Comic relief in Cairo courtesy of the Arab league

Washington Post: Democracy in Iraq had never been an abiding concern of the Arab League, but this week a committee of the 22-member organization of Arab states threw down the gauntlet to American occupation authorities and the new Iraqi Governing Council. It declined to recognize the new council, on grounds that its members were appointed by foreign authorities, not elected by the Iraqi people themselves. The council might be a positive step toward self-government, diplomats declared, but the Iraqi seat at the august international body will remain empty until Iraq has an elected government. As the league's Secretary General Amr Moussa put it in Cairo, "The council is a start, but it should pave the way for a legitimate government that can be recognized."
League, heal thyself
By this standard, the league would have 22 empty chairs. Not a single country in the entire Arab world has a government that enjoys the sort of democratic legitimacy the league now demands of the Iraqi council. Perhaps if Iraq had a corrupt and repressive Saudi-style monarchy -- one that forbade women from driving and that sponsored charities that promoted Islamist extremism worldwide -- it might be eligible for recognition. Or maybe the league would be mollified if a coup brought in a military dictatorship like that of member-in-good-standing Libya. Or if the Baath Party somehow returned and installed a leader like Bashar Assad or simply brought back Saddam Hussein, whose "legitimacy" the Arab League never paused to question and whose regime it spared little effort to save. Few organizations demand less democracy as a condition of membership or serve as a bigger tent for thugs and tyrants than does the Arab League.
A beginning, not an end
Of course the Governing Council is insufficiently democratic, but it was never intended to be the end point of Iraqi political reconstruction, only its beginning -- a first step along a road to Iraqi self-government. Yet even at this early stage, the council is more representative than any of those "legitimate" Arab governments for which its electoral bona fides are inadequately established -- and Iraqis can criticize their nascent government in a way few Arab regimes would tolerate. The prospects for political reform in the region would look far brighter if more countries had regimes as pluralistic and representative as the one the Arab League now spurns.