Zakaria’s basic point is that while liberal democracy tends to be the best form of government for promoting individual freedom and fostering economic growth, simply implementing democracy (e.g., open elections) in countries that have not had time to build up the social, political, and economic structures to support it is not enough. Too often, he says, holding elections in countries with no history of liberal democracy results in despotic and quasi-Fascist governments coming to power.
In other words, democracy, by itself, is not an unqualified good. Unfortunately, while setting up reasonably fair and open elections is by no means easy, it is much easier than the long-term task of building up the infrastructure needed to prevent those elections from becoming a means of finding out which demagogue can most successfully stir up voters’ religious and cultural fears. As a result, the world community (and the U.S. in particular) has a tendency, especially in recent years to declare that a country has achieved democracy when elections take place and to leave it at that. Then, we’re all surprised when the voters elect a racist, corrupt, and oppressive tyrant of one variety or another.
When it comes to Iraq, we are told by the Bush administration and its toadies that this sort of thinking is equivalent to racism. “Some people,” the President tells us, “say that if your skin is brown, then you’re not capable of democracy. I don’t believe that.” This suggestion is, of course, a classic straw man, a tactic at which this bunch excels. No one is claiming that Iraqis are incapable of democracy; rather, the argument is that given (on the one hand) the decades that Iraqi society has spent living under the totalitarian grip of Saddam Hussein and (on the other hand) the social, religious, and economic strife facing the populace, it is highly unlikely that the vibrant and flourishing democracy predicted by the Bush administration will come to pass any time soon.
This claim is not racist. It is realistic. However, that doesn’t matter to the President and his supporters—they’re looking for any way they can find to wipe their hands clean of the mess they have created.
UPDATE: It’s just after 4pm EDT (the deadline for an Iraqi constitution to be submitted to parliament, and most news outlets are reporting that draft constitution has, in fact, been submitted. However, according to CNN, it was submitted “with some points still needing to be thrashed out in the assembly.”