Democracy and Terrorism.pdf

RETHINKING THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN DEMOCRACY AND TERRORISM

Steve StoddardT

he promotion of democracy throughout the world has always been touted as a core American value dating back to the country’s origins, but following the terrorist attacks on 9/11, this value has developed a unique national security dimension.1 In the aftermath of the attacks, many political leaders and pundits blamed the politically repressive and economically illiberal societies in the Middle East for fanning the flames of the terrorist ideology that brought down the Twin Towers. In the new security environment, President Bush and other policymakers elevated democracy promotion from its traditional status as a secondary foreign policy goal to a key requirement for U.S. national security in the post-9/11 world.2

The linkage between national security and democracy promotion abroad was included in administration policy as part of the 2002 National Security Strategy for the United States, and President Bush reiterated this connection repeatedly in speeches throughout both of his terms in office.3 It also formed a cornerstone of the 2006 National Security Strategy of the United States, which states:

“Because democracies are the most responsible members of the international system, promoting democracy is the most

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effective long-term measure for strengthening international stability; reducing regional conflicts; countering terrorism and terror-supporting extremism; and extending peace and prosperity. To protect our Nation and honor our values, the United States seeks to extend freedom across the globe by leading an international effort to end tyranny and to promote effective democracy.”4

U.S. foreign policy over the past several years has clearly

reflected the increased importance of democracy promotion, particularly in the Middle East. Existing USAID democratization programs have been intensified, and new initiatives, such as the Middle East Partnership Initiative (MEPI) and the Broader Middle East and North Africa Partnership Initiative (BMENA), were created “to encourage reform in the political, the social and cultural, and the economic areas.”5 In 2006, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice began an intensive effort to restructure the State Department to engage in “transformational diplomacy,” the goal of which was to “work with our many partners around the world to build and sustain democratic, well-governed states that will respond to the needs of their people.”6 Democracy promotion has also been a central frame through which the United States has justified its military involvement in Afghanistan and Iraq; particularly after it was acknowledged in early 2004 that Saddam Hussein did not have weapons of mass destruction.7

While democracy promotion has formed a central pillar of the policy and rhetoric of the United States’ counterterrorism strategy since 9/11, recent scholarship casts new doubts on the connection between democracy and terrorism. Contrary to the expected inverse relationship that more democracy would result in less terrorism, “most empirical studies of terrorism tend to demonstrate a positive relationship between political democracy and terrorism.”8 Furthermore, unexpected difficulties such as sectarian violence, corruption, fraud, continued acts of terrorism,

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The Relationship Between Democracy and Terrorism 94

and the failure of the central government to provide many basic services to the population continue to plague U.S. democracy promotion efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan despite years of enormous political, economic, and security commitments. Their overall prospects for success remain uncertain. While the data available in the study of terrorism is always somewhat incomplete, there is sufficient evidence to question whether or not exporting democracy is realistically the most effective long-term solution to terrorism.

The basic claim that democracy is the antidote to terrorism rests on four underlying assumptions: (1) democracy brings greater political participation, civil liberties, and rule of law than autocracy, which will reduce the appeal of joining terrorist organizations; (2) democracy reduces the incidents or occurrences of terrorist attacks; (3) outside efforts to coerce regimes into a transition from autocracy to democracy are successful, and the results are sustained over time; (4) the long-term benefits of states transitioning from autocracy to democracy will offset the short-term costs.

The purpose of this paper will be to critically examine the validity of each of these four assumptions. To the largest extent possible, the data examined consists of quantitative studies that utilize a wide number of cases, but the essay also incorporates qualitative data. The timeliness of the Iraq and Afghanistan case studies makes them a source of great insight in that regard, because they are the most prominent U.S. attempts to build democracy in the post-9/11 environment. Previous authors have challenged the wisdom of current democracy promotion efforts in the Middle East by examining only some of these assumptions, particularly the empirical connection between regime type and terrorism.9 While this is certainly a very important component, it provides an incomplete picture of the overall strategic basis for the policy. Completely satisfying all four aforementioned conditions may not be necessary for democracy promotion to exhibit some degree of success in combating terrorism, but significant flaws in one or more of those assumptions should certainly cause policymakers to

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reevaluate the current level of importance given to democracy promotion in the United States’ counterterrorism policies and rhetoric. The paper concludes with five policy recommendations, which include officially removing democracy promotion from counterterrorism policy, emphasizing good governance, stabilizing failed or failing states, addressing the U.S. credibility problem in the Middle East, and expanding efforts to achieve a greater degree of energy independence.

