The Myth of Democratic Peace
by Leon Hadar
If you’ve been listening to the recent "democracy is the way to go" sermons by US President George W Bush and his advisers, you'll have to conclude that embracing "democracy" – a concept that is open to different interpretations – is the cure for most of humanity's ills, ranging from political violence and economic underdevelopment to male baldness and erectile dysfunction. ("Keep the spark alive...become the best guy... for her... take Democraticialis....").
Even in the more modest version, the global democratic crusade launched by the White House and inspired by the Wilsonian neoconservative ideologues adopts what the neocons consider to be an axiom of international relations, that democracies rarely, if ever, wage war against one another. Translating that maxim into policy terms means that Washington has the obligation based not only on moral considerations but also on pure self-interest to promote democracy worldwide as the most effective way to establish international peace and stability.
Indeed, in his second inaugural address Mr. Bush has proclaimed that "the survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands; the best hope for peace in our world is the expansion of freedom in all the world." He and his foreign policy aides have argued that one of the main rationales for ousting Saddam Hussein and occupying Iraq – especially since no weapons of mass destruction were discovered there – was the need to rid Mesopotamia of a tyrant and establish a democratic system and pursue similar regime changes and advance freedom in the rest of the Arab Middle East.
The Bushies argue ...