Iraq and the Global Democracy Movement

Joseph Siegle is Senior Research Scholar at the Center for International and Security Studies at the University of Maryland and co-author of The Democracy Advantage: How Democracies Promote Prosperity and Peace (Routledge, 2004).

The Bush administration’s high-profile use of democracy as a justification for the Iraq War continues to dominate debate over the goal of democracy promotion and the methods used to advance it. Supporters of the Bush administration maintain that force was needed to dislodge a dangerous tyrant, and they point to the US efforts in Iraq as a stimulus for democracy elsewhere. Critics see the Iraq intervention as a guise to expand US influence and as undercutting initiatives that foster and sustain democratic change from within—initiatives such as the strengthening of an autonomous judiciary, a neutral private sector, a merit-based civil service, and a free press. This article examines the impact of US policy in Iraq on the global expansion of democracy and on the effectiveness of traditional democracy-promotion initiatives.

Don’t Blame Democracy

Iraq has always been about much more than democracy. This is especially true for an administration that came into office downplaying the value of democracy promotion, nation-building, and other elements of “soft power”. Rather, Iraq was about projecting hard power—to rid the United States and the world of a perceived threat. Iraq’s previous use of chemical weapons, its capacity to produce nuclear and biological weapons, and the fear that these could be provided to international terrorist organisations, particularly al-Qaeda, were the main drivers of the US-led military intervention in Iraq. If it were not for the ambiguity surrounding Saddam Hussein’s possession of these weapons, Iraq would not have been singled out for invasion among the world’s forty-five or so remaining autocracies.

Democracy only took centre stage as a rationale for the Iraq invasion once Saddam was toppled and no weapons of mass destruction (WMD) were found. With evidence lacking of WMD, WMD facilities, or a link between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda, democracy emerged as the best justification to sustain support for the costly engagement.

Indications that democracy was not high among the Bush administration’s reasons for the intervention can be seen in its actions leading up to the war. In late 2002, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer stated that “a single bullet” could avert the Iraq War, in effect calling for the assassination of Saddam Hussein as a satisfactory means of regime change. Similarly, Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld and his staff were actively encouraging leading Iraqi generals to oust Saddam themselves as a way of forestalling a US invasion. Accordingly, if an assassin or a general had heeded these urgings prior to March 2003, the impetus for the US invasion would have evaporated. The United States was motivated less to spur on democracy in Iraq than to remove the perceived threat, Saddam Hussein.

Reflecting the near total absence of a plan to foster democracy in Iraq, once Baghdad fell the first head of US reconstruction efforts, former general Jay Garner, told his aides that there was no need to focus on long-term institution-building since the United States would only be in Iraq for a couple of months. The fact that President George W. Bush chose the Defence Department to head the reconstruction effort is further indication that democracy was a low priority. As we now know, the department lacked a political or economic reconstruction strategy. Its solution was the hardly democratic option of installing Ahmed Chalabi in power. He was promptly flown into Iraq in April 2003 for this purpose—only to meet fervent opposition from domestic political leaders. The United States then opted for the (similarly undemocratic) pro-consul approach, appointing Paul “Jerry” Bremer as its chief administrator in Iraq in mid May. When it was recognised that the ongoing absence of Iraqi representation in the reconstruction process was untenable, an advisory council was selected. It wasn’t until November 2003 that the United States and Britain could announce a plan for elections and for the return of sovereignty to the Iraqis.

The Impact of Iraq

While democracy was not a top priority for the Bush administration going into Iraq, the expansive democratic vision President Bush and his senior advisers have articulated in explaining their Iraq policy has led many friends and foes alike to link Iraq with US democracy-promotion efforts. The conduct and outcomes of the Iraq War, accordingly, have had direct implications for the prospects for democracy in Iraq and elsewhere in the region.

Despite the chaotic start-up and ongoing lurches in the political reconstruction process, important positive democratic developments have been realised in Iraq. The images of millions of Iraqis braving insurgents’ threats to vote in three national elections in 2005, including ratification of a new democratic constitution, sent a powerful message about the universal aspiration for self-governance. That this took place in a society where there has been a near total absence of democratic traditions is ringing testimony that citizens from every society want to have a say in how they are governed.

