MONEY AND REPORTS ARE RATHER BESIDE THE POINT:

Bush’s Really Good Idea: The President finds it easy to embrace democracy, but not the various means to make it happen (Fareed Zakaria, 11/17/03, NEWSWEEK)

I think that the president—and many of his advisers—find it easy to embrace democracy but not the means to get there. Actually, they like one method. Let’s call it the “silver bullet” theory of democratization. It holds that every country is ready for democracy. It’s just evil tyrants who stand in its way. Kill the tyrant, hold elections and the people will embrace democracy and live happily ever after. This theory is particularly seductive to neoconservatives because it means that the one government agency they love—the military—is the principal force for democratization around the world.

The second theory of democratization could be called the “long, hard slog” (thanks, Mr. Rumsfeld). It holds that genuine democracy requires the building of strong political institutions, a market economy and a civil society. In order to promote democracy, in this vision, you need economic reform, trade, exchange programs, legal and educational advances, and hundreds of such small-bore efforts. The agencies crucial to this process are the State Department, the U.S. Agency for International Development, even, God forbid, the European Union and the United Nations. After all, the EU provides almost twice as much foreign aid as the United States. And it is the United Nations that produces the much-heralded Arab Development Reports, which President Bush quoted in his speech.

The president must see that the first strategy has reached its limits. [...]

The neoconservative writer Robert Kagan recently declared, “We do not really know how to build a liberal society... But we do know a free and fair election when we see one.” This is both defeatist and wrong. In fact, we know what makes a liberal society—independent courts and political institutions, markets, a free press, a middle class—but building it takes time and effort. If you cannot embrace that process, then you are not really embracing democracy.

We'd not disdagree at all with Mr. Zakaria that building a stable liberal democracy takes time and effort, but it's an open question whether the Arab world cares to give us the time to help them. If not, we're better off out of their way, but standing ready to help when asked. After all, contra Mr. Zakaria, the first requirement for democracy building is that the people of the nation in question generally want one. If they do, everything else follows because they'll allow their leadership the leeway to create the preconditions.

Meanwhile, Amitai Etzioni sent the following:

Senator fooled by intelligence community?

On November 5, Senator John McCain told the Council on Foreign Relations that:

"There is no popular, anti-colonial insurgency in Iraq. There are killers who prospered under the tyranny of Saddam and seek its restoration. Unlike in Vietnam, the Iraqi Ba'athists and terrorists who oppose us are not guerrilla fish in a friendly sea of the people. Our opponents, who number only in the thousands in a country of 23 million, are despised by the vast majority of Iraqis."

When I asked him whether he got that information from the same sources who told us that Iraq had nuclear weapons and that we were in immediate danger--he held to this incredibly uninformed assessment. It is sad to see such a valuable and courageous public leader so unaware of the nationalism that grips most Iraqis, who want us out.

Two points about that:

(1) Anti-Americanism/anti-democracy may indeed be popular in the Sunni Trianggle, which makes it a traditional military problem, not an insurgency/guerilla type problem. They resemble North Vietnam, not the Viet Cong.

(2) Senator McCain, in particular, and the neocons in general, seem to like using large numbers of armed forces just because they're large numbers. Mr. McCain seems to want to pay everyone back for his sad Vietnam experience (I served, you should have to), while the neocons just like big government projects (American Greatness and all). Those are bad reasons to send in more troops when the situation seems to call for less.

Posted by Orrin Judd at November 13, 2003 7:50 AM