What needs to be done for the economies of the Middle East countries?
I did chair the Council on Foreign Relations Group on the Middle East. I pointed out that in the whole area from Turkey around to Morocco, with the exception of Israel, it was a very negative economic picture going back to World War II and the period after. For example, Egypt had a GDP similar to Korea back then but today Korea has a GDP six times greater than Egypt. A lot of this is due to a real lack of liberalization of the economies of the Middle East and North Africa. There is a failure to deal with issues dealing with cronyism in economic affairs and over regulation and corruption. These are major issues that need to be addressed. The main answer to the economic malaise and developing growth has to be domestically driven within these economies by political action. It is not primarily an external problem. Do you see, as a result of the large turnout to vote in Iraq, that democracy has a chance of growing and succeeding in the Middle East? I would hope that a growth in democracy in