These images, in turn, have shaped impressions about democracy in the Arab world. Even if vehemently opposed to the US intervention, citizens in the streets of Cairo, Damascus, and Riyadh have been compelled to ask, “If Iraqis can select their leaders, then why can’t we?” Simply posing that question represents a fundamental shift in expectations. It challenges long‑accepted assumptions of perpetual disenfranchisement and adds momentum for greater openness domestically. Indeed, some reforms have been observed in the region over the past several years. Opposition parties participated in Egyptian parliamentary elections in late 2005, municipal elections were held in Saudi Arabia, human rights protections have expanded in Morocco, women have gained the right to vote in Kuwait, and Lebanon has won greater autonomy from Syria.

US credibility on democracy issues was simultaneously enhanced by tangible actions that seemed to match the rhetoric on Iraq. The Bush administration’s criticism of Uzbekistan’s Islam Karimov following the May 2005 massacre of unarmed civilians in Andijan, at the cost of losing access to the Karsi-Khanabad air base used for military and humanitarian operations in Afghanistan, demonstrated a substantive commitment. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s speech in Cairo in June 2005 challenging the Mubarak government to open Egypt’s political process to multi-party competition also hinted at a more assertive US posture vis-à-vis longstanding autocratic partners in the Middle East. These actions, combined with the US willingness to support competitive elections in the Palestinian territories and to press Syria to leave Lebanon following the assassination of former prime minister Rafik Hariri, did not go unnoticed in the region. Arab moderates saw the United States as a genuine ally in pushing the region’s strongmen towards greater openness and in expanding the democratic space in which reformers could manoeuvre. This sequence of events has led some to conclude that the US intervention in Iraq has been an indispensable catalyst for democratic reform in the Middle East.

Yet this conclusion overlooks the serious negative ramifications the Iraq invasion has had for democracy in Iraq and the region. Perhaps most consequentially, the United States assumed the posture of occupier rather than liberator. This set the tone for a US-directed rather than a US-facilitated reconstruction process. The rampant looting and lawlessness in the early days of the US presence, the persistent insecurity, lack of basic services, no-bid contracts to large American firms with ties to the administration, the waste and corruption of reconstruction monies, the human rights abuses in Abu Ghraib prison and elsewhere, and the planting of news stories in the media—all this badly tarnished the positive image of democracy many Iraqis held prior to the war. Rather than inspiring public support for democracy, these incidents have fuelled suspicions of US motives. A January 2006 World Public Opinion poll found that 80 per cent of all Iraqis believe that the United States plans to maintain a permanent military presence in Iraq.

In many new democratisation experiences there is a euphoria and a sense of hope for real change that transcends the society—what former Polish finance minister Leszek Balcerowicz characterised as “a period of extraordinary politics”. This opens the door for co-operation across political camps and the realisation of dramatic initial progress. Over time, as the freshness of the change wears off and the necessity of the hard work of constant compromise that typifies democratic processes sinks in, enthusiasm declines and some disillusionment emerges. Eventually, this settles into a democratic maturity that recognises that no system or party is perfect, but at least citizens have the means by which they can effect change. Owing to the many missteps, Iraq appears to be a case where disillusionment sets in before democracy ever really gains traction—boding ill for its long-term sustainability in Iraq.

As for the region, public opinion polls have consistently shown that the US-led invasion of Iraq has cast a dark shadow over Arab attitudes towards the United States. Since the Iraq intervention is widely seen as an attempt by the United States to gain control over Iraq’s oil, it has had the paradoxical effect of creating suspicions of US calls for democracy among societies that are living under autocratic governments and chafing for change. Unsurprisingly, autocratic leaders have seized on this resentment to foster the impression that turmoil, destruction, and instability must inevitably accompany democratisation. The prospect of democracy failing to take root in Iraq, in turn, poses the risk of further setbacks for democracy in the Arab world and beyond. Sceptics will ask how democracy can reasonably be expected to blossom elsewhere if it fails to emerge in Iraq despite the billions of dollars spent and the presence of 135,000 American troops. The self-perpetuating conclusion that strong autocratic governments are indispensable to the maintenance of order will be reinforced.

