Catch-43

The Democracy Debate, Continued

Tigerhawk has an excellent post (albeit lengthy) on the debate over whether democracy in the Middle East would reduce or eliminate terrorism. His point essentially is that democracy will not end anti-American or anti-Israeli sentiment. Instead, it will give average people an incentive to fight against radical Islamists. It will create, as in Iraq currently, thousands and thousands of anti-Islamists. These people will not necessarily be pro-American or pro-Israel, or pro-western in general - but they will be an enemy of our enemy, and thus our friends.

In other words, democracy will give average citizens a third choice - because right now all they have to choose from is radical Islam or crazy tyrannical regimes. To most in the Middle East, this is not much of a choice at all - and so they just keep their head down. The regimes oppress the people, and the radical Islamists have an entire population which looks the other way when they are planning and committing terror attacks.

I agree with the post almost entirely, but I want to take (slight) issue on two fronts.

1) I would not be so quick to discredit the Bush Administration's idea of "draining the swamp." Islamic terror that threatens the US can be reduced to a simple formula:

anger at tyrannical regimes + radical interpretation of Islam = Islamic terrorism

I believe that democracy idea is taking broad aim at the first part of this equation, and will ultimately be successful (although it will admittedly take a lot of time). These clown regimes, to borrow Tigerhawk's phrase, create legions of angry unemployed people with no hope for the future - this is a fertile breeding ground for the radical Islamists (second part of the equation). Tamp down the anger (through free expression, etc...) and who is going to volunteer to be a suicide bomber? Tamp down the anger, and the radical Islamists in the back of the mosque may be not a whole lot different from the types who want to form militias in the United States, or the KKK, or EarthFirst. Tamp down the anger, and suddenly Tigerhawk's thesis works - because people will have a say (and a stake) in their government.

Now, the radical interpretation of Islam - I think that is here to stay - not at all sure we can defeat that or that we even have any idea how to defeat that. Tigerhawk is right when he says that this is best left to the Arab world.

2) The argument (made by Andy McCarthy from National Review and referenced in Tigerhawk's post) that bringing democracy to the Middle East is a failure because it empowers anti-American regimes is not as clear-cut as it sounds. Democracy brings clarity to a muddled region, and I think that's a good thing.

Let's let the people speak! If the Palestinian people truly want a terrorist government, why not let them have it, and then they can deal with all of the repercussions? They elected Hamas, and suddenly the aid stopped flowing, and they started to starve. Maybe that will teach them a lesson. Maybe it brought some truth to the negotiating process. No matter what Arafat said for all of those years, the people did not have any interest in negotiating - they wanted the death of Israel and they just elected a government that proved it. Great - now Israel and America can act accordingly.

If the Lebanese people want to elect Hezbollah, an Islamic militia armed and controlled by Iran, great! They can deal with the consequences when Hezbollah causes trouble, and maybe that will teach them a lesson. Democracy ends the divide between people and government, and thus the peoples' votes have consequences - and they will have to keep that in mind when voting in the future.

As anyone in the State Department would probably tell you, it is extraordinarily difficult to deal with a regime that is fearful of its own people and has no idea what they really want - said regime has to operate extremely conservatively to avoid revolution - and said regime will attempt to deflect all criticism and anger from its citizens towards America and Israel. This is an inherently unstable situation, no matter what the realists will tell you - and it has failed, spectacularly and repeatedly, which is why we're even debating democracy.

Put more simply - how would a region full of democratically elected anti-American governments be any worse than a region full of illegimate governments full of anti-American populations which are breeding grounds for terror? We pretend that the dictators are our friends, but they are not - so what's the difference?

posted by JM @ 11:41 AM