The Foreign Service Journal, June 2004

B OOKS The Post-9/11 World After Jihad: America and the Struggle for Islamic Democracy Noah Feldman, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2003, $24.00, hardback, 264 pages. An Alliance at Risk: The United States and Europe Since September 11 Laurent Cohen-Tanugi, translated by George A. Holoch Jr., The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003, $19.95, hardback, 140 pages. R EVIEWED BY B ENJAMIN R. J USTESEN The coming U.S. presidential campaign promises more fireworks than light on such issues as Iraqi- style democracy and the fragile Western alliance. Thoughtful read- ers should welcome Noah Feldman’s After Jihad and Laurent Cohen- Tanugi’s An Alliance at Risk , both written before the Iraq War, as food for sober thought. In After Jihad : America and the Struggle for Islamic Democracy , Feldman, a New York University law professor with a doctorate in Islamic thought, explores prospects for the emergence of Islamic democracy in the post-9/11 world. American lead- ers, he argues, should beware of sup- porting Middle Eastern regimes which lack popular support. Even if democracy may be unpredictable in the short term, encouraging its development is the only way to ensure global peace. Feldman’s message is timely, as Iraq approach- es its new crossroads. Western skeptics may warn that Islam and democracy are incompati- ble, and that popularly elected regimes — particularly those led by strong Islamist parties — may lead to less stability, not more. But Feldman sees a worse scenario: the inevitable “tragedy” if Islamic demo- cracy does not emerge because America sticks to its present policies for fear of unleashing unknown, potentially destructive forces. A synthesis of incompatible ideas like Islam and democracy could well produce a hybrid ideological “bas- tard,” like Germany’s National Socialism, as Feldman puts it, in a vast range of possible outcomes. Fortunately, a middle ground between autocratic Saudi leaders and ayatollah-led Iran —made up of peaceful, secular states with popu- larly-elected leaders who observe Islam but disavow jihad as a rallying cry and sharia as law — is possible. Feldman carefully distinguishes between Islamic democrats — who would incorporate religion and its values into the greater life of a mod- erate, stable democratic state — and far more radical Islamists, who con- found Western sensibilities by insist- ing Islam is “the only and compre- hensive source of law and decision- making.” Cautiously optimistic, he careful- ly explores current examples of polit- ical practice in Muslim nations, from the curious, gradual democratization in hard-line Iran to the emergence of a powerful role for religious par- ties in militantly secular Turkey. Conspicuously, longtime U.S. allies Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates remain decidedly and iron- ically undemocratic, having never allowed elections, he notes. America’s tenuous relationship with its truly democratic allies con- cerns Laurent Cohen-Tanugi, a Tunisian-born, Harvard-educated international lawyer. His cogent treatise — An Alliance at Risk: The United States and Europe since September 11 — pleads for a “new Atlanticism,” a calm reconsideration of mutual interests by leaders on both sides. Since 9/11, America has rede- fined its foreign policy toward a uni- lateral approach, a shift caused part- ly by the absence of European diplo- matic and strategic leadership. Meanwhile, the fast-expanding European Union — an unwieldy body the author fears may soon bear Feldman carefully distinguishes between Islamic democrats and far more radical Islamists, who reject Western values. J U N E 2 0 0 4 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 65