It’s More Than Iraq

Globally, US calls for democracy are weakened by perceptions of inconsistencies and double standards. Despite President Bush’s pronouncement during his second inaugural address that the United States will side with reformers over tyrants, Washington frequently turns a blind eye to actions taken by autocratic leaders in strategically important states such as Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, and in Central Asia. President Bush’s hosting of Pakistan’s Pervez Musharraf and Kazakhstan’s Nursultan Nazarbayev at his Crawford ranch illustrates the contradictions of US policy. The Bush administration’s silence over Egypt’s crackdown on democracy-promoters and the jailing of leading opposition candidate, Ayman Nour, has sent a similarly chilling signal to Arab moderates about the US commitment to democracy. Recognising that progress in the short term will require strong and consistent US pressure, these reformers have been forced to rethink their strategies for freedom in the region.

The Bush administration also has a record of crossing the line from being a neutral democracy-promoter to a partisan backer of favoured candidates or parties, most notably in its support of Fatah in the January 2006 Palestinian parliamentary elections and of various rightist candidates in Latin America. Such actions strain the credibility of the US commitment to democracy promotion in the eyes of many around the world. They also give credence to the view that the US-led invasion of Iraq is less an isolated event than part of a pattern of strongarm tactics by the United States. It is this pattern, rather than the Iraq War in isolation, that has warped attitudes towards democracy promotion in the Arab world and beyond. If the United States were consistently supporting democratic reformers everywhere, scepticism towards its global democracy rhetoric would be far more muted.

Passionate anti-Americanism stoked by perceived US heavy-handedness has further hampered the grassroots efforts of domestic reformers and external democracy-promoters alike. In some locales, any contact with the United States or Americans is deemed suspect and is used to tarnish the credibility of reformers. Simply put, there are more constraints on democracy-promoters than existed previously. Arab leaders have played on this anti-Americanism to boost nationalist attitudes and fan suspicion of democracy-promotion initiatives as a means of exerting further control over these activities. The October 2002 assassination of Larry Foley, a senior USAID official in Jordan, signalled that even Americans dedicated to improving the general wellbeing of the Arab world were potential targets. This risk has greatly curtailed face-to-face encounters between American democracy‑promoters and Arab reformers—further complicating the efforts of both parties.

These obstacles aside, it is instructive to keep the progress of the global democracy movement in perspective. Freedom House’s 2006 annual “Freedom in the World” survey reports that the number of countries classified as free or partly free continues to edge upwards. There are now 122 countries categorised as electoral democracies, which is 64 per cent of all governments, the highest number in the survey’s thirty-three-year history. This reflects an incremental gain since the Iraq invasion in 2003. In other words, the US-led military intervention in Iraq has not derailed the global expansion of democracy. The improvements seen since 2003 are consistent with the steady rate of democratic expansion that has been observed since the mid-1990s. The forces propelling democratic change around the globe, in operation before the Bush administration entered office, appear to be more robust than any negative reverberations for democracy stemming from the invasion of Iraq.

The positive trend-line is driven, in part, by the fact that many actors other than the US government are involved in democracy promotion. The European Union has long been a supporter of political-reform efforts in the Mediterranean region and elsewhere. Numerous independent democracy-promotion organisations such as the Open Society Institute, the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung, IFES, and the Westminster Foundation for Democracy had established extensive networks throughout the world, including the Middle East, for years prior to the US intervention in Iraq. Furthermore, while funded by the US government, the National Endowment for Democracy maintains considerable autonomy, and thus integrity, in its support for democratic reformers globally. These organisations have expanded rather than curtailed their operations in the past several years. Moreover, intellectuals and many ordinary citizens in the Arab world recognise that warnings of the dangers of democracy are largely self-serving claims by leaders with a vested interest in the status quo. Finally, and paradoxically, the widely publicised struggles the United States has had in attempting to stabilise Iraq have also dissipated fears of subsequent American campaigns to use force in the name of democracy. Combined, these factors dilute the perception that efforts to expand democracy are simply a cover for ulterior US hegemonic motives.

In short, the fallout from Iraq on democracy promotion has been decidedly mixed. Benefits arising from the voting of Iraqis in local and national elections are tempered by the anger, distrust, and scepticism engendered by the US military intervention and occupation, as well as the disdain for international law shown by the United States in its “war on terror”. The high‑profile rhetoric on democracy by President Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has helped put democracy and political reform on the agenda in the Arab world. Yet the US follow-up to this rhetoric has been lacklustre. This, and the region’s smouldering anti-Americanism, have provided autocrats with additional leverage—and made the efforts of democracy-promoters that much more difficult.

