"The Bush Administration's foreign policy has comprised three key components: security through forward defence; a black-andwhite view of the post-9/1 1 world; and, most pervasively, the so-called freedom agenda. These elements combine in an approach that many see as imperious and detached from on-the-ground realities. The thesis of this paper is that the United States requires a more balanced and realistic policy agenda in the Middle East, which discards the strident promotion of constitutional democracy in favour of a less imperious approach based on values that are meaningful to Middle Eastern people and societies. Revised U.S. policies and supporting strategies should reflect the complex and volatile relationship between the Western and Islamic worlds. Some analyses suggest that their clash is inevitable, while others offer hope for an "alliance of civilizations." Such an alliance would require a concerted effort to reconcile Westem and Islamic ideologies, which do not appear to be wholly incompatible. The United States and her allies must seek, through their policies and actions in the Middle East, to empower Muslims who advocate moderate interpretations of the Islamic texts. Radical Islamists and so-called jihadi fighters must be denied theological credibility. The U.S. agenda in the Middle East should also attempt to empower moderate and liberalizing political influences in the region. Middle Eastern regimes occupy a broad spectrum and many are undertaking cautious programmes of liberalization. Political Islam is an increasingly important feature of this social and political landscape. Islamist political parties should be encouraged to operate in the mainstream of politics and to exert moderating influences over their followers. Thus, the United States should discard her strident promotion of constitutional democracy in favour of more carefully focused encouragement of social, economic and political reform in the Middle East. The paper offers a set of 16 recommendations that represent a more realistic and balanced agenda in the Middle East."--Abstract.

This book generates a greater understanding, and critique, of the George W. Bush administration's Freedom Agenda for the Middle East and North Africa.

"This Saban Center Analysis Paper will assess what the Bush Administration's Freedom Agenda has accomplished in its first few years, and how well the policy shift it represents has become embedded in the institutions and operations of U.S. foreign policy. In implementing the Freedom Agenda, the U.S. government has deployed multiple tools of foreign policy, including the presidential bully pulpit and diplomatic pressure. This paper will focus on the policy architecture in place to promote the Freedom Agenda, laying out the funding mechanisms and programmatic structures of three major initiatives: the Middle East Free Trade Area Initiative; the Broader Middle East and North Africa Initiative; and democracy assistance programs including those managed by the Middle East Partnership Initiative, the State Department's Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor and the United States Agency for International Development. U.S. democracy assistance to the Middle East has increased considerably in recent years, but diplomatic efforts to support democratic development have lagged behind. However, the ultimate success of the United States' democracy promotion effort will rest in large part on the degree to which the Administration is able to build effective institutions to advance democracy that will outlast President Bush's term in office. Thus far, the Middle East Free Trade Area Initiative and the Broader Middle East and North Africa Initiative both present only limited means to achieve that goal"--Exec. summary (ix).

President Bush promised to democratize the Middle East, but the results so far have dispirited democracy advocates and brought their project into disrepute. After the debacle in Iraq and the electoral success of Hamas, the pursuit of Arab democracy seems to many observers a fool's errand, an unfortunate combination of ideology and wishful thinking. In F reedom's Unsteady March , Tamara Cofman Wittes dissects the Bush administration's failure to advance freedom in the Middle East and lays out a better strategy for future efforts to promote democracy. Wittes argues that only the development of a more liberal and democratic politics in the Arab world will secure America's long-term goals in the region and that America must continue trying to foster progress in that direction. To do so, however, it must confront more honestly the risks of change and act more effectively to contain them. A dangerous combination of growing populations, economic stagnation, and political alienation poses the primary threat to Middle East stability today, severely testing the legitimacy and governability of key states such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia. If Arab governments cannot sustain the support of their citizens, they will find it difficult to work with America on issues of common concern such as stabilizing Iraq, confronting Iran on nuclear weapons, and promoting Arab-Israeli peace. Despite President Bush's failures, Wittes argues, the United States cannot afford to ignore the momentous social, economic, and political changes already taking place in Arab states. Wittes' detailed analysis of Arab politics and American policy presents an alternative—in her view, the only alternative: overcoming America's deep ambivalence about Arab democracy to support positive, liberal change in the region that will create a firmer foundation for Arab-American ties.

