Anwar Ibrahim: "In a way, Washington's strategy may be viewed as expiation for past sins, when the U.S. was a stumbling block to democracy in the Middle East. Iran was a democracy in 1953 when the CIA engineered the coup that transformed it into an absolute monarchy. THE BEST ANSWERS to the question of whether America should reassess its strategy lie in Indonesia and Turkey, refreshing examples of Muslim democratic self-assertion ( I am not sure about Turkey as the best example!!@!, Kurds are not free at all to exercise their culture, their denial of Armenian Genocide is still a big issue)To be successful in its efforts to spread freedom, the U.S. must remember that constitutional democracy cannot take root in a society, whether secular or Islamic, without the firm commitment of the politically empowered to protect the fundamental rights to liberty, equality and freedom of all."