Fractured Support

The ongoing global democratic expansion may have weathered the shock to the international system caused by the invasion of Iraq. However, it is far less clear that this can be said about US domestic support for democracy promotion. Justifying the Iraq intervention on democratic grounds has weakened and possibly fractured the broad base of support for democracy promotion that has been assembled across the political spectrum in the United States and other industrialised democracies over the past two decades.

The Democratic Party in the United States has historically championed democracy promotion in its foreign-policy platform. Democracies don’t attack one another and are far less aggressive overall—the well-known “democratic peace”. Democracies do not sponsor terrorists and are not willing havens for international terrorist organisations. Democracies tend to foster steady and broad-based economic and social development. Democracies are also more stable than autocracies, experiencing far fewer financial and humanitarian crises and much less civil strife. However, many Democrats now equate democracy promotion with US policy in Iraq and see it as a euphemism for regime change by force. Given their deep scepticism towards the Bush administration, many Democrats are now lukewarm in their support for democracy promotion. According to a German Marshall poll conducted in the summer of 2005, only 43 per cent of Democrats expressed support for promoting democracy abroad.

This reticence is reflective of an underlying suspicion among some liberals that the rhetoric of democracy is merely a convenient moral cover for the pursuit of American economic and security interests. According to this view, appeals to freedom and democracy are used to garner US domestic support for unwarranted military adventures, be they in Vietnam, Nicaragua, Panama, Bosnia, Kosovo, or Iraq. A strain of this argument holds that the United States engages in a form of cultural imperialism by attempting to impose democracy and Western values on societies that do not have such traditions.

For their part, relatively few American conservatives are ardently committed to democracy promotion as a tool of US foreign policy. Democracy did not figure prominently in candidate George W. Bush’s campaign for the 2000 presidential elections, and in fact the idea of promoting it abroad was sharply derided by his leading foreign-policy advisers. Democracy only became a theme of President Bush’s foreign-policy oratory in the aftermath of the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks. This aligned him, at least rhetorically, with the neo-conservative school of thought. And out of loyalty to President Bush and his Iraq strategy, 76 per cent of Republicans surveyed by the same German Marshall poll indicated support for democracy promotion.

Still, most conservatives remain dubious. From their point of view, democracy promotion is a secondary and competing priority to America’s genuine strategic interests—national security and economic prosperity. Autocratic governments are viewed as integral partners towards these ends. At worst, advancing democracy risks thrusting the United States into unnecessary and messy military conflicts. Traditional conservatives point to Hamas’s victory in the January 2006 Palestinian parliamentary elections as the sort of undesirable outcome that emerges from promoting democracy “prematurely”.

Reconciling democracy with other immediate foreign-policy priorities is not a new challenge. Nor is it a difficulty that only US politicians encounter. For example, more than half of the world’s remaining autocracies rely on their extractive resource sectors for more than 40 per cent of their government revenues. With market rates for oil persisting above the once unthinkable $60 a barrel, the challenge of balancing the trade-offs between domestic economic and external democracy-promotion priorities can be expected to intensify within many established democracies. While Western governments may be funding democracy-promotion efforts around the world, Western firms are paying autocratic governments several times more in royalties. These resources enable many of these governments to persist in corruption, human rights violations, trade in illicit materials, co-operation with international organised crime, and in some cases support for terrorism. Established democracies are thus facing acute conflicts of interest that oblige them to agree on some collective rules of engagement in the pursuit of extractive resources controlled by autocratic governments, lest their broader security agenda be undercut.

Given the political and ideological rationale against democracy promotion on both sides of the political spectrum in the United States, continued US engagement in the forefront of efforts to expand democracy around the world cannot be assumed. Once President Bush leaves office, a new domestic political alliance for democracy will need to be assembled. Should Iraq continue to spiral downwards into the pitched inter-ethnic carnage that many fear, the challenges of rebuilding a coalition of support for democracy will be even more difficult. Liberals and conservatives alike could (inaccurately) blame the failure in Iraq on an ill-conceived and overly ambitious democracy-promotion strategy.

