&gt; It&#x27;s an entirely Western colonist idea that poor people in developing countries can&#x27;t handle democracy and therefore have to accept dictatorships (which just happen to align with Western interests).<p>Look, <i>no one</i> is able to &quot;handle democracy&quot; before being prepared for this. Isn&#x27;t this obvious? Even the Tsar Peter the Great, who wanted to modernize Russia, went and for a couple of years studied technical skills in Holland (IIRC - I may be wrong on all the details here...) instead of simply saying &quot;let&#x27;s make our shipyards modern! now!&quot;.<p>I never said that the societies in the Middle East can&#x27;t <i>ever</i> do democracy. I just said that if they tried <i>right now</i> the results wouldn&#x27;t be pretty. Give them another two or three decades of successive education and liberalization and they will be able to build a modern, well-functioning democracy overnight!