(Bush's) U.S. Ideals Meet Reality in Yemen

[Rose Siding]

....Yemen, as of Dec. 15, was an embryonic democracy of 20 million people, 60 million guns, ongoing wars, active terrorists, extensive poverty, pervasive corruption, a high illiteracy rate, an infamous port where al Qaeda attacked the USS Cole in 2000, a notorious patch of valley that is the ancestral homeland of Osama bin Laden, and a widespread belief that the United States is the reason life here for so many is so miserable.

On June 15, when Robin Madrid's six-month program began, it was pretty much the same thing.
....
Democracy as commodity....In total, the United States will spend at least $1 billion this year on these programs. An exact figure is difficult to know because democracy promotion has evolved from a theory into an industry that sprawls all over Washington, encompassing the State Department, the U.S. Agency for International Development, the National Endowment for Democracy and dozens of for-profits and nonprofits around Washington that live and die on government contracts and grants. USAID, which allocates the most money for democracy promotion by far, says it will spend at least $1.2 billion, which it spent in 2004. A State Department spokesman declined to give a figure, saying, "The problem is, it falls into so many categories it's difficult to tease out."

The one thing that everyone agrees on is that since Sept. 11, 2001, the amount of money the Bush administration is steering to promote democracy in Islamic countries of the Middle East has increased dramatically, even at the expense of other regions of the world. To help in this, there is a new office in the State Department called the Middle East Partnership Initiative, overseen by a deputy assistant secretary of state named J. Scott Carpenter, who candidly acknowledges, "We don't know yet how best to promote democracy in the Arab Middle East. I mean we just don't know. It's the early days." But that's no reason not to try, he says, especially in such urgent times. His approach: "I think there are times when you throw spaghetti against the wall and see if it sticks."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/17/AR2005121701237_3.html

[bemildred]

1. There are plenty of reasons "not to try".

When you fiddle with things that you admit you don't understand, you tend to screw them up.

[Rose Siding]

2. Indeed. This should be a companion piece-

snip>
In recent elections across Iraq and other countries in the region, Islamist parties have capitalized skillfully on new political freedoms to gain clout and legitimacy unprecedented in the modern Middle East. The growing strength of the religion-based parties is the single most unpredictable element in the Bush administration's grand vision to replace despots with democracy.
...
"U.S. foreign policy has helped directly in the rise of the Islamists," said Gamal Banna, a liberal Egyptian writer and brother of the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood. "The intervention in Iraq and the support for Israel's policies are creating so much anger in the region. The Islamists are benefiting from that anger."
...
Across the region, Islamist parties have proved themselves best poised to gain from any democratic opening. They enjoy easy access to mosques, which are virtually the only spaces where politics are publicly discussed in many Arab countries. Their slogans tap into deep religious feelings, and their legacy of social and welfare work gives them easy credibility on the street.

And Islamists have been clever in recasting themselves to suit the current mood. Many religious politicians stopped talking about Islamic republics and became unabashed democracy cheerleaders.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-islam18dec18,0,4119878.story?coll=la-home-headlines&track=morenews