The Bush Administration used to say that the U.S. was bringing democracy to Iraq and hoping to inspire a democratic wave throughout the Middle East. Let’s agree to accept this uncritically and move forward to ask the following question: Has the recent national election in Iraq inspired the region and emboldened democracy movements? In this report in today’s New York Times, we find that the answer to that question is mostly no:
Across the region, the news media operate with varying degrees of restrictions. But even in the most censorship-prone nations, news commentators are often allowed to opine about events beyond their borders. They have been especially vocal about Iraq, flogging the West and its allies for unleashing chaos there. But there was surprisingly little commentary written about the Iraqi elections in the days before the vote, which has been attributed to weariness with the topic and skepticism over the validity of the exercise, according to political analysts and Mideastwire.com, the news media monitoring company based in Beirut. “People viewed it cynically — critically and skeptically,” said Ghanim Alnajjar, a political science professor at Kuwait University.
What can account for this cynicism and skepticism about prospects for democracy? In this video, hosted by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Marina Ottaway and Amr Hamzawy discuss their book, Getting to Pluralism: Political Actors in the Arab World, which examines the plight of democracy in the Middle East and suggests policy options for the U.S. and the West.