Salvaging credibility

In the annals of transparency and accountability, the Arab world (which is already weak at the knees when it comes to either standard) will probably not want to remember the scandal over the mistreatment of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib. That’s a pity, because despite the sordidness of the episode, it was, even for some Arab commentators, a democratic eye opener. For all intents and purposes the prisoner scandal was entirely an American affair. It was first publicized by the television show 60 Minute II, it was propelled by two searing articles by investigative journalist Seymour Hersh of The New Yorker, and it became front-page fare in all American newspapers, large and small, for weeks. It shook the Bush administration to its very foundations, threatening the future of high officials, at a crucial time in an election year. If Iraqis one day must retain anything from the post-war situation in