I was recently privileged to spend two weeks in and around Cairo, and I started to daydream a bit. Someday, could Iraq look like Egypt? A stable country, with a solid middle class, a tourist industry?
It's not the perfect analogy to strive for - an authoritarian government, pollution, overpopulation. But it makes you wonder why some of the other functioning Arab nations aren't doing more to support the government of Iraq. When you look at UAE, Qatar, or Bahrain - they aren't such bad places.
It almost brings back to mind the origins of the European Union...start small, with something like the European Coal and Steel Communityh, and expand slowly from there. It seems like Arabs from functioning societies such as Egypt, Bahrain, UAE and Qatar could do more to stabilize Iraq than we ever might.
