Washington – Author Victor Davis Hanson,
a classicist and historian with Stanford University's Hoover
Institution, led an Internet chat September 21 to discuss
the spread of freedom and democracy and how that can make
the world a safer place.
The day after the terrorist attacks of September
11, 2001, the United States was faced with tough decisions
that the result of years of tolerance for nondemocratic
governments, he said.
But today, “positive changes are under
way in Egypt and Libya; the Taliban and Saddam [Hussein]
are gone, and elected governments in Afghanistan and Iraq
are fighting terrorists,” Hanson noted. “Syrians
are out of Lebanon, and Dr. Khan has ceased his nuclear
antics.” [Abdul Qadeer Khan, a Pakistani nuclear scientist,
admitted in 2004 to sharing nuclear technology with Iran,
Libya and North Korea.]
His comments echoed those of Secretary of
State Condoleezza Rice, who, during a major policy speech
in Cairo in June, said that “for 60 years, my country,
the United States, pursued stability at the expense of democracy
in this region here in the Middle East -- and we achieved
neither. Now, we are taking a different course. We are supporting
the democratic aspirations of all people.” (See related
article.)
Hanson, the author of some 170 articles,
book reviews and newspaper editorials on Greek, agrarian
and military history and contemporary culture, had a diverse
audience for the webchat that included participants from
Turkmenistan, Sudan, Kazakhstan, Morocco, Israel, United
Arab Emirates, France, Niger, Uzbekistan and the United
States.
He said the United States is not trying
to promote “one system or the other of democracy –
there are many – but simply the general idea of legitimate
voting, independent courts, free expression, and the infrastructure
of constitutional government.”
Hanson noted that creating a “democracy
is easier in prosperous countries with educated populations,
but it is not impossible in emerging societies, and in fact
may be a catalyst to material improvement itself.”
“Democracy is not just majority rule
through voting, but an entire protocol -- free expression,
property rights, protection of minority rights, economic
liberality, civilian control of the military. Otherwise
we simply have a ‘democracy’ when a tyrant rigs
one election and claims legitimacy,” he said.
He told a webchat participant from Kazakhstan,
who expressed concern about the upcoming presidential elections
there, that “I hope we can be firm in our efforts
to support liberalization and galvanize allies to do the
same.”
Hanson said democracy and Islam are not
incompatible, and that Turkey could probably serve as a
model for Iraq in the future – “a democracy
with a strong Islamic flavor.”
“I think the U.S. seeks a variety
of nongovernmental ways to bring Western notions of freedom
to the Middle East,” he said. The United States tries
to promote freedom but not to dictate how it should come
about, and suggests that freedom “is natural to the
Arab world as it is natural to man.”
America must continue “to support
the democratic aspirations of those living under autocracies,”
he said.
“Iraq is slowly emerging from a 30-year
nightmare,” said Hanson. “As long as the majority
of the population and the elected parliament wish us to
stay to protect the nascent democracy, then we should.”
Hanson is a senior fellow at the Hoover
Institution and a teaching fellow at Hillsdale College
in Michigan for the month of September. His upcoming book,
A War Like No Other, examines the Peloponnesian War.
For more information on Mr. Hanson, see
his biography
at the Hoover Institute.
Tim Receveur
Washington File Staff Writer
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