Freedom in the World, the Freedom House flagship survey whose findings have been published annually since 1972, is the standard-setting comparative assessment of global political rights and civil liberties. The survey ratings and narrative reports on 192 countries and a group of select territories are used by policy makers, the media, international corporations, and civic activists and human rights defenders to monitor trends in democracy and track improvements and setbacks in freedom worldwide. Press accounts of the survey findings appear in hundreds of influential newspapers in the United States and abroad and form the basis of numerous radio and television reports. The Freedom in the World political rights and civil liberties ratings are determined through a multi-layered process of research and evaluation by a team of regional analysts and eminent scholars. The analysts used a broad range of sources of information, including foreign and domestic news reports, academic studies, nongovernmental organizations, think tanks, individual professional contacts, and visits to the region, in conducting their research. The methodology of the survey is derived in large measure from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and these standards are applied to all countries and territories, irrespective of geographical location, ethnic or religious composition, or level of economic development.

In this Westview Press Spotlight, Mark L. Haas explores the major political consequences of the Arab Spring protests in North Africa and the Middle East as well as how and why US leaders responded to these developments. A detailed examination of the threats and opportunities to US interests created by the uprisings are prominent in the analysis of the events. Students will learn about the individual protests and aftermath of the Arab Spring as well as the various policies the United States might adopt to best advance US security in the new international environment. The United States and the Arab Spring is an extracted chapter from the 2013 Updated Edition of The Middle East and the United States, Fifth Edition, edited by regional experts David W. Lesch and Mark L. Haas. In the full-length edition of the text, scholars and diplomats from the Middle East, Europe, and North America provide an objective, cross-cultural assessment of U.S. policy toward the Middle East and Middle Eastern political history from the First World War through the present.

Americans have been trying to shape democracy around the world for more than a century. It is the American mission, our distinctive form of evangelism. But when President Bush declared, in his second inaugural address, that "the survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands," he elevated this cause—the "Freedom Agenda," as he called it—to the central theme of American foreign policy. Yet the war in Iraq has proven the folly of seeking to impose American democracy by force. As we leave the Bush era behind, the question arises: What part of our efforts to spread democracy can we rescue from this failure? The Freedom Agenda traces the history of America's democratic evangelizing. James Traub, a journalist for The New York Times Magazine, describes the rise and fall of the Freedom Agenda during the Bush years, in part through interviews with key administration officials. He offers a richly detailed portrait of the administration's largely failed efforts to bolster democratic forces abroad. In the end, Traub argues that democracy matters—for human rights, for reconciliation among ethnic and religious groups, for political stability and equitable development—but the United States must exercise caution in its efforts to spread it, matching its deeds to its words, both abroad and at home.

The recent "Arab spring", with its popular uprisings in many Arab countries, has exposed the ambiguity at the heart of American promotion of democracy in the Middle East. The US invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq were packaged as democracy promotion, as heralding the beginning of a new phase in the politics of the Middle East when democracy would replace authoritarian regimes. Many of these authoritarian regimes, however, were sustained by US support. The recent popular uprisings threaten to bring democracy without promotion by the US, and threaten to overthrow regimes previously supported by the US and important for US strategy in the region – hence an initial hesitant response by the US to some of the uprisings. This book explores the contradictions in American democracy promotion in the Middle East. It discusses the principles underlying US democracy promotion, and the debates surrounding US policy formation, and examines the application of US democracy promotion in specific cases. It concludes by assessing the likely future patterns of US engagement with democratic reform in the Middle East.

America is turning away from support for democrats in Arab countries in favor of 'pragmatic' deals with tyrants to defeat violent Islamist extremism. For too many policymakers, Arab democracy is seen as a dangerous luxury. In Realism and Democracy, Elliott Abrams marshals four decades of experience as an American official and leading Middle East expert and shows that deals with tyrants will not work. Islamism is an idea that can only be defeated by a better idea: democracy. Through a careful analysis of America's record of democracy promotion in the region and beyond, from the Cold War to the Obama years, Abrams proves that repression helps Islamists beat democrats, while political openings offer moderates and liberals a chance. This book makes a powerful argument for an American foreign policy that combines practical politics and idealism and refuses to abandon those struggling for democracy and human rights in the Arab world.