Sep 30 2005
Democracy and Terrorism
Foreign Affairs article. F. Gregory Gause III
One of the rare piece of article that challenges the tenents of the neo-conservative foreign policies.
“Is it true that the more democratic a country becomes, the less likely it is to produce terrorists and terrorist groups? ”
Among the “free” (i.e. non-autocratic or theocratic) countries, “India accounted for fully 75% of the total … A significant number of terrorist events in India took place far from Kashmir”
Related articles: the New Yorker article on a Gujarat, India demogague (Thuckway?)
“A list of terrorist incidents between 1976 and 2004 … shows more than 400 in India and only 18 in China”
“Arabs in general do not have a problem with democracy … Strong majorities of those surveyed in Kuwait (83%) … and the Palestinian (53%) said democracy would work.”
However, “Washington probably would not like the governments [such] democracy would produce.”
Author’s view is “engineering democracy” by supporting “secular forces”. (Ha! got you)