Transcript
TAMARA WITTES: When I began writing Freedom’s Unsteady March four years ago, as Martin said, I set it up as a two-part argument. First, why the United States should promote democracy in the Arab world, and then how. Now, at the time, I thought the why part of the argument would be pretty uncontroversial, but the how might be very useful. After all, the notion that democratic growth abroad is in America’s national interest has been a tenant of bipartisan foreign policy for decades, but implementing democracy promotion as a policy is often much more difficult. It’s complicated both by bureaucratic factors and by regular misgivings within the foreign policy community about the impact of a democracy promotion on other U.S. interests. But the fallout from the Iraq War, as Martin has noted, dramatically shifted the context in which the book now appears. We’re in the midst of a full-blown backlash against the notion that the United States should work to advance democracy in other countries. Today’s presidential candidates are all running away from President Bush’s foreign policy in various ways, and Bush’s freedom agenda, in particular, its association in the public mind with the Iraq War, is a big part of what they’re running away from. So, today might seem an awkward time in which to argue for a muscular American policy of democracy promotion in the Middle East, and, yet, I believe that embracing and advancing democracy for Arab citizens is not merely desirable for the United States, but imperative.
Now, the case for this policy is not rooted in some radical redefinition of America’s interests in the Middle East. I think despite the upheaval caused the September 11 attacks, our interests in the region remain largely the same. And the Middle East, in all its difficult reality, is not going away, and, despite the wishes of some in the foreign policy commentariat in this election season, the United States is not about to walk away from the Middle East either. Not in any fundamental sense. The U.S. has crucial interests in the region and is not going to disengage militarily, politically, and certainly not economically.
So, given that, it seems to me that the social, political, and economic trends in the region that are challenging governance and legitimacy, trends that are driving the threat perceptions of Arab leaders, shaping their attitudes toward regional issues, and constraining their cooperation with the United States, these should remain matters of crucial interest here in Washington. To my mind, because of what we have at stake, the question is not really whether America will influence the shape of Arab politics, the real questions are in what manner and to what end?
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