HunterByrd

Ten Reasons for Democracy in the Middle East

As the debate between a largely neo-conservative 'red' America and a largely idealist-egalitarianist (i.e. UN-wishing) 'blue' America rages, prominent commentator Victor Davis Hanson offers up another of his superbly thought-out essays in support of the Bush administrations efforts in the Arab World.

Here are the reasons (Hanson's commentary on each of them is exceptionally valuable):

1. It is widely said that democracies rarely attack other democracies. Thus the more that exist in the world — and at no time in history have there been more such governments than today — the less likely is war itself.

2. More often than not, democracies arise through violence — either by threat of force or after war with all the incumbent detritus of humiliation, impoverishment, and revolution.

3. Democracies are more likely to be internally stable, inasmuch as they allow people to take credit and accept blame for their own predicaments.

4. The democratic idea is contagious.

5. In the case of the Muslim world, there is nothing inherently incompatible between Islam and democracy.

6. Democracy brings moral clarity and cures deluded populaces of their false grievances and exaggerated hurts.

7. We fret rightly about the spread of weapons of mass destruction.

8. The promotion of democracy abroad by democracy at home is internally consistent and empowers rather than embarrasses a sponsoring consensual society.

9. By promoting democracies, Americans can at last come to a reckoning with the Cold War.

10. Like it or not, a growing consensus has emerged that consumer capitalism and democracy are the only ways to organize society.

The article is worthy of a bookmark.