The Foreign Service Journal, January 2009

36 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / J A N U A R Y 2 0 0 9 for a democratic system of govern- ment, but said the Bush adminis- tration’s intimations of regime change only strengthened the hand of the rulers in Tehran and ham- pered the country’s transition to a more liberal system. “The constant identification of democracy promotion with the Iraq intervention and other regime-change policies has be- smirched the very concept in the eyes of many around the world,” wrote Thomas Carothers, who directs the Democracy and Rule of Law Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, in a May 2008 op- ed in the Washington Post . Another prominent dissident from the region, Saad Eddin Ibrahim of Egypt, has criticized the Bush admin- istration for raising the hopes of democracy activists in the Arab world and essentially retreating after Hamas won a majority in the Palestinian parliament in 2006. Now in exile in the United States, Ibrahim ramped up an effort in late 2008 to have the large U.S. disbursement of annual aid to Egypt conditioned on reforms. But some regional experts doubt the effectiveness of such a move. Council on Foreign Relations Senior Fellow Steven A. Cook says aid cuts tied to Cairo’s democratic perform- ance could be counterproductive. “The Egyptian gov- ernment is not going to heel because we’re cutting $100 million or $200 million from the aid package,” Cook says. “They will find money elsewhere to replace it with and, ultimately, we’ll have less influence and leverage because of these punitive actions.” A less-discussed channel for democracy promotion in the Middle East is U.S.-funded broadcasting. Here, too, the picture is mixed. Much of the tens of millions of dol- lars approved for U.S. democracy promotion in Iran ended up funneled into broadcasting efforts like Farsi-language TV (run by the Voice of America) and Radio Farda, a 24- hour service with a lively Internet presence. Both net- works are aimed at informing Iranians about domestic and international developments and, although questions have arisen about the breadth and purpose of their efforts, they have received generally positive reviews. The Arabic-language flagships — pop music-driven Radio Sawa and Al-Hurrah Television — receive much lower grades from experts. Al-Hurrah, for example, has faced criticism for lax editorial oversight that has raised questions about its coverage of sensitive topics like Iraq. The Board of Broadcasting Governors defends the professionalism and impact of both broadcasters, but there are few benchmarks for gaug- ing success in their stated goals of being democracy promotion tools. On the plus side in the region, the Arab monarchies of Morocco and Jordan have taken steps like holding multiparty elections, improving some rights for women and permitting a relatively open civil so- ciety sector to function. Democracy and rights watchdog groups, however, say both countries have far to go to in terms of political reforms. The Libyan regime’s decision in 2003 to renounce its non-conventional weapons program and subsequent thawing of ties with the West raised initial hopes about coming reforms, but the country’s record on human rights and political reforms remains abysmal. Experts’ calls for a reboot of democracy promotion pol- icy come amid signs of general backsliding among democ- racies. For instance, the FreedomHouse survey of global political rights and civil liberties for 2007 spotlighted dem- ocratic reversals in one-fifth of the world’s countries, in- cluding geopolitically significant ones like Russia, Pakistan and Nigeria. Larry Diamond, a senior fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, who has warned of a “democratic re- cession” in the world, advises democracy advocates in the West to place more emphasis on shoring up at-risk democ- racies like Kenya, instead of seeking to bring freedom to autocratic states. “So many of the new democracies that have come into being in the last couple of decades or so are really not functioning very well. And if we’re serious about sustaining this, then we have to work more creatively and persistently to improve the quality of democratic func- tioning where democracy has actually already emerged, ” he says. A Sense of Community? Democracy promotion was not exactly a flashpoint in the 2008 presidential campaign. Sen. John McCain, R- Ariz., was most closely associated with the issue through his plan for a “League of Democracies,” an organization of states with shared values and interests that would peri- odically coordinate on pressing matters like relieving suf- fering in Sudan’s Darfur region or imposing tough F O C U S Current calls for a reboot of democracy promotion policy come amid signs of general backsliding.