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Cloth Trade,
176 pages
978-0-8157-9494-3,
26.95
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Thursday, May 01, 2008
Washington, DC
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President George W. Bush intended to bring democracy to the Middle East, but the early results were dispiriting. After stalemate in Iraq and the electoral success of Hamas, many observers concluded that the pursuit of Arab democracy was a fool's errand. Despite these setbacks, Tamara Cofman Wittes argues that democracy promotion in the Arab world remains an essential component of any strategy to achieve long-term American goals in that critical region.
A volatile combination of growing populations, economic stagnation, and political alienation poses a serious threat to stability in today's Middle East. These forces are severely testing the legitimacy and governability of key states such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia, limiting their ability to work with the United States on regional priorities such as stabilizing Iraq and combating terrorism.
Freedom's Unsteady March shows why America cannot afford to be neutral or passive in the face of the momentous changes taking place in Arab states and why it must wield its power and influence in support of democratic reform. Wittes also dissects the Bush administration's failure to advance freedom in the Middle East. She diagnoses the roots of America's ambivalence about Arab democracy, and shows how to confront more honestly the risks of change and act more effectively to contain them.
"A proper understanding of America's role and its limits is necessary to transform a comfortable and only-when-convenient idealism into a sustainable and effective policy. A hard-headed framework for making unavoidable choices about how and when to press for democratic change is necessary to prevent the freedom strategy from being abandoned as impractical when such choices emerge. Think of this book as a realist's argument for democracy promotion in the Middle East and a guidebook for making the choices that a realistic strategy demands." From Chapter One
Book Event: Freedom's Unsteady March, May 1, 2008.
Selected Reviews
"We ultimately need allies who share our values—not just our interests. In FREEDOM'S UNSTEADY MARCH, Tamara Cofman Wittes forcefully and articulately reevaluates how we can encourage liberalization in the Middle East. It is a welcome contribution to the ongoing foreign policy debate."
Lee Hamilton,
president, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars
"FREEDOM'S UNSTEADY MARCH is a definitive assessment of one of the central foreign policy challenges of our era. Not trapped in the Beltway straightjacket of either cheering for or sneering at President Bush, Wittes provides compelling arguments for why the United States should foster democratic change in the Middle East, and then offers creative yet sober ideas for how to promote democracy more successfully. Wittes knows intimately both Washington and the Arab world, knowledge which grounds her arguments in solid research and prudent judgments. It should be required reading for anyone seeking to help make U.S. foreign policy in the next administration."
Michael McFaul,
professor of political science, Stanford University
"The author contends that democratic reform in the Arab world is neither a luxury nor a pipe dream, but a necessity. In this compact, lucid book about the recent democracy project in the Arab Middle East, Tamara Cofman Wittes provides an incisive, critical account of the Bush administration’s democracy promotion policy. Despite its commendable objective, it was underfunded, bureaucratically contested, and ideologically entangled. Wittes concludes with a passionate plea to hold firmly to that policy objective but to serve it better."
Saad Eddin Ibrahim,
Egyptian democracy activist and chairman of the Ibn Khaldun Center for Development Studies