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| Olde Tyme Religion | |
| God, Man, and the Ballot Box: Why George W. Was Right | |
| 2009-08-06 | |
In the summer of 2002, you could have filled the conference halls of Washington's largest think tanks with people who were in favor of advancing democracy among Middle Eastern Muslims. Few then would have disagreed openly with Daniel Benjamin and Steven Simon, former counterterrorism officials in the Clinton administration and the authors of The Age of Sacred Terror, who saw the spread of representative government as an essential tool in the battle against jihadism. A wide array of American liberals and conservatives backed the U.S.-led war in Iraq partly because they believed that the collapse of Saddam Hussein's regime might give way to a more liberal, democratic order. Although the "realists," who preferred maintaining the authoritarian status quo in the region, still wielded considerable influence, especially in the State Department, the pro-democracy forces had greater momentum and, in George W. Bush, they had the first American president who believed sincerely in Muslim democracy. For many democracy advocates, Iraq was going to be the great test. | |
| Posted by:trailing wife |