A REFLECTION. Twenty years ago this week, and just like this week, I was glued to my TV set watching enthralling news from the Arab world. In mid-February 1991 the American-led war to push Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait was at its peak. So, it seemed back then, was American power in the Middle East and the world. In contrast to his son's clumsy diplomacy before the invasion of Iraq in 2003, George Bush senior had responded to Saddam's conquest of Kuwait with a brilliant sequence of economic and military moves. He raised a great international alliance, put Iraq under half a year of economic siege, persuaded the United Nations to authorise force if sanctions failed, and when the ground war finally started finished the whole business in a mere 100 hours of fighting.

With hindsight, it becomes apparent that the liberation of Kuwait was the beginning of America's dominating moment in the Middle East. The collapse of the Soviet Union had left the United States in pole position. "Desert Storm" gave America its first chance to demonstrate how its command of precision weapons made military resistance to the superpower futile. After the war, a triumphant President Bush proclaimed his desire to build a "new world order" and a new Middle East. He bullied the Israelis and Arabs to attend a peace conference in Madrid to sort out the Palestine conflict once and for all.

If the Gulf war of 1991 marked the beginning of America's moment in the Middle East, does the Egyptian revolution exactly 20 years later mark its end? You can certainly make that case. America did not achieve a comprehensive Arab-Israeli peace in Madrid. Contrary to expectations, Saddam was not pushed from power after America pushed him out of Kuwait. We now know that the arrival of American troops in the Arabian peninsula radicalised a certain Osama bin Laden and so led indirectly to the felling of the twin towers. The younger Bush's invasion of Iraq in 2003 caused colossal loss of life and inflicted grave damage on America's standing in the region. Now along comes a popular revolution that topples Hosni Mubarak, one of America's most reliable allies.

And yet I am disinclined to join the great hand-wringing in which some are indulging over America's declining power, or the alleged danger posed by the Muslim Brotherhood. The most striking thing about the current mood of this region is that, more than ever, it is in the throes of a great struggle of ideas. Arabs (and Iranians) look around them and see many different political systems claiming ascendancy. These range from Shia theocracy (Iran and Hizbullah), Sunni Islamism (Saudi Arabia, Hamas, al-Qaeda), secular dictatorship (Syria, Libya) and traditional monarchy (Morocco, Jordan, the Arab Gulf). But guess what? By far the strongest of the ideas currently on offer—and the one for which most Egyptians seemed to be clamouring these past few weeks—is none of the above. It is liberal democracy. Most of the others, I humbly submit, have already discredited themselves or are on their way into the dustbin of history. Just observe the burning desire of so many Iranians to emigrate to the lair of the Great Satan.

In other words, for all its many missteps of the past two decades, America is remarkably well placed to win the war of ideas now unfolding in the Middle East. This is not because Arabs are fond of America. Most aren't, right now. But thanks to globalisation, education, satellite television and the palpable failure of the local alternatives, most Arabs (and Iranians) are fully aware of what sort of societies the Western democracies are, and they would like some of the same fresh air for themselves. Is America less powerful today than when its pilots were shooting up Saddam's Republican Guard on the highway out of Kuwait 20 years ago? It has certainly learnt the hard way that it cannot shape the Middle East just as it wants. But its power of example remains strong in an Arab world whose people want most of all just to breathe free.

(Photo credit: AFP)