Publication

This report argues that the United States should support the evolutionary development of democracy consistently throughout the Middle East. It points out that a strategy to promote democracy entails inherent risks, but that the denial of freedom carries much more significant long-term dangers. The report states that while democracy will not resolve the problem of terrorism entirely, more open political environments will likely weaken the pull of extremist ideologies that fuel violence. Nonetheless, the authors caution that if the new policy is implemented in ways that are superficial, half-hearted, underfunded, or inconsistent, it will yield allegations of hypocrisy and further damage relations between the US and Arab populations.