Former State Department Official Calls on Democratic Party to Refocus on the Promotion of Democracy
By Daniel Hollingsworth
June 27, 2007 | Printer Friendly

Ronald D. Asmus writes in an op-ed in the Sunday, June 17 Washington Post that the Democratic Party has lost its voice on the issue of democracy promotion abroad.  Asmus, deputy assistant secretary of state for European affairs during the Clinton administration, laments that the issue has largely become an point of emphasis only for Republicans, and he calls for a return by the Democratic Party to its long tradition of promoting democratic values throughout the world.

Asmus cites the familiar liturgy of presidents, beginning with Wilson and including FDR, Truman, and Kennedy to demonstrate the long history of the Democratic Party in making the promotion of democracy a central pillar of its foreign policy.  He writes that for these leaders, “Using U.S. power to promote freedom and democracy was central to their foreign policies and legacies.”  Carter made human rights a major U.S. foreign policy objective, and Clinton aggressively sought to intervene in the Balkans and expand NATO as means of consolidating democracy in Eastern Europe.  By contrast, John Kerry’s 2004 presidential campaign never directly addressed this issue, while the current campaigns of Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and John Edwards have not yet been clear and forceful regarding their position on democracy promotion abroad. 

He recognizes that part of the reason the Democrats have become quiet on the issue is the approach that President Bush has taken on promoting democracy.  Bush’s “conflation of democracy promotion with the invasion of Iraq and the preventive use of military force has given freedom a bad name.”  He argues, however, that Democrats should not allow their disagreements with what they view as Bush’s “reckless, values-based foreign policy” to drive them toward “a heartless, interest-based foreign policy devoid of values.”  Asmus identifies such a division within the party, with one side favoring a return to Clinton-era principles of liberal internationalism and the other preferring a “limited form of cold-eyed realism based on a narrower definition of U.S. interests, a preference for stability and an abiding skepticism about whether pursuing democracy is a luxury we can afford.”

Asmus admits that there are other factors influencing this drift away from prioritizing democracy promotion.  He writes that in addition to distaste for Bush’s policies, the fear that radical Islamic parties could come to power through democratic elections, a fear justified by the rise of Hamas, has caused some to question the wisdom of promoting universal democratic values.  While recognizing the validity of such concerns, he contends that the benefits outweigh the risks in the long-run:

“Democracy promotion is often messy and hard. You need to work with authoritarian governments even as you try to encourage change in their societies; aid sent to democrats abroad can be wasted; elections don't always produce the results we'd like. Still, the long-term benefits -- as we see in Europe today -- are worth it. The answer to Bush's mistakes must be to develop a more realistic and credible democracy-promotion strategy, not to abandon the goal.”

Reference:

Washington Post: The Democrats’ Democracy Problem