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The Greater Middle East Project: A Short Momentof International Utopia ?The Broader Middle East and North Africa Initiativeannounced by the Bush administration in early 2004 identified new internationalthreats from within the heart of Muslim societies and advocated theestablishment of a climate of political freedom and transparency to reducethe risks of terrorism. This initiative, however, suffered from a fundamentalcontradiction as genuine political democratization would enable sovereignistelements to call into question the underpinnings of American hegemony inthe region. Moreover, in neglecting to address the Israeli-Palestinian problem,the instrumentalization of a democratic agenda by an external powerweakens Arab democratic opposition movements within their own society. Inthe hope of building international consensus on Iraq, the version of the initiativeadopted at the 2004 G-8 summit may be seen as an attenuated versionof the original project in which the concern for ???good governance??? has prevailedover the desire for democratization.