Current US policies are unsuited for the superpower's stated goal of bringing liberal values to a region with widespread poverty, joblessness and illiteracy
By Joseph Nye
With Iraq rapidly descending into bloody chaos, the prospects look bleak for holding successful democratic elections in January, as the US and the Iraqi interim government have promised. Some skeptics go further, arguing that the Iraq debacle proves that prospects for democracy throughout the Arab world are dim. Are they right?
Half the world's countries are democracies, yet none of the 22 Arab countries is among them. The UN's Arab Human Development Report is frank in its criticism of the region's economic and social progress. Economic growth has been slow, approximately half of all women are illiterate and the region is not well integrated into the world economy. Indeed, with a population of more than 300 million, Arab countries export less to the world, excluding oil and gas, than Finland.
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/edit/archives/2004/09/29/2003204857Ya know, it could be me living in a shell or Democratic "thinkers" are idiots? I've never heard Iraq referenced to America bringing "liberal values" to Iraq. Why doesn't Kerry say this or others to bring a positive feeling to the word liberal?