SOME REALISTS argue that if the United States promotes democracy in places such as Syria, Saudi Arabia and Egypt, the opening up of these polities would lead to more Islamist states. Thus democratization would damage U.S. interests, installing even more oppressive regimes in the nations involved—regimes that will promote terrorism in other nations to boot. Some "un-realists" argue that the United States should accept such a risk because theocracies are like childhood diseases that nations may have to endure before they can grow up to become democratic.
There is a third way: Opening polities gradually, initially allowing only pro-democratic forces to participate until they are able to compete with the already well-established Islamist groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood. Some are much less prepared than others to cope with unrestricted political pluralism. Such nations need a transition period; they cannot jump from the tribal politics of the Stone Age—or from hyper-oppressive regimes—to well-functioning democracies.
Furthermore, there is nothing in democratic theory to hold that those who are known to seek "one person, one vote, one time"—that those who, like the Nazis, seek to use elections to gain power but then turn democratic regimes into totalitarian or theocratic ones—should be accorded free reign. Like boxers who insist on their rights to put lead into their gloves, totalitarian and anti-democratic religious parties have no place in a democratic competition.
There are those who hold that democracies need not fear free elections because even if extremist parties gain a majority, the courts will uphold individual and minority rights. The record though—from Nazi Germany to generals’ rule in Latin American—shows that such governments soon load the courts with their supporters or recast the constitutions to suit their purposes. True, when democracies are well-established, and anti-democratic parties are small and more of an annoyance or a gadfly than a genuine threat, they can be tolerated. However, when democracies are just being formed, such parties—especially if they are strong and the liberal forces weak—must be kept at bay, at least until the liberal forces have a chance to develop.
Unfortunately the current trends run in the opposite direction. The authoritarian regimes of Syria, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Tunisia, among others, have largely wiped out reformist, liberal pro-democracy forces. As a result, these regimes have pushed most of whatever opposition remains into the extremist camps. Hence, if the oppressive lid of these governments were suddenly lifted, the well-prepared Islamist groups would take over, never giving a chance to the liberal forces to recoup and grow.
The United States and its allies hence should neither promote free-for-all elections nor support the continued repression of the opposition, but favor selective and gradual opening to allow liberal forces to find their legs. This is what the United States did for a while when it promoted local and limited elections in Saudi Arabia and fair and free general elections in Egypt and Kazakhstan. And this is what is happening to one extent or another in Jordan, Algeria, Morocco, Kuwait and Qatar. One may argue that if these nations are opening fast enough then they are opening in the best ways, and one may protest when they retreat from whatever progress they had made without questioning the merit of the basic approach—that of gradual opening.
On a separate note, let me also say it is a grave mistake to equate these liberal reformist forces with secular ones, as many progressive Americans instinctively tend to do. They associate progress with secularization and unwittingly presume that religious people tend to be fundamentalists and, hence, anti-democratic. However there are significant pro-democratic religious parties in many European countries and in Israel. In effect just as Social Democrats were often the best antidote to Communists (rather than the conservative parties), the best antidote to radical Islamists may end up being moderate Muslims groups—a point I recently made in these pages.
(This article recently appeared in The National Interest's "A Conversation Continued: Debating Democracy")
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