Nobody knows whether the election win for Hamas will help or hurt the cause of democracy in the Middle East. On the one hand, the victory of a terrorist party seems to vindicate the argument that democracy can only work where modern mores and social institutions are already in place. On the other hand, there is at least a scenario in which either Hamas is forced to transform itself, or the ultimate failure of Hamas teaches the Palestinians a culture-changing lesson in what real democracy requires.

Ideally, I would prefer to go the route of slow cultural transition before giving democracy a try. The danger of premature democracy is exactly what we’re seeing now. Yet I recognize that we cannot afford the luxury of slow-motion cultural transformation. The pressure of nuclear proliferation has forced us to try something drastic and risky. The stakes, arguably, justify the risk.

stanley kurtz– the corner on nro

here are a few questions we should ask ourselves in determining the success or failure of this experiment. let’s have the debate. is promoting democracy the best way to fight the war on terror? have we considered that a change to democratic government may not be the first step for a country unfamiliar with how that system of government works? kurtz makes an excellent point here when he says that there is more involved in establishing a working democracy than simply having elections. read the whole post. he is absolutely right. i’m not sure that the bush administration has completely thought through the implications of this approach to the war on terror.

i’m not opposed to democracy. i believe that it is the best form of government for the United States, even though it doesn’t work in an error-free fashion for us either. we need to remember that the current version of our democratic system wasn’t automatically created at our country’s first breath. it took 200 + years to get where we are today. we can’t expect iraq, afghanistan, and other mideast countries to understand how democracy works right away after having limited to no experience with that form of government.

that said, if we really want these countries to elect their own leaders, then we have to live with the results of those elections. it’s easier to be in opposition than to be the ruling party, as hamas will soon find out. when your party is out of power, you can make all sorts of irresponsible statements and advocate many impractical policy changes, without being held to account for the results of your actions. that changes when your party is in power.

part of this post from the therapy sessions says this better than i just did:

To take power is to take responsibility. When you run an organization on the fringe – Hezballah in Lebanon, The Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, al Qaeda throughout the region – you can say and do what you like, even with the tacit approval of those in power.

When you are in charge, things change. The terrible economy is not an advantage – something you can complain about to generate support; it is a liability. It is your job to make it better (and only economic freedom creates economic growth). If you sponsor attacks in other countries, these are not just suicide bombings, they are acts of war.

No more shadowy groups hiding in the fringes. If these groups take power democratically, so be it. If that leads to civil wars, that’s sad – but we might as well get them over with.

For a century, we tolerated dictators in the region as the price of stability, but there was another hidden price: behind the scenes, thousands of fringe groups were taking the hearts of the people – or so they thought. This policy has been shattered by Bush, and those groups are being told: put up or shut up.

These are good things.

this argument makes sense to me. i do think that america is not obligated to financially support groups like hamas, whether they are democratically elected or not. (the whole concept of foreign aid is flawed as a general theory…but that’s a subject for another post.) the people will find out whether hamas is worthy to rule by what they do with the power they have been given. the same goes for the governments of iraq and afghanistan. these countries may have to learn a few painful lessons along the way, but eventually i think that they will figure it out. we did.

the results of promoting democracy are mixed so far. time will tell whether we will achieve the desired results of this experiment.

other good stuff to read:

Is there a place for democracy in the Middle East?–iraq the model
Can Democracy Stop Terrorism?–an balanced look at our current policy in the mideast from foreignaffairs.org
Welcome Hamas–quoted here (from the therapy sessions blog)