With the Iraqi election results being made official on Sunday, all but the most cynical detractors admit that progress is slowly but assuredly being made in Iraq. Only the very misanthropic among us do not greatly admire the will for democracy among people who literally risked their lives to exercise a right that many Americans take lightly.
However, the election is only the beginning of bringing democracy to the Middle East. The insurgents will not suddenly disappear, nor will the formation of the Iraqi Constitution be without criticism. We were reminded by President Bush in his State of the Union Address that the road to freedom is uneven and unpredictable. Hopefully, the democratic ideals so admirably practiced by Iraqis on Election Day will continue as coalitions are formed to gain the two-thirds majority needed to control the National Assembly.
There are few who have a larger stake in a free and democratic Iraq than President Bush. Bush needs democracy to hold in Iraq not just to justify the Iraqi war, but also because his foreign policy hinges on the hope that Iraq will become more than an island of democracy in the Middle East.
While some may argue that it is not the United States' duty to bring freedom by the barrel of a gun, the fact remains that a democratic and free Iraq will be a momentous first step towards Bush's new foreign policy vision. If and when freedom takes hold in the Middle East, it will serve not only as a beacon of light to other oppressed nations, but will also promote American security.
The primary problem facing American security is no longer an ideological battle against communist Russia. The danger facing America today is of a much different and even more dangerous scope. Consequently, it has become clear that old American foreign policy decisions, such as Kissinger's realism, are no longer apropos. Under the realism model, America promoted stability in the hopes that stability would bring security. However, as Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice reminded us in her maiden speech to Europe in Paris, what we got in return was neither.
Now, the President is promoting a new philosophy to guide our foreign relations. Essentially, the philosophy is that the best way to ensure security is through freedom and democracy.
Interestingly, this vision being promoted by President Bush is really not all that different than what was espoused by Woodrow Wilson nearly a century ago. In his "Fourteen Points" Speech, Wilson said, "An evident principle runs through the whole program I have outlined. It is the principle of justice to all peoples and nationalities, and their right to live of liberty and safety with one other." While Americans may not have abided by the tenants of Wilson's ideals, times have now changed.
The idea of promoting freedom is no longer just a lofty ideal, it is now essential to our security. In his book "The Case for Democracy," widely read within the Bush White House, Natan Sharansky outlines the need for democracy in order to ensure security. Sharansky, who as a Soviet Jew spent nine years as a political prisoner, believes there are two different types of societies in the modern world. There are "fear" societies and "free" societies. A free society is where "people have a right to express their views without fear of arrest, imprisonment or physical harm." While seemingly natural to Americans, these are characteristics not found in the modern "fear" societies such as North Korea and Iran. Instead, fear societies are characterized by "doublespeak" from people who are afraid to show dissent toward the state.
Sharansky uses Russia as the prime example of what happens when freedom begins to take hold. The freeing of Eastern Europe, the tearing down of the Berlin Wall, snowballed upon the Soviet Union. Gorbachev was forced to "grudgingly poke in the dam of Soviet rule ... and unleash a flood of freedom." Once freedom and democracy took hold in the Eastern Bloc, the disintegration of the Soviet Union was inevitable. Today, the United States find itself safer on that front as a result. Now the hope of people like Sharansky is that a similar logic can be applied to the Middle East.
It has long been observed by students of international relations that democracies don't fight with each other. Now, we finally have a foreign policy to match this revelation. As dawn breaks on a new century, so too is there a new light cast upon American foreign relations. It is a policy based not on harsh, fatalistic realpolitk, but on hope, freedom and democracy.
Mike Schrimpf is a senior majoring in political science.
