In a speech given at the end of last year to commemorate the twentieth anniversary of the National Endowment for Democracy, President Bush asserted, “The establishment of a free Iraq at the heart of the Middle East will be a watershed event in the global democratic revolution.”

In turning the promotion of democracy into a centerpiece of his foreign policy agenda, the president has opened up a critical area of debate: can direct conquest and occupation pave the way for democracy? Many see it as unconscionably risky to attempt to impose democracy on a country as fractious and brutalized as Iraq. As Merrill House speaker Benjamin Barber put it:
“How do you create democracy in regimes that have only known tyranny, theocracy, dictatorship, or even totalitarianism? Our record here is not great.”

the Bush administration assumed that democracy in Iraq could begin by developing free markets. However, history has proved that capitalism needs democracy more than the other way around; thus the notion that the path to democratization lies directly through marketization is a terrible mistake. The question remains, can democracy be exported?

Sincerely
Mr SIlence Dogood