Democracy Promotion

To be sure, some have argued that we should do even more, and specifically that we should withhold military and intelligence cooperation from certain of our allies whose human rights records leave much to be desired. As they see it, we improperly allow realpolitik considerations to trump the human rights imperatives. But this argument is myopic. No responsible U.S. decision-maker can allow our foreign policy to be driven by a single imperative, no matter how important. Thus, our policy toward a given country or region is shaped by a variety of considerations, including security concerns, economic issues, and human rights imperatives. The most difficult task of our statecraft is to strike the right balance among these imperatives and arrive at the policy mix that best advances an entire set of our values and interests. Invariably, it is a nuanced and balanced approach that produces the best results. And invariably, this administration has struck the right balance. For example, in the post-September 11 environment, as we began to engage a number of Central Asian governments whose help we needed to prosecute the war against al Qaeda and the Taliban, we simultaneously intensified our efforts to improve the human rights situation in these countries. By cooperating on intelligence and security issues, we have actually enhanced our leverage on democracy-related matters. Although a great deal more needs to be done, we believe that this integrated approach is working.

Any effort to juxtapose or contrast our efforts to win the war against terrorism and our democracy-promotion strategy is conceptually flawed. Pan-national terrorist groups (such as al Qaeda) and rogue regimes (such as that of the Taliban or of Saddam Hussein) pose grave threats to democratic systems, as do the xenophobic, intolerant ideologies that they espouse. Accordingly, fighting against these forces is both in our national security interest and a key ingredient of democracy promotion. And democracy promotion is the best antidote to terrorism. Significantly, the Seoul Plan of Action, adopted at the 2002 CD meeting, contains a series of actions that democracies can take to counter emerging threats through the promotion of democracy.

Carothers also criticizes what he terms an "instrumentalization" of our democracy promotion. In essence, he complains that, for example, the administration's efforts to promote democracy in a post-Saddam Iraq and, more generally, to advance democracy across the Arab world are somehow tainted because we have other reasons for our actions -- e.g., removing the threat that Saddam's arsenal of weapons of mass destruction and his long-standing defiance of the international community pose to the world. Democracy promotion, it seems, should not only trump all other foreign policy imperatives; it should always be the one and only policy driver. This, of course, would immunize human rights offenders and despots who also present security threats -- not an outcome that anyone who cares about human rights causes should welcome. More generally, the fact that we are advancing policies that simultaneously promote democracy over the long haul and mitigate the security threats that we face in the near term underscores the extent to which human rights causes have become integrated into our foreign policy. In a very real sense, this is American statecraft at its best.

Despite the enormous demands of the war against terrorism, this administration has found time for and evidenced keen interest in launching several major new democracy-promotion initiatives. Although human rights and democracy causes have a long bipartisan pedigree, it has been the Bush administration that has reordered the country's approach to development assistance so as to reward and encourage "good governance" through a pathbreaking initiative: the Millennium Challenge Account (MCA). In 2003 alone, the administration has requested $1.3 billion for the MCA, which means 15 percent of our foreign assistance will be dedicated to good governance, investment in people, and economic development. In addition to changing our own policy, the leadership and commitment President Bush displayed at the March 2002 Monterrey summit on financing development have convinced many of our allies, international lending and aid-delivery institutions, and the un to change the ways in which they do business.

The administration has also launched a high-level initiative to improve political, economic, and cultural participation by women and combat discrimination against them. This effort began in Afghanistan, where the Taliban regime practiced what amounted to gender apartheid, and grew into a broad, sustained campaign focused on those governments that deprive women of political and economic opportunity. This strategy is spearheaded by the Office of International Women's Issues at the State Department and has featured participation by the president and the first lady, Secretary of State Colin Powell, presidential adviser Karen Hughes, and numerous other senior administration officials. Our overarching goal is to improve women's access to education and health and ensure that nowhere in the world are women treated as second-class citizens, unable to work, vote, or realize their dreams. We have also launched a Middle East Partnership Initiative that seeks to support political, economic, and educational reform in that region.

Overall, the promotion of democracy is a key foreign policy goal of the Bush administration. This sentiment is reflected in all of our international endeavors and is animated by a mixture of both idealistic and pragmatic impulses. We seek to foster a global society of nations, in which freedom and democracy reign and human aspirations are fully realized.

Paula J. Dobriansky is Undersecretary of State for Global Affairs.

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