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  Turning Points - Will the Modern Era Come Undone in Iraq?
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ContributorRP 
Last EditedRP  May 18, 2004 06:44pm
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CategoryAnalysis
MediaNewspaper - Washington Post
News DateSunday, May 16, 2004 06:00:00 AM UTC0:0
DescriptionOver the past quarter-century, I've covered the rage of the Islamic world, witnessing much of it up close, losing friends who became victims to its extremist wings and watching its furies swell. But I've never been scared until now.

The stakes are instead how the final phase of the Modern Era plays out.

That 500-year period, marked by the age of exploration, the creation of nations and the Enlightenment that unleashed ideologies designed to empower the individual, faces its last great challenge in the 50 disparate countries that constitute the Islamic world -- ruled by the last bloc of authoritarian monarchs, dictators and leaders-for-life. The Iraq war was supposed to produce a new model for democratic transformation, a catalyst after which the United States and its allies could launch an ambitious initiative for regional change.

But now, whatever America's good intentions may have been , that historic moment may be lost for a long time to come.

For now, America's ways have been discredited for many beyond America's borders. The reaction in some quarters is already ridicule. In the end, the most enduring impact of Iraq and the travesty at Abu Ghraib may be to set back the course of the Modern Era for years, even a generation or more
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