Democracy Promotion Should Not Suffer Because of Iraq Policy

“An Ideal In Need of Rescue.”
E.J. Dionne, Jr.
Friday, December 8, 2006
The Washington Post

In a December 8, 2006, Washington Post  op-ed, E.J. Dionne, Jr. acknowledges that although the Bush administration has made grievous errors in trying to promote democracy in Iraq, the ideal of democracy promotion is still crucial and should not be abandoned because of what has happened in Iraq.

In the shadow of the Iraq Study Group’s report, Dionne says that the “Middle East adventure was never a serious effort to build democracy in Saddam Hussein’s Iraq,” and criticizes the Bush administration for not understanding what it was going to take to sufficiently bring democracy to Iraq.  He goes on to say that although there was a great deal of talk about a democratic Iraq, the government’s actions show that it either “didn’t mean what it said about democracy or was divided over what its objectives really were.”

Moreover, Dionne says that Iraq proves that “creating democracy where it has never existed is a long and painstaking process;” yet it is a necessary one.  He believes that the “United States still has a powerful interest in encouraging the spread of democracy around the globe.  Promoting democracy must remain a core goal of American foreign policy.”

Despite mistakes regarding Iraq, Dionne stresses that a “poorly planned and ill-considered war in the name of democracy should not be allowed to discredit the democratic idea itself.”