FRONT PAGE: "Kuwait's Democracy Faces Strains, in Challenge for U.S.," by Yaroslav Trofimov, Wall Street Journal, 9 April 2009.

The old bit about America saving one dictatorship (Kuwait) from another (Iraq) contains ever less truth as Kuwait evolves politically into a polity that provides its citizens with more political rights than any other Arab state--according to Freedom House.

Still, there is nothing quite so ugly and unstable and dangerous as an autocracy that evolves in the direction of democracy. Kuwait gears up for another parliamentary election, one that will yield its sixth government since 2006. That streak generates a lot of blockage, both passive (holding up all sorts of infrastructure projects) and aggressive (more imposition of restrictive Islamic laws).

The result?

Kuwait is falling behind UAE as the regional connecting hub.