Neoconservatism and the Future of Democracy Promotion

In the Daily News Egypt, Ian Buruma describes the ascendance of neoconservatism during the Bush years, and how the movement came to provide the intellectual underpinnings for the War on Terror and the Iraq war.

Buruma worries that the very idea of spreading democracy, and even the word ‘democracy’ itself, may have become a “casualty of neo-conservative hubris” and “tainted by neo-imperialist connotations.” Though Buruma notes that despite their conspicuous mugging by reality, there is a core truth in the neocon assertion “that aggressive promotion of democracy abroad [is] not only moral, and in the American tradition, but in the national interest as well.”

“Democracy must be encouraged, wherever possible, by the most powerful democracy on earth. But revolutionary wars are not the most effective way to do this. What is needed is to find a less belligerent, more liberal way to promote democracy, stressing international cooperation instead of blunt military force. Obama is unlikely to repeat the mistakes of the neo-cons. But, in order to succeed, he will have to save some of their ideals from the ruins of their disastrous policies.”