Neville Chamberlain famously excused the abandonment of Czechoslovakia at Munich by calling the victim “a faraway country of which we know little.” His infamy is not totally deserved. Britain had no treaty ties to Prague, nor did it have the military capacity to take on Germany at the time, and Chamberlain on his return immediately kick-started British rearmament.
The current democratic surge in Pakistan has shaken the government of Gen. Pervez Musharraf to its core. This surge was sparked in March when Musharraf fired the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. Ninety thousand Pakistani barristers, drawn from more than 120 districts, took to the streets. This in turn converted the country’s pent up passion for democracy into a revolt against Musharraf.
President Bush’s Naval War College graduation speech on June 28 demonstrated, yet again, the true disarray of America’s public diplomacy effort. In comparing Iraq with Israel, the president managed to do even more damage to reform efforts in the Middle East.
President George W. BushÂs vision for the Iraq War was nothing if not expansive. Liberal democracy and popular sovereignty were to supplant tyranny not only in Baghdad, but in nearby capitals as well. And the force of U.S. arms would not be needed to accomplish the latter missions. As Bush asserted to eager applause at the American Enterprise Institute on February 25, 2003, Âa new regime in Iraq would serve as a dramatic and inspiring example of freedom for other nations in the region. Democracy, the war party believed, would be contagious.
The failures of Iraqi democratization as advocated by the Bush administration should not be blamed primarily on the Iraqis. Nor should they be used to reinforce racist notions that Arabs or Muslims are somehow incapable of building democratic institutions and living in a democratic society. Rather, democracy from the outset has been more of a self-serving rationalization for American strategic and economic interests in the region than a genuine concern for the right of the Iraq people to democratic self-governance.
In August, FPIF contributor Najum Mushtaq authored a discussion paper ÂIslamic Blowback Part Two?ÂÂthat critiqued the current U.S. policy of promoting Âmoderate Islam. He was particularly critical of a report by Abdeslam Maghraoui, director of the Muslim World Initiative at the U.S. Institute of Peace. Here we highlight a detailed response from Abdeslam Maghraoui, followed by a rejoinder from Najum Mushtaq.
This law, as has become more and more clear over the last three months, was but the initial move by the Bush administration in what has become an extended and coordinated attack on the civil liberties of U.S. persons in the name of national security and—ironically—in the name of bringing democracy and civil liberties to Iraq.
This Special Report is from Global Focus: U.S. Foreign Policy at the Turn of the Millennium, the new Foreign Policy In Focus book that features major foreign policy analysts charting the dimensions of U.S. foreign policy. Also included are provocative essays on U.S. policy in all major global regions and a comprehensive reform agenda. Global Focus is available from St. Martin’s Press.
Key Points
Organizations in East Asia and the United States as well as international networks are developing alternatives to militarized security that address the security of women, children, and the physical environment.