Old orders Crumble

In Egypt, one of Washington8217;s key allies in the Arab world, people who long took for granted President Hosni Mubarak8217;s dynastic ambitions are wondering what to make of his announcement that for the first time since he took power 24 years ago, there will be contested elections later this year.

In the Palestinian territories, a younger generation of leaders is asserting a role after a successful showdown with the grey-haired coterie that has run the Palestinian Authority for the past 12 years. It is expected to be just the start of house-cleaning of corruption-tainted officials in advance of parliamentary elections this summer.

No one is sure whether these developments augur more democracy in a region largely devoid of it, yet more turbulence, or both.

Talk of a people-power revolution sweeping the Middle East may well be exaggerated, said Michael Hudson, director of contemporary Arab studies at Georgetown University in Washington.

8220;I don8217;t know that it the region is boiling, but there are clearly reform currents and reform is in the air,8221; Hudson said. 8220;It8217;s hardly a finished story.8221;

Some officials and analysts in the Middle East and Washington attribute the political convulsions to pent-up internal forces, while others insist the developments are a result of international pressure led by the United States and President Bush8217;s call for democratic reform in the region. Most say it is a combination of both factors.

8220;Without some internal pressure for change, it of course won8217;t happen. But at the same time, there wouldn8217;t be an incentive in the Arab world to change without the pressure created by the removal of Saddam Hussein and the voting in Iraq, even if it wasn8217;t perfect,8221; says Farid el-Khazen, head of the political science department at the American University of Beirut.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice says that in particular, the Iraq elections and the anti-Syrian protests in Lebanon were a boost for democratic aspirations in the region.

8220;We are seeing in the Middle East that people are losing their fear of expressing themselves,8221; Rice said in an interview broadcast Friday on PBS. 8220;The Middle East is changing.8221;

To the extent the goal of American pressure in Iraq and elsewhere is democracy and fair elections, Sateh Nour Eddine, managing editor of the Beirut newspaper As-Safir, welcomes it.

8220;I am with American interference in our internal affairs if it is to push the democratic process. Why should I say no to Americans if their true aim is democracy?8221; Eddine said.

Yet most polls in the region show a large majority of Arabs and Muslims remain distrustful of the United States and suspicious of its motives, particularly following the invasion of Iraq.

Another catalyst for the region8217;s most recent upheavals has been death8212;in Lebanon, the February 14 assassination of former prime minister and multibillionaire tycoon Rafik Hariri by as yet unknown assailants, and in the case of the Palestinians, Yasser Arafat8217;s demise in November from still unexplained causes.

Predicting the path of democracy in the Middle East is difficult, too, because the chains that fetter democratic reform in the region differ from country to country.

In the Palestinian territories, it has been the cronyism, corruption and political incompetence of Arafat8217;s surviving 8220;old guard.8221;

In Lebanon, where political institutions have been rebuilt and several successful elections held since the end of the 1975-1990 civil war, it is sovereignty from Syria, not necessarily democracy, that is sought after.

In Egypt, as in most Middle East nations, it is authoritarian government that chokes.

8220;There are elements in civil society in all of these countries that are restive and unhappy about the authoritarian character of most of these governments,8221; Hudson said.

In Egypt, especially, reform is long overdue, said Abdel Moneim Said, director of Cairo8217;s Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies. The elections that took place in Iraq and the Palestinian territories, as well as a restive population at home, leaves Mubarak with few options but to at least give an ear to reformers.

8220;There has been a growing movement within Egypt as a whole from civil society, syndicates, political parties and even the media. I believe that the president started listening to the demands of the various internal political forces,8221; Said noted.

Officials and analysts point that the apparent push toward democratic reform could unravel with a US and European confrontation with Iran over its suspected nuclear weapons program or with Syria over its military presence in Lebanon.

But for the moment, the winds of change only smell sweet to many Arabs.

8220;We came here to demand a Lebanon for the Lebanese, and we8217;re winning,8221; said Chady Souaid, 20, a student at a local technical school in Beirut who began protesting the day of Hariri8217;s assassination, which he and most demonstrators blame on Syria.

Souaid, one of the more than 125 million people in the Arab world who are under the age of 25, said the resignation on February 28 of Lebanon8217;s pro-Syrian government was a victory for a new generation of Lebanese.

Their protest, which was often broadcast live across the region, is not over, he said. 8220;We will stay here until the last Syrian soldier is off our soil.8221;

8212;NEW YORK TIMES