ASSUMPTION #1: DEMOCRACY BRINGS GREATER POLITICAL PARTICIPATION, CIVIL LIBERTIES, AND RULE OF LAW THAN AUTOCRACY, WHICH WILL REDUCE THE APPEAL OF JOINING TERRORIST ORGANIZATIONS

It is important to note that democracy is more than simply holding elections; democracy embodies a broad spectrum of civil liberties, political freedom, and the rule of law. Many political leaders and academics have proposed that greater political participation of this sort reduces the appeal of joining terrorist organizations because it provides people with legitimate avenues to pursue grievances within the system. The 2006 National Strategy for Combating Terrorism makes this connection very explicit:

“The long-term solution for winning the War on Terror is the advancement of freedom and human dignity through effective democracy.[…] Effective democracies honor and uphold basic human rights.[…] They are responsive to their citizens, submitting to the will of the people. Effective democracies exercise effective sovereignty and maintain order within their own borders, address causes of conflict peacefully, protect independent and impartial systems of justice, punish crime, embrace the rule of law, and resist corruption.”10

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This belief illustrates the “political access” school of thought on democracy and terrorism, which holds that “democracy provides greater opportunities for terrorists to join mainstream politics.”11 Conversely, the competing “strategic school” of thought holds that more civil liberties actually make it easier for terrorist groups to operate, and that greater public responsiveness of elected officials “makes democracies more willing to negotiate with terrorists, thus increasing the potential benefits reaped for extremist groups by terrorist action.”12 The prediction of the first school is that greater democracy would result in “fewer terrorist attacks both at home and abroad,” whereas the strategic school predicts democracies would be both more likely to host terrorist groups, and more vulnerable to terrorist attacks.13

In a time-series study of 19 Middle Eastern countries utilizing data from 1972-2003, Piazza (2007) tested these two hypotheses using 16 different statistical models that distinguished between target states and source states of international and domestic terrorist attacks. While his results are preliminary and do not cover the same time series for all events—reliable data on domestic terrorist attacks only begins in 1998 whereas data for international attacks stretches to 1972—he found that “more liberal Middle Eastern political systems are actually more susceptible to the threat of terrorism than are the more dictatorial regimes as predicted by the strategic school.”14

In this study, Piazza utilized the database provided by the Rand Corporation and collated by the National Memorial Institute for the Prevention of Terrorism (NMIPT). The separate year restrictions for international and domestic terrorist incidents were an inherent limitation of the data set, but at the time the article was written, “the MIPT database series 1998 to 2003 is the only event-count of both domestic and international terrorist events available to researchers.” Prior to 1998, the available data only focuses on international incidents of terrorism.15

This study is particularly telling because it is one of the few recent quantitative analyses to examine both international and

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domestic terrorist incidents, though the limited time frame of the latter makes it difficult to generalize its findings. Piazza’s study also reinforces earlier work by William Lee Eubank and Leonard Weinberg (1994, 2001) that noted democracies are more appealing bases for terrorist organizations. They determined that “from World War II to 1987, more terrorist groups were found in democracies than in non-democracies.”16 They also “found that no matter how durable or stable the democracy in question is, it is more likely to have terrorist activity in it than a non-democracy.”17 While these findings alone do not entirely refute the validity of the political access school of thought underlying current U.S. policy doctrine, it does raise some challenges that terrorist experts have made explicit in other ways.18 Marc Sageman argues that the greatest terrorist threat facing the United States comes not from al-Qaeda’s senior leadership, but from self-trained and homegrown groups that are inspired by al-Qaeda’s ideology.19 These types of homegrown groups were implicated in the 2004 and 2005 train bombings in Madrid and London, which proves they are fully capable of plotting and carrying out attacks.20 In fact, the radicalization of second and even third generation immigrants who have spent their entire lives in Western democracies is a rapidly growing concern for European counterterrorism officials.21 Sageman is not without his critics, though, and they are right to assert that al-Qaeda’s senior leadership in the border region between Afghanistan and Pakistan remains a clear threat to the United States.22

