Martin Kramer v George W. Bush on Democracy in the Middle East

From the Jerusalem Post's BlogCentral, Martin Kramer's Prague speech (invited by Natan Scharansky himself):

Now in the Middle East, Saddam-style dictatorship, with mass graves and invasions of neighbors, is the exception, not the rule. So is Taliban-style puritanism, based on terrorism at home and abroad. The same is true of the genocidal regime in the Sudan, and the potentially genocidal regime in Iran. Democracy competes not against them, but against this consensual authoritarianism. And the reason democracy is losing that competition is that consensual authoritarianism produces security for its peoples, and exports security to its neighbors and the world.

We musn't be blind to these facts: these regimes cooperate with the world in combatting terrorism and containing an aggressive Iran, they have peace treaties with Israel or float peace initiatives, they don't threaten or intervene in the internal affairs of other countries, and they don't seek weapons of mass destruction. None of them has gone to war in the last thirty-plus years.

And who are the net exporters of insecurity? These are states that have multi-polar or pluralistic systems: Iran, Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon and what some call Palestine. These systems aren't democracies, but in terms of formal practices like elections, they've actually gone the longer distance. Yet they don't provide security for their peoples, and they export insecurity, in the form of terrorism, refugees, radical Islam, and nuclear threats. What's discouraging is that this isn't true in only some of the cases, or only half of them. It's true, for now, in all if them.

Now it was also my teacher Bernard Lewis who said this: "Democracy is a strong medicine, which you have to give to the patient in small, gradually increasing doses. If you give too much too quickly, you kill the patient." This doesn't contradict his earlier statement, so much as it complements it. If they're not made free, they'll destroy us; but if they're made free too quickly, they might destroy themselves, and take us with them.

So how do we know whether the democracy dosage is too much, too fast? Security is the test. People around the world will look to this conference and say: solve this conundrum. Don't just cite precedents from other places and times. This is the Middle East, it looks different. Don't just offer lofty rhetoric. People are skeptical of it. Don't say that America will provide the security: it won't. And don't say that we have to think long-term: too much can go wrong in the short-term. The pro-democracy forces need to show how they'll make their peoples not only freer, but more secure--and how they'll make the rest of us safer.

Now unlike some others, I don't think this is an impossible mission. But it has to be acknowledged as the primary mission of dissidents today. It's a fact of life that the world's support for freedom isn't unconditional-- even for this US administration--and security is the condition. Meet that condition, even part way, and good people in the world won't just admire your courage. They might even take a chance and support you.