Over the last several decades, the United States government has claimed to have significantly changed its policies toward the Middle East. After decades of supporting repressive and undemocratic Middle Eastern regimes during the Cold War, President George W. Bush announced that the United States would begin a policy of democracy promotion in the Middle East. However, that democratic agenda has been unevenly applied and even reversed when democratic elections produce governments that did not favor U.S. policies. Supporting elections in Egypt and the Palestinian Territories until the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas were democratically favored, the U.S. government appears to show only conditional support for Middle East democracies. In its occupation of Iraq, the U.S. has made an even greater blunder: under the guise of “spreading freedom,” it has actually increased chaos and insecurity throughout the Middle East.
Arab perceptions of America have been greatly harmed by the ways in which the U.S. government has attempted to spread democracy in Iraq and beyond. The negative perceptions of the United States fostered by Cold War policy could have been alleviated by peaceful promotion of democracy in the Middle East; instead, however, the forceful methods and double standards of democracy building have further damaged the U.S. image in the Arab world.....
Bookmarks