The idiocy of two arguments

So here I am reading an article on the Foreign Affairs web site, and this guy is attacking a statement President Bush made during his 2006 State of the Union address (yeah, its an old article...I was bored):

"Dictatorships shelter terrorists, and feed resentment and radicalism, and seek weapons of mass destruction. Democracies replace resentment with hope, respect the rights of their citizens and their neighbors, and join the fight against terror. Every step toward freedom in the world makes our country safer--so we will act boldly in freedom's cause."

This guy in the article (F. Gregory Gause III, an Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Vermont and Director of its Middle East Studies Program), "Beware What You Wish For", writes that Bush's logic is flawed:

"There is no evidence that states ruled by dictators produce more terrorists or more terrorism than democracies. Moreover, al Qaeda and its affiliates and imitators see democracy as a Western innovation leading Muslims away from government based on Islamic law. They would certainly not give up their jihad even if all Muslim countries became democratic, particularly if the democracies proved to be the kind that the United States would like to see: tolerant, pluralist, pro-American, and at peace with Israel."

The man makes a few good points, but fails to see the forest through the trees. This is so because later on he states, "Washington should also recognize that non-democratic institutions that are generally supportive of U.S. policy goals (such as the military in Turkey and the monarchies in Morocco, Jordan, and the Arabian Peninsula) can serve as very useful breaks on the power of elected parliaments, and can even moderate Islamist political groups over time."

First off, many of these Al-Qaeda terrorists (including those on the flights on 9/11) were from the Arabian Peninsula...Saudi Arabia to be precise. A country run by a large royal family that reaps the rewards of its oil fields but does little to share the wealth. Watch a little bit of the movie The Kingdom, and you will get an idea. These royal families in the Mideast horde the wealth and do little for their people. THAT is what creates terrorists. These countries that in a sense are dictatorships which keep the wealth of the land among themselves.

While I don't agree with the war in Iraq, democratic governments would be a good thing in the Mideast. But here is the rub: it is their democracy, not ours. We shouldn't go invading and pushing democracy on countries. But if a country wants democracy, ACCEPT their choices. Otherwise it isn't much of a democracy. If the country wants to follow Islamic law, so be it. It is not the choice of the United States or anyone else. So to say a democracy would pull the muslim people away from Islam is a shocking statement to make. If the people want that result, it is the people who will decide. Not the institution itself that pulls them away.

What the US must understand is that we lead by example and perhaps the carrot, but not by the switch and the gun. We can advocate democracies and help those countries form one if they decide they want it, but that is where it ends. We can not force our morals, our values, and our way of life upon these people. It wasn't forced upon us in 1776, and it shouldn't be forced upon them now. But to support the current military and monarchical governments of these countries is akin to supporting the juntas and military dictatorships in Latin America in the '70s and '80s. Something that didn't work out quite well and we are now dealing with the mess and the hatred.