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The Middle East and Neoconservative Democracy
Bringing democracy to the unwashed masses of the Arab world was a neoconservative mantra long before they hijacked the Bush presidency to use as their own ideological testing ground.
In the abstract, the idea is a noble one. In reality, it has been a disaster in Iraq – where democracy was imposed at point of gun with ruinous results – and pretty much a non-starter elsewhere in the region.
This despite ample evidence that self-rule – although not necessarily a catholic version of American democracy – is attractive to Arabs who understand that they’ve been held back by their so-called leaders and the ultra orthodoxy of their faith.
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5 Responses to “The Middle East and Neoconservative Democracy”
And many of the neo-cons have learned nothing. That’s what is so scary. Bill Kristol has not backed off, for example.
Democracy, freedom, liberty. These ideas don’t mean a thing to the neocons or the current administration. They’ve done all they can to subvert them here at home, from the end of Habeas Corpus, demonizing homosexuals, using terror alerts to influence elections, warrantless wiretapping of citizens…
Abroad, it is used as nothing but a front for imperial control. Take Iraq for example. Most Iraqis want us gone, and say we are part of the problem. Are we leaving? Of course not, because we only want democracy when the people freely choose to follow our lead.
What about in Lebanon? We punish the Lebanese for voting for Hezbollah. So much for democracy there. Same goes for Palestine and Hamas.
More importantly, the people of the Middle East should be left to find their own way. Maybe, if left to their own devices, they’ll come up with a better alternative to our form of a republic. It’s not impossible.
Somebody raised an interesting point today (don’t remember who) about how democratic values mimic Judeo-Christian teachings more than they do the tenets of Islam. Of course our democracy was based on the works of enlightenment philosophers like John Locke and Rousseau, who don’t hold sway in ME countries.
I’m not familiar enough with Islam to know if democracy could work, but I do know that at this point most ME countries would elect extremist anti-Western leaders if given the opportunity. This has already occurred in Palestine, Egypt, and Lebanon, and Bush and the neocons had no clue what to do about it.
One thing does fascinate me- I saw an interview of neocon Robert Kagan , and he said that knowledge of history is the most important component of creating foreign policy. But anyone who has studied history would never have invaded Iraq in the first place, based on the disasterous British occupation in the 20′s and 30′s.
Chris,
I can’t stand the neocons. But I also can’t stand it when people attempt to compare Hamas to just any other political party. Same for Hezbollah. The level of ignorance and/or naivete it takes to do that just appalls me.
[...] Original post by Shaun Mullen [...]