspiring acts of collective courage, millions of Iraqis defied a vicious insurgency to cast ballots for a new national assembly that will draft a constitution for a permanent Iraqi government.
In the past two weeks, we have seen the people of Lebanon respond to the savage car bombing that claimed the life of former prime minister Rafiq Hariri by peacefully calling for the restoration of Lebanese sovereignty. Lebanon's ``cedar revolution'' has already invited comparisons with Ukraine's ``orange revolution'' that swept Viktor Yuschenko into power last December.
Today, Saudi Arabians voted in the second of three regional rounds of municipal elections, the kingdom's first, and last Sunday President Mubarak of Egypt proposed a change to the Egyptian constitution that will provide for direct contested elections of president, and he urged its quick adoption so that this fall's election would be held under the new system.
Individually these developments vary in significance. The Saudi elections, for example, are open only to men, and the Egyptian reforms could end up being an effort to fend off rather than promote democracy. Collectively, however, these stirrings of democracy could be the long-awaited beginning of a seismic shift in the politics of the Muslim world. If so, our national security will be enhanced.
For too long, American foreign policy in the Middle East rested on a Faustian bargain with the ruling elites. Even as the Middle Eastern regimes presided over populations who detested them, successive American administrations provided material and political support. As long as the rulers guaranteed the continued flow of reasonably priced oil, we were willing to ignore the turmoil bubbling beneath them.
To some extent, this policy was fueled by American policy makers' belief that Arab and Islamic societies were somehow incompatible with democracy. It was also the product of a genuine fear of what democracy in the Arab world would mean for American influence in the region. The Iranian revolution of 1979 was seen as a harbinger of what could happen throughout the region if American allied regimes loosened their grip.
After 9/11 and the explosive growth of Islamic radicalism throughout the Muslim world, we have come belatedly to the realization that the best antidote for terrorism is democracy. Much of the hatred towards the United States in the Arab world is a direct consequence of our support for despotic regimes.
The administration and Congress need to continue to push our friends in the region to do more to ensure that the tentative steps that we have seen do lead to a new birth of freedom in the Muslim world.
I am particularly concerned about Egypt and its 73 million people. Egypt is the intellectual, political and cultural heart of the Arab world. It is a long-standing American ally that has played a crucial role in the search for peace between Israel and its Arab neighbors. But even as President Mubarak and the Egyptian government have shown great leadership in the quest for peace, they have dragged their heels when it comes to the political and economic reform that is crucial if Egypt is to remain a regional leader.
Recently the Egyptian government arrested Ayman Nour, the leader of a small pro-democracy party in the Egyptian parliament. Nour's arrest is widely seen as politically motivated and precipitated a decision by Secretary Rice to cancel a planned trip to Cairo this week.
I have introduced a resolution calling on Egypt to release Nour and embrace the reforms just announced by President Mubarak. As an important ally, we must not stand idly by and watch Egypt take steps that threaten not only democracy, but our own security.
Throughout the 20th Century, America fought to expand the reach of liberty and democracy, first against Nazism and fascism, and then against Soviet communism. Now with the dawn of the 21st Century, we are again faced with both the fundamental challenge to our core values and the opportunity to bring those values to millions of people. Mr. Speaker, we can and must both meet the challenge and seize the opportunity.