Nevertheless, there is no escaping the reality that democracy has not succeeded in completely eliminating the appeal of terrorism. Nowhere is this more apparent than the case of Iraq where steps towards greater democratization from 2003-2007 were also accompanied by a steady increase in terrorist attacks and a deteriorating security situation. While many of the high profile suicide attacks were perpetrated by foreign fighters, implementing democratic governance did not dissuade domestic Iraqi insurgents and sectarian militias from engaging in terrorist acts, such as mortar attacks, kidnappings and executions, and other widespread political violence. In fact, the transition to

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democratic rule may have actually encouraged former Ba’athists to engage in terrorist activities because it removed them from privileged positions.

Recent developments on the ground have brought about vast security improvements, but the level of violence and terrorist attacks in Iraq—and by inference the relative appeal of joining a terrorist organization—still remains higher under the current democracy than it was under the Ba’athist autocracy of Saddam Hussein. While an argument can easily be made that the former regime was responsible for a much higher level of state-sponsored terrorism than its democratic successor, an equally simple fact is that al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) did not exist as an operational entity until after the 2003 U.S. occupation and creation of a new democratic regime. In addition to Iraq, Afghanistan has also seen a steady increase in the level of terrorist violence despite its transition to democratic governance. The Taliban has made such significant progress in reasserting its presence that President Obama decided late last year to send an additional 30,000 U.S. troops to help reverse the momentum.23

The credibility of the democratic government of President Hamid Karzai was also severely damaged by the widespread fraud in last year’s presidential election, which ended when his main opponent, Abdullah Abdullah, withdrew from the race in protest.24 While the growing disillusionment with the Karzai government does not necessarily translate into increased popular support for the Taliban, they nonetheless benefit from the decreased legitimacy of the national government.

Another challenge to the claim that more democracy will reduce the appeal of joining terrorist organizations can be found in the radical ideology of al-Qaeda and other jihadist organizations. Fundamentally, these groups view the rule of man over man as an abomination that usurps God’s authority.25

Their ultimate goal is to return to the pure practice of Islam that existed during the time of the prophet Mohammad in the seventh century CE and reestablish the Caliphate under Sharia law. For this reason, they oppose the “near enemy” of corrupt authoritarian governments in the Middle East, as well as the “far

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enemy,” (the United States and the West), that keeps those regimes in power.26 Replacing corrupt authoritarian regimes with even perfectly functioning democracies would make little difference to Islamic fundamentalists because it is “unlikely to offer a more legitimate political ideology than religious extremism to jihadists.”27 In their minds, the man-made rule of successor democracies would be equally corrupt as the autocratic regimes currently in power, so a democratic regime change would be no more likely to affect ideologically-driven recruitment for terrorist organizations. Additionally, as witnessed in Iraq and Afghanistan, extremists can easily portray excessive Western involvement in democratic state-building in the Islamic world as foreign occupation to aid in their recruitment efforts.

The previous examples raise significant challenges to the claim that democracy reduces the appeal of terrorism, but the driving forces at work are somewhat more complex. A valid criticism of using quantitative studies is that they can very easily conflate different aspects of the “terrorism” phenomenon. Piazza is truly one of the leading scholars in refining statistical models to separate the individual components of terrorism in order to create a more accurate and nuanced understanding of the subject. In the study cited above, he recognizes the importance of distinguishing between transnational and domestic terrorist attacks, as well as specifying whether a state is a target of or a source of operation for a terrorist organization. As good as this analysis is however, identifying the primary nationality of terrorists engaged in attacks can be an equally important variable that is frequently not included in large scale comparative studies.

Piazza (2008) himself recognizes the value of this information, and applied it in a subsequent study of both suicide and other forms of terrorism that used a dataset of 4,660 incidents from 1998-2005. Within that dataset only 6.8 percent or 321 of the total number were labeled as suicide attacks. His findings concluded that democracies are more likely to be the target of all types of terrorism (both suicide and non-suicide