By reinforcing misperceptions of what democratisation entails, the Bush administration’s policies in Iraq have also strained broader American public support for democracy promotion. The administration went into Iraq with the naive belief that once freed from the tyranny of Saddam Hussein, Iraqis would spontaneously coalesce around some form of pluralist government. Yet, even if there is unanimous popular support for regime change, democracy does not spring up automatically, even under the best of circumstances. Toppling a dictator is not the same thing as building democracy. Expectations that the Iraq reconstruction would be easy were soon disproved, and the inevitable struggles involved in nation-building quickly generated disappointment and disillusionment. In fact, democratisation is often a long, rocky process, subject to periodic setbacks. Democratisation in post-conflict environments is even more messy and unstable.

The Bush administration is not the first to underestimate the difficulty of promoting democracy in a society where totalitarian culture is deeply entrenched. The arduous task of building democratic institutions in such circumstances does not start from neutral ground but a deep deficit. Patronage networks, predatory policies, politically driven economic monopolies, selective adherence to the law, and winner-take-all political norms dominate. Community trust and co-operation have been destroyed by the penetration of informants into every social institution and neighbourhood.

Accordingly, if democracy is to emerge and be sustained, democratic values must take root in the minds of both ordinary citizens and public officials. Principles of equality, minority rights, the sharing of power, freedom of thought and expression, the rule of law, citizen participation, and public accountability must be internalised. Institutions that reinforce these principles, such as checks on the chief executive, merit-based hiring in the civil service, protected space for the private sector, autonomous financial bodies, an independent judiciary, and a free press, must be created. None of this can be assumed. All of it takes time. Indeed, in practice, there is often a trade-off between the speed and the sustainability of democratic institution-building. While democracy may be a universal aspiration, the birth process is rarely easy. For all these reasons, attempting to instil democracy by force is like going rock-climbing while carrying an M-16 rifle and wearing a 100-pound backpack.

Necessary Steps

The past two decades have seen enormous progress in the expansion of democratic governance across the globe. Yet the continuation of this expansion is not assured. Maintaining this momentum depends on continued commitment by established democracies to democracy promotion in the post-Iraq era. Rebuilding global and US support for democracy promotion will require adherence to the following imperatives:

1. Established democracies other than the United States must step up. Established democracies and leading non-governmental organisations can deflect negative perceptions of democracy promotion by strengthening their engagement in the spread of democracy. It is vital that the European Union, as the single largest supporter of democracy-promotion efforts around the world, maintain its support and its distinct identity in the democracy-promotion arena. This is not solely a matter of funding but of public diplomacy. Similarly, clear statements from regional organisations that democracy should be the governmental norm within their locales are highly influential in dispelling the notion that democracy promotion is merely a US ploy. The Democratic Charter of the Organisation of American States, signed on 11 September 2001, is an exemplar in this regard, stating unequivocally that “the peoples of the Americas have a right to democracy and their governments have an obligation to promote and defend it”. Other noteworthy examples are the efforts by the African Union to increase the democratic accountability of national leaders through the “peer review mechanism” of NEPAD (the New Partnership for Africa’s Development); the bypassing of Sudan as chair of the African Union; and the decision by the Association of South-East Asian Nations to censure the military junta in Burma for its refusal to implement democratic reforms and its continued detention of pro-democracy leader, Aung San Suu Kyi.

2. Rhetoric on democracy must be maintained. Actions speak louder than words. But words, especially those voiced by the president of the United States, still matter a lot. Continuing to talk about democracy will send important signals about the priority the United States places on it in its relations with other states. This has the effect of raising the global bar of legitimacy. And this compels even leaders of autocratic governments to demonstrate adherence to certain practices that indicate their tolerance for opposing points of view. Space is thus created for democratic reformers within societies that remain mostly closed, while expectations among ordinary citizens are broadened.

3. Progress towards democracy should be a consistent feature of established democracies’ relations with autocratic states. Consistently emphasising the importance of democratisation sends a clear message to the leaders and citizens of such states that reform is essential to a long-term, comprehensive relationship with the established democracies and all of the concomitant political, economic, security, and cultural benefits this entails. Certainly, relations between states are multifaceted. But by setting a clear marker about the value of legitimacy, established democracies can better articulate how the range of interests in such relations can be reconciled. This will vary from country to country and will be an incremental process. As much emphasis should be placed on democratic trajectory as on current status. Consistent, high-level engagement on democracy also shapes the external environment, which has been shown to be a powerful magnet for reform in central Europe, Latin America, and Africa, as well as recently in Ukraine, Kyrgyzstan, Lebanon, and the Palestinian Authority.

