They are not imposed. And inside the human heart is where the impetus for political change must be generated.
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Seeking to intervene and essentially impose a democracy on a country without real democratic traditions or the foundations of a pluralist society is not only risky, it is also inherently self-contradictory. All experience suggests that democracy doesn't grow like this. But we are where we are, and we must pull together to try to help this project succeed.
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And in the long term, we must draw down U.S. troops. A massive American military presence in the heart of the Middle East, after all, can only increase support for terrorism and undercut the position of indigenous pro-Western reformers.
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We can't know precisely how the desire for freedom among the peoples of the Middle East will grow and evolve into movements that result in stable democratic governments. Different countries may take different paths. Progress may come from a beneficent king, from enlightened mullahs, from a secular military, from a women's movement, from workers returning from years spent as immigrants in Western Europe, from privileged sons of oil barons raised on MTV, or from an increasingly educated urban intelligentsia, such as the nascent one in Iran. But if the events of the last year tell us anything, it is that democracy in the Middle East is unlikely to come at the point of our gun. And Ronald Reagan would have known better than to try.
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2004/0405.clark.htmlClark was in Washington yesterday, and will be part of the new National Security Group. I do hope the Democratic Party carefully considers his advice in the formulation of policy...
Spotted on Capitol Hill yesterday: Wes Clark, speaking, according to a source who was there, to a standing-room-only gathering of Democratic Senate staffers with a national security bent. Clark gave an upbeat account of the Party's fight to forge policy alternatives to President Bush's plans. He urged Democrats to stop talking about exit strategies and timelines and focus on how to win in Iraq.
He also joined Leaders Reid and Pelosi for a closed-door meeting of their newly announced National Security Advisory Group, including bold-faced names Perry and Albright.
They frame this as an early, early, early look at the '08 field which is very Note of them. The important thing here, though, is less that Wesley Clark was on the Hill than that his appearance attracted a standing-room-only gathering of Democratic Senate staffers eager to here what he had to say. This seems to indicate to me that the National Security Advisory Group concept will actually go somewhere, with its members actually doing stuff, and staffers and legislators actually paying some attention. Ezra Klein is right to say that the politics of security are largely about image (the politics of everything are), but the important thing to note is that you can't just whip up some issues and an "image" cooked to order when it comes time to run a presidential campaign. You need to have some idea of what it is you're trying to market, and some experience with various people actually trying to market it. And perhaps most important of all, one key element of "image" is not looking uncomfortable discussing these topics, and one easy way to do that is to actually be comfortable and confident that you know what you're talking about and understand where you want to take the country.
March 15, 2005 | Permalink
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