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attacks), which provides further support to the strategic school of thought. Just as important, though, he also found that perpetrators of suicide attacks are much more likely to come from non-democratic states. As Piazza states, “though there is no evidence that democracies produce fewer terrorists, they perhaps produce fewer suicide terrorists.”28 This suggests that authoritarian repression may play an important role in the radicalization process of suicide terrorists, and it does provide some empirical support for the claim that democracy promotion may be an effective counterterrorism tool. Although the exact causal mechanism for this disparity remains unclear, the distinction is important because suicide terrorists are the most committed, difficult to deter, and generally cause more damage when they do attack.29

In short, the evidence in support of the claim that democracy reduces the appeal of joining terrorist organizations is mixed. Even well-established Western democracies are not immune from spawning terrorist groups, and the democratization of Iraq and Afghanistan has actually been accompanied by a notable increase in terrorist activity.30 While most of the empirical evidence appears to support the strategic school’s conclusion that democracies are more likely to be both the host and targets of terrorist groups, it is also true that authoritarian states are much more likely to generate the suicide terrorists that are responsible for the most lethal attacks.31

ASSUMPTION #2: DEMOCRACY REDUCES THE INCIDENTS OR OCCURRENCES OF TERRORIST ATTACKS

Closely related to democracy’s effect on the appeal of joining terrorist organizations is democracy’s impact on the actual practice of terrorism itself. If democracy is truly the long-term solution to terrorism, then it should bring about a reduction in the overall number of attacks. While the full argument is somewhat more complex—and will be further developed in the subsequent sections—a number of quantitative studies have

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explored the relationship between regime type and terrorism. The results are not very promising for advocates of democracy promotion.

Lending further support to the “strategic school” discussed above, several studies have found that democracies are actually more likely to experience terrorist attacks than autocracies. In a study of suicide terrorist campaigns from 1980-2001, Pape found that, “every suicide terrorist campaign since 1980 has been targeted against a state that had a democratic form of government.”32 He credits this distribution to a strategic effort by terrorist groups to coerce those democracies, which were all occupying military powers, into making concessions for national self-determination. While Pape’s explanation is disputed in studies that incorporate newer data and different methodologies, even those studies do not find the expected negative relationship between democracy and the total number of terrorist incidents.33

Pape’s analysis is also limited to a very small portion of overall terrorist attacks. He determined that suicide terrorism was by far the most deadly form from 1980-2001—even excluding 9/11, suicide attacks were responsible for 48 percent of all deaths; yet it only comprised 3 percent of the total number of terrorist incidents.34 This means that an exclusive focus on suicide terrorism provides only a tiny fraction of the overall picture.

Larger statistical analyses that include more current data have attempted to identify the relationship between regime type and all forms of terrorism, but their results are not much more encouraging. Piazza (2008) conducted a large statistical analysis by comparing all terrorist incidents in 153 countries from 1986-2003. Using statistical models that tested two separate classifications of the level of democracy—from the Freedom House, and Polity IV databases—he concluded the results “do not support the contention that democratic rule reduces the incidence of terrorism. In fact the, albeit inconsistent, evidence produced suggests that the opposite is true.”35 The inconsistency of his findings was due to the Freedom House and Polity IV measurements being statistically significant for a different one of

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the four models tested in the study. Regardless of the disparity, though, both models linked democracy with increased incidents of terrorism, which further supports the strategic school.

Another troubling finding for the democracy promotion strategy is that partial democracies, which exhibit elements of both democracy and authoritarianism, tend to be more unstable than fully democratic or autocratic regimes. Goldsmith (2008) notes that, “stalled transitions and semi-democratic rule are each correlated in some empirical studies with (1) strife within nations that can spread to other countries, (2) large and small wars between nations, and (3) rising incidence of terrorism.”36

Effectively, states undergoing regime change from autocratic to democratic forms of government—almost by definition—are more unstable, vulnerable to civil and international conflict, and terrorist attacks.

Clearly, the inconclusive evidence connecting regime type and terrorism raises fundamental questions about the ability of democracy to reduce terrorist attacks. If anything, the evidence indicates that democratic transitions actually increase the number of terrorist attacks. This certainly seems to be the case in both Iraq and Afghanistan, and it is unlikely that any strong evidence to the contrary will emerge in the near future because of the learning opportunities those conflicts have provided for extremist insurgents. Recent unrest in Yemen and the Horn of Africa also perfectly illustrates how a collapse in central authority and stalled governing transitions can create an environment permissive to terrorist operations.37

On the other hand, it is possible that the increase in terrorist attacks in those countries is merely a temporary phenomenon that will be reversed as democratic governance improves. While Piazza’s study of 153 different countries should make anyone skeptical that this is merely a short-term phenomenon, the topic will be explored in greater detail in the fourth section of this paper. A much stronger case for skepticism can be made about the success rate of outside efforts to promote democracy.

