Democracy to the World?

George W. Bush seems determined to bring democracy to the world. He was as rhetorically soaring about the necessity for people power on his recent trips domestically and overseas and in his new National Security Strategy plan as he was the day he invaded Iraq. The goal was what the document called “effective democracy” and “the end of tyranny in the world.” Anticipating his critics in his speeches, he rejected that this was “misguided idealism” but claimed that world democracy was essential to world security.

The president was following the influential Freedom House which announced that its annual study of world governments found the number of countries with democratic regimes had reached an all-time high, at 122 nations, three more than last year, constantly increasing to represent 64 percent of the world’s population. Democracy seemed the future of the world. Yet, without much comment, it also mentioned that only 46 percent of people lived in what it defined as “free” nations, ignoring why not all democratic nations were not free. It was absolutely mute why only two dozen—mostly Western—nations were rated fully free at its highest rating or why, except for the addition of a few mini-states, that number had not improved significantly over time.

The Wall Street Journal editors have been especially ecstatic from the beginning about how democracy can change the world, recently claiming success in Iraq and Afghanistan. The 70 percent electoral turnout in the former “could hardly have been a better demonstration of the human yearning for political rights” so that the election proved “there are far more reasons for hope than despair in Iraq” and Afghanistan. The overwhelming success of the narrow sectarian parties in Iraq only elicited a concern that “many of us had hoped for a stronger showing by the few pan-sectarian parties.” Yet, these won fewer than 10 percent of the votes against the religious parties who dominated with 90 percent of popular support.

The minimum democratic requirement is whether Iraq can form a government that includes the rebellious Sunnis. Early efforts by the American ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad to create such a unified government were rebuffed by a top official of coalition nominee Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jafari’s Shiite party, who politely told him to let the Shiite majority rule. Under Khalilzad’s and Kurd president Jalal Talabani’s pressure a coalition of Kurd, Sunni, minority Shiite and secular forces was created to block the Shiite coalition choice, stalemating the selection of a government with neither the coalition nor the Shiites able to create a legislative majority. Not surprisingly, the dominant Shiites complained that the Americans were overruling the voice of the people. Even if a coalition could be formed to block Jafari, a new front will have been opened in the sectarian wars from his disappointed Shiite forces.

At the same time, American forces commander Lt. Gen. John R. Vines was more concerned with the military situation. “The new government must be by and for Iraqis, not sects. If competent [Iraqi] commanders are replaced by those whose main allegiance is to a sect--that would be a concern to us.” Yet, it is clear that most of the units are already overwhelmingly Shiite or Kurd and are affiliated with armed sectarian parties, primarily the Badyr Group, with a pro-Iran party, and the Mehdi Army, with Muqtada Sadr who actually fought U.S. troops, and that the army and sectarian militias work together in combined operations. The Interior Minister in charge of national police forces was the former head of the Badyr Brigade. The constitution actually guarantees separate militias for the Kurds.

Even the Shiite Grand Ayatollah Ali Sustani, who has been so critical in appealing for peaceful responses, especially following the Golden Mosque bombing, added ominously: “If the government security forces cannot provide the necessary protection, the [sectarian] believers will do it.” Former prime minister and American ally Ayad Allawi is already saying, “If this is not civil war, then God knows what civil war is.” Clearly, concern is already called for and, if anyone has doubt of the existence on the ground of the sectarian division, seeing the police in Basra with pictures of Sadyr and other ayatollahs on their official patrol cars should be conclusive.

It was the stunning Hamas upset electoral victory in Palestine that most distressed democracy optimists. While finding some long run benefit to democracy in “educating Palestinians about the terrible costs of their political choices,” the Journal editors had to concede “there’s no sugar coating what this vote for the party of suicide bombers and social welfare says about the state of Palestinian politics.” While admitting the vote was “by all accounts fair,” they demanded the U.S. have no relations with the victors until they renounced their platform calling for the elimination of the state of Israel, democratically elected or not. While rejoicing that four Middle Eastern nations had successfully held elections recently, the editors were now ready to concede democracy was not a “cure all” and that elections sometimes produce dictators like Adolph Hitler.

These other elections strengthened terrorists too. The Muslim Brotherhood that increased its strength in Egypt has Hamas as a branch and is condemned by the U.S. as a terrorist organization. The Brotherhood probably will gain also in moderate Jordan’s upcoming elections. Hezbollah greatly increased its power in the recent vote in Lebanon. Moreover, radical leftists triumphed recently in Bolivia and Venezuela too. A Zogby International poll showed that no current leader in any of these Middle Eastern countries or in Saudi Arabia, Morocco and the United Arab Emirates is popular with its people.

This has led even former democratic idealists like Francis Fukuyama to look for a “third way” that maintains the neoconservative Wilsonian idealism about democratic elections but is more accommodating to reality in supporting less than ideal democrats such as the rulers in Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia. Yet, as professor Shibley Telhani argues, these data prove there is not a viable third way. If there are open elections at all, the poll shows that most Arabs think the clergy should be even more influential in influencing elections and “if fully free elections were held today in the rest of the Arab world, Islamist parties would win in most states.” More democracy simply means more influence for radical Islam.

In any event, democracy cannot be imposed on a world that does not understand that the rule of law and liberty are necessary beforehand if democracy is to produce beneficial results. That is why there is a discrepancy between the two in the Freedom House study. Democracy is the effect rather than the cause of Western success. Freedom and respect for common norms cannot be forced. The good news is that the U.S. military leadership on the ground and in Washington is rapidly turning management of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars to the local populations, is preparing to disengage from daily policing and is reducing the size of American forces. Leaders have become increasingly public that military might is not the solution. Michael Vickers, senior advisor to Sec. Donald Rumsfeld’s recent Pentagon policy review was blunt: “We are not going to invade and occupy our way to victory in the long war against Islamic extremism.”

Rep. Henry Hyde, Republican chairman of the House International Relations Committee, while recognizing that promotion of democracy is a necessary part of U.S. foreign policy, rejected the idea that actually imposing democracy is the proper goal. “I take issue with those who say [democracy] is self-propagating and that it invariably produces beneficial results, for this view rests on a misinterpretation of cause and effect in our history,” warned the respected conservative leader. “Implanting democracy in large areas would require that we possess an unbounded power and undertake an open ended commitment of time and resources, which we cannot and will not do.”

Donald Devine is the editor of Conservative Battleline Online.

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