Tyranny and Terror

Will Democracy in the Middle East Make Us Safer?

Aiming High

PAULA J. DOBRIANSKY AND HENRY A. CRUMPTON

In "Can Democracy Stop Terrorism?" (September/October 2005), Gregory Gause posits a one-dimensional solution to a multidimensional problem. Unfortunately, he also incorrectly claims that President George W. Bush has done the same, in believing that promoting democracy can alone defeat terrorism. Gause writes, "The Bush administration and its defenders contend that this push for Arab democracy will not only spread American values but also improve U.S. security. As democracy grows in the Arab world, the thinking goes, the region will stop generating anti-American terrorism."

The administration, of course, has never prescribed democracy as the single-dose remedy to the terrorist disease. On the contrary, the president's 2003 National Strategy for Combating Terrorism features a broad range of antiterrorist measures. The strategy also declares essential the coordinated deployment of all the instruments of statecraft, at home and abroad. President Bush underscored this during his September 15, 2005, speech to world leaders at the UN in New York. He spoke about confronting threats directly, engaging the enemy, disrupting terrorist networks, denying enemies safe haven, building international coalitions, forging treaties that reinforce the rule of law, denying the enemy weapons of mass destruction, and changing the conditions that terrorists exploit.

Such conditions include, among others, a shifting mix of international geopolitics, economics, religion, ideology, ignorance, cultural stress, and intolerant political systems that offer little room for political expression or personal freedom. This environment enables terrorist leaders to advance their own agenda, to exert influence, to recruit, and to escalate local conflicts. Tyranny does afford our terrorist enemies an advantage.

Terrorism-conducive conditions can converge in specific geographic areas, often in illiberal societies and lawless or nondemocratic states, where the enemy can establish safe haven. Tribal regions along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, illiberal and undergoverned by legitimate state authority, provide al Qaeda leaders such refuge. Illiberal and ambitious Iran sponsors international terrorist groups, such as Hezbollah, as proxy forces and hinders cooperation within the region on anti-al Qaeda policies. Nondemocratic and illiberal Syria does the same. Countries that lack functioning law enforcement structures in part or all of their territories provide lawless spaces in which terrorists can operate.

Of course, terrorists have also found space to operate in democratic states, as Gause notes. Democracies, however, have an advantage in their ability to rise to the occasion and implement needed reforms with popular consent. States with liberal institutions and democratic systems can thereby respond to terror with greater public support and, in the long run, greater effectiveness than authoritarian states can.

For example, in the past, the United States has imposed structural restrictions on itself, encumbering the flow of information between intelligence services and law enforcement organizations and among local, state, and federal agencies. Since the 9/11 attacks, however, the United States, using the democratic process, has moved aggressively to "give this nation a broad and coordinated homeland defense," as President Bush recently put it. Similarly, the United Kingdom reacted to the July 7, 2005, bombings in London through democratic means, promptly enacting new laws against incitement to terrorism and encouraging civic society to engage disaffected Muslim youth.

Counterterrorism actions in democracies reflect the will of citizens, and citizens feel integrated into the overall actions of their government. In contrast, fighting terror with oppression eventually leads to more of both.

There are other global benefits accruing from democratization. The free flow of information within and among democracies builds stronger, more flexible, more dynamic societies that are better positioned to fight an enemy employing international terror as a tactic. The global war on terror requires a global response, and democracies working together enhance one another's responses far more effectively than do nondemocratic states, where the flow of intelligence and trust is limited. New and emerging democracies not only provide viable, legitimate recourse for their own citizens' grievances, but also offer greater opportunities for counterterrorism partnerships with other democracies. Interdependent, networked liberal institutions throughout the globe, reinforced by the structure of democratic governments, provide the best means to defeat the interdependent, networked terrorist cells of radical extremists who seek to destroy democracy and, in fact, the nation-state system itself.

Not surprisingly, the terrorist enemy opposes democracy, because he understands the grave threat it poses to his plans. Al Qaeda leaders have specifically railed against the notion of democracy, seeking to label it as heretical, and terrorists have killed innocent Afghans simply for having voter registration cards. The people of Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon, and elsewhere understand and appreciate the importance of democracy in the fight against those who embrace terror. The citizens of emerging democracies demonstrate their courage and tenacity every time they register and vote, striking body blows against enemy forces. Fouad Ajami, writing in Foreign Affairs ("The Autumn of the Autocrats," May/June 2005), noted that the United States "has signaled its willingness to gamble on the young, the new, and the unknown. ... Now the Arabs, grasping for a new world, and the Americans, who helped usher in this unprecedented moment, together ride this storm wave of freedom."