4. Legitimacy must be publicly valued. Leaders that have come to power through democratic means should hold a distinctive place on the world stage regardless of their country’s size, economic strength, or strategic significance. Bestowing prestige on such leaders is an undervalued means of burnishing the appeal of democratic governance. Only democratic leaders should enjoy the honour of sharing certain public platforms when visiting other established democracies. And leaders of established democracies should make more of a habit of consulting with democratic leaders of developing countries when considering policies that affect their regions. This sends the clear signal to the developing world that pursuing democracy is a viable means of gaining respect on the world stage.

More formally, democracy should become a criterion for participation in certain global forums, such as a reconstituted United Nations Human Rights Commission or an expanded UN Security Council. In other words, the legitimacy of a regime should be central to defining relations between states at all levels. Such an approach would also compel established democracies to make more sophisticated delineations in their relations with semi-authoritarian regimes—in essence, governments that are trying to reap the benefits of appearing to be democratic, but which in practice are not.

There are also financial dimensions to valuing democracy. Developing-country democracies should qualify for higher levels of development assistance than countries where power is concentrated in the hands of a few. Established democracies can do much more to signal to private investors the stronger commitment to the rule of law, protection of property rights, and transparency being observed by certain developing-country democracies. In this way, the value of a “democracy dividend” accruing to countries undertaking the difficult steps to reform can be multiplied.

5. Democratic processes, not preferences, should be supported. Democracy promotion is about fostering the values, processes, and institutions of democracy—not picking winners and losers. Foreign intervention in the outcome of democratic elections violates the principles of democratic politics and should not be accepted in transitioning societies; it undercuts the integrity of the very processes that democracy-promoters are trying to advance (as well as the legitimacy of the winners). Moreover, it hijacks the process of political reform, removing it from the hands of the citizens of an emerging democracy. The internal checks and balances that democracies are supposed to build are instead subverted to external influences. In short, there are limits to democracy promotion.

One cannot endeavour to promote political processes that are fair, representative, participatory, and transparent, and then expect to influence who the winners of these processes will be. The upshot of all this is that democracy-promoters will at times have to engage with winning candidates whom they do not like. Yet tremendous credibility can accrue to established democracies that recognise such outcomes and participate in dialogue with the elected leaders (as well as the leverage through which to insist on the maintenance of democratic institutions). This is an especially difficult challenge when the winners have unsavoury backgrounds. Indeed, as attempts to draw radical groups into the political arena expand, this dilemma will be faced more frequently. Democracy-promoters may take some comfort in the record of comparative stability which even new democracies demonstrate compared to autocratic states.

6. Bipartisan support for democracy promotion must be rebuilt in the United States. Democracy promotion has enjoyed the backing of key elements in both the Democratic and Republican parties since the early 1980s. This shared commitment has frayed since the US military intervention in Iraq. Democrats, the historical standard-bearers in the United States for democracy promotion, are now wary, and Republicans are largely fragmented between the neo- and traditional schools of conservatism. To reclaim the previous bipartisan consensus, congressional moderates from both major parties should disavow the surreptitious use of democracy-promotion funding. They should host joint forums and town-hall meetings, reaffirming the central role that the global expansion of liberty will play in a more stable and prosperous world community in the twenty-first century. These efforts should seek the inclusion of strong statements in the respective party platforms in 2008 that commit the parties to continued support for the expansion of democratic values and practices around the world.

A Home-Grown Aspiration

The fear that the United States will impose democracy by force as part of an ongoing democracy-promotion strategy is misplaced. While this tactic reflects a strain of neo-conservative thinking, it is not the principle by which the Bush administration has been operating, including in Iraq. Nonetheless, the contrary is widely believed. There is a real risk, therefore, that the domestic American and international support required to continue the global advance of democracy will be fractured, particularly if Iraq is not stabilised. Rather than distancing themselves from attempts to expand democracy, political and philanthropic leaders interested in this goal need to make clear the distinction between US policy in Iraq and broader democracy-promotion efforts; the proverbial baby must not be thrown out with the bathwater. Democracy proponents in Europe, Latin America, Africa, Asia, and elsewhere all have critical roles to play in reinforcing the reality that democracy is a home-grown aspiration—and that there is a spectrum of actors interested in helping to advance it.