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Misplaced Trust in the Inherent Power of Democracy

(Wall Street Journal) Michael Doran - Noah Feldman, Harvard law professor, Middle East expert, and author of The Arab Winter: A Tragedy that analyzes the 2011 "Arab Spring," is a democracy promoter who's been mugged by reality. President Obama assumed people power would check the ambitions of America's enemies and thus inadvertently allowed the worst actors in the Middle East to devour the best. President George W. Bush, similarly, placed excessive faith in the potential of democracy promotion to stabilize Iraq and safeguard American interests. It was a characteristically American miscalculation. Both presidents believed that, in a democratizing moment, the wheels of history will do the work of American foreign policy all by themselves. When our leaders allow their trust in the inherent power of democracy to override the basic logic of supporting friends and punishing enemies, they serve neither our values nor our interests. The writer is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute.
2020-06-19 00:00:00
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