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ASSUMPTION #3: OUTSIDE EFFORTS TO COERCE REGIMES INTO A TRANSITION FROM AUTOCRACY TO DEMOCRACY ARE SUCCESSFUL, AND THE RESULTS ARE SUSTAINED OVER TIME

Even if there were no evidence to the contrary, and it could be proven that democracy reduces both the appeal of becoming a terrorist and the number of overall terrorist attacks, another very important issue remains: if outside efforts to spread democracy are not successful or the results are not sustained over time, then placing such a high emphasis on democracy promotion abroad may be an inefficient—or even counterproductive—use of resources. It is difficult to overstate the importance of this assumption to the overall success of the democracy promotion strategy and, although the historical record certainly contains prominent successes, “most interventions by outside forces to promote democracy in post-conflict states since WWII have failed.”38 It is necessary in the following discussion, however, to differentiate between the military and non-military methods used for democracy promotion, the overall nature of democratic transitions, and the special challenges the Middle East region poses to democratic change.

DIRECT MILITARY INTERVENTION TO PROMOTE DEMOCRACY

The most forceful efforts by outside actors to promote democracy involve direct military interventions to stabilize post-conflict states, or hostile action to create a regime change. Allied reconstruction of Germany and Japan after World War II is widely considered as the gold standard for successful post-conflict democratic nation building, but the overall record indicates that these two cases “appear as outliers: inspiring deviations from a prosaic pattern of long occupations with limited results.”39 More often than not occupying powers quickly find that—as with most things—breaking a nation is far easier

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than putting the pieces back together. Large scale studies show that the overwhelming number of military interventions by the United States and other Western democracies, while somewhat successful in creating short-term increases in political liberalization, generally do not yield a lasting impact on the political systems of target states. Peceny’s (1999) examination of U.S. military interventions from 1898 to 1992 found that 85 percent of the interventions did not result in democratic change.40 Similarly, a Norwegian study that examined all military interventions by democratic states from 1961-1996 found “that in the short run, democratic intervention does indeed promote democratization[…]However, over the period 1961–96 this democratization appears to have had relatively little effect in terms of moving countries up into the category of democracies.”41 In other words, Western military intervention may create some democratic improvements, but it is generally unable to fundamentally alter the regime type—particularly over the long-term.

Pickering and Peceny (2006) differentiated between hostile and supportive interventions in target states with their comparative analysis of U.S., French, British, and UN military actions from 1946-1996. They found that while U.S. interventions were somewhat more likely to result in democratic change than intervention by France and the U.K., UN interventions were the most successful at bringing about lasting political change. In contrast, British interventions never resulted in lasting political liberalization. However, the small number of cases where liberal interventions did succeed in bringing democratic change—five UN, two U.S., and one French—comprise just eight of the total 49 incidents of successful democratization during the period, which make broad generalizations difficult. Because of the small number of cases, they also conclude that “liberal intervention does not appear to be a prominent explanatory variable in post-1945 democratization[…]nearly 84 percent of the cases of democratization that occurred from 1946 to 1996 involved no liberal military intervention.”42 That statistic should be kept in mind when policymakers consider committing resources to

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artificially accelerate the democracy timetable elsewhere in the world.

Although these studies are important, they may depict an overly pessimistic view of outside efforts to promote democracy because the actual number of military interventions specifically designed to achieve that goal are much smaller. In an analysis of Peceny (1999) and other studies that examined America’s record of military intervention from 1898 to 1992, Russet determined that there were “13 successes for a policy of democratization, and 16 failures. When democratization was not an explicit goal it virtually never happened.”43 This study more accurately represents the track record of deliberate U.S. attempts to promote democracy through military methods, but it is also important to note that an explicit policy of democratization was more likely to fail if the target state had no prior history of democratic rule, or experienced a civil war either before or after the intervention.44

