American efforts to democratize Middle East inefficient and wasteful
Only a month has passed since news of Osama Bin Laden’s death made headlines and already the United States has taken on another hefty slice of military intervention in other Middle Eastern countries.
Even though the establishment of a legitimate democracy is usually beneficial to our international interests, taking it upon ourselves to intervene often slows or even destroys the process altogether. For example, in Iraq and Afghanistan, our nation’s attempts to stabilize the countries and usher in democracy have proven difficult. Consequently, our nations’ operations have extended over a decade with no clear success in sight. The downfall of this situation was that the United States’ attempts to speed the transition to democracy outpaced the emergence of an effective leader for the new government.
On top of this, ignoring the sovereignty of these Middle Eastern countries by using force within their own borders without the support of the global community has undermined the power of important international organizations. These are the same problems that the United States has begun to face by pursuing a democracy in countries like Libya and Egypt, where protests have erupted. Most critics would argue that no transition would ever be possible in these developing countries without the United States’ support. However, there are multiple examples of successful democracies that formed quickly and without external help. Bhutan is a prime example of a new democracy, constructed in 2008, that evolved with almost no foreign influence. They made the transition from a completely different political system to a respectable democracy in a relatively short amount of time, avoiding international support and establishing legitimacy in the eyes of the population. The United States should certainly pull out of Libya, Egypt and other Middle Eastern countries fighting for democracy before the countries become too dependent on our support. If dependency forms, then we can delegitimize the local movements and handicap their cohesion with the country. In Iraq and Afghanistan, the president of the Arab American Institute testified in front of Congress in 2007 that polling among Arab populations showed that “even [Arabs] who value freedom and democracy did not want our [U.S.] assistance in promoting democracy in their country.” In countries striving for democracy, especially those that present a small threat to the U.S., the justification for spending billions of dollars on democratic promotion is not enough. In a majority of situations, our support has only hurt the establishment of these political systems, fostered more unrest and sapped the power of local movements. The United States should stop spending so much money on foreign aid, military intervention and diplomacy on small political movements when they could be spending it on domestic programs for American taxpayers.
This would take the burden off both the United States and the Middle Eastern countries that don’t want our help anyway.