Letters to the Editor
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Coercing democracy
One of President Bush's more appalling flights of fancy in the foreign policy arena is his belief that democratically elected governments will somehow be more inclined than incumbent authoritarians to support U.S. policy objectives that are wildly unpopular with their own electorates.
This is a powerful statement that is rarely - if ever - heard in discussions of US foreign policy. It strikes right at the core fallacy in Bush's ideology, and yet because we are taught to believe "democracy = good and just", policies and uses of force wrapped in this premise go unchallenged. In our society there is almost a religious reverence for democracy as some kind of noble end unto itself. Bush has used this to advance an agenda that is at best utopian, and perhaps simply a guise for dismantling nations of his choosing to spread US influence and domination. How often have we heard of the necessity that Iraq have a functional democratically elected government as a measure of our success? At what price must this come?
Let us not forget that Ahmadinejad was democratically elected in Iran in 2005, and yet this administration has been dangerously close to attacking the country to replace him. Is that a just correction of some kind of failure of democracy? What of Chavez in Venezuela? Bush has said that "every time people are given a choice, they choose freedom." How does he reconcile this statement with results like these throughout history?
Even if we all agreed that democracy represented a righteous ideal for man's relationship with government, another question remains: Why is it the role of the United States to advance democracy across the globe?