In a recent three volume series of reports, the Rand Corporation identified specific case studies where democracy promotion—usually within the context of nation building—has been an explicit goal of military interventions led at various times by: the United States (Germany, Japan, Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan, and Iraq); the UN (Republic of the Congo, Namibia, El Salvador, Cambodia, Mozambique, Eastern Slavonia, Sierra Leone, East Timor, and Iraq); and European governments (Albania, Sierra Leone, Macedonia, Côte d'Ivoire, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Bosnia, and the Australian assistance mission to the Solomon Islands).45 After eliminating the duplication of Sierra Leone, Bosnia, and Iraq under different international mandates, these studies identify 21 cases of democratic nation building since World War II, many of which involved substantial commitments of resources and time. An analysis of these cases using the 2009 Freedom House classifications for freedom in the world found that only five of these states are currently considered “free” (with Croatia coded as the substitution for Eastern Slavonia), eight are “partially free,” and another eight are “not free.”46 In other words, less than

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24 percent of the cases where democracy promotion was an explicit goal of military intervention can currently be considered unqualified successes, while nearly 40 percent have been abject failures.47 Of the five successes, two were the post-World War II reconstruction of Germany and Japan, and the remaining three (El Salvador, Namibia, and Eastern Slavonia) have a combined 2009 population of only 13.7 million people; a number that is artificially inflated by including Croatia’s entire 4.5 million people in the place of Eastern Slavonia.48 In contrast, the average population of the eight nations classified as “not free” is 22.09 million.49 This disparity indicates that population may play a role in the level of difficulty inherent in democratization missions. At the very least, it can serve as an indicator of the resource commitment required to maintain order.

While the 21 cases identified by RAND’s three volume study likely do not encompass all the instances where democracy promotion has been a goal of military intervention by democratic states, the results are well in line with other studies showing a dismal success rate for democracy promotion through military means. Even Russet’s assessment of the United States’ 13 successes and 16 failures falls significantly short of achieving success even half of the time. The historical record clearly shows that “military interventions have sometimes installed democracies by force, but they have more often failed, and the successes have been immensely expensive in lives and treasure.”50 The low success rate should serve as a clear warning for pursing a military-driven democratization agenda.

NON-MILITARY METHODS TO PROMOTE DEMOCRACY

The lackluster results of military efforts to promote democracy abroad fundamentally challenge the notion that it can be an effective strategy to combat terrorism, but there are less intrusive methods that states can use to pursue the same objective. Some of the most common non-military tactics are economic sanctions, conditionality of economic or military foreign aid, and technical

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assistance to help build democratic institutions.51 Most of the evidence indicates that these alternative strategies to promote democracy enjoy, at best, only marginal success.

Economic sanctions “do not appear to have any better results than military interventions do in changing regime structure or behavior;” a broad examination of all types of economic sanctions shows that since World War I, “only about one third were judged to be even partly successful at achieving their stated results.”52 One need look only to the cases of Cuba and Iran to see how even decades of continued economic sanctions by the United States are ineffective in bringing about democratic change in the targeted regime. Economic sanctions can also easily create negative side effects that outweigh any marginal impact they may have on democratization; they often hurt the most vulnerable members of a society, affect the areas of the economy that would be most receptive to positive economic engagement, and can also inadvertently impact the economies of neighboring countries.53

Because authoritarian regimes maintain power by means of a much smaller electorate than democracies, targeted sanctions are generally considered to be more effective against those types of governments. By designing “narrow sanctions affecting the core groups supporting the regime,” democratic states will be more likely to coerce authoritarian governments to yield to economic pressure.54 Under most circumstances, however, the goal of economic sanctions is usually to change a state’s behavior rather than its governing structure. When threatened with sanctions ultimately designed to remove them from power, self preservation will likely trump even well-calibrated economic pressure against authoritarian regimes.

Conditionality of economic or military foreign aid is another tool used extensively to promote various foreign policy objectives, the results of which have been mixed for democracy promotion. Knack (2004) examined foreign aid’s specific relationship to democratization from 1975-2000 and concluded “that either the favorable impacts of aid on democratization are minor, or they are roughly balanced by other democracy-

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undermining effects of aid dependence.”55 Other studies of military aid found that “arms imports are significantly and negatively related to democracy[…but…]U.S. military-educational exchanges are positively associated with liberalizing trends.”56

On the other hand, “international organizations that make economic integration among their members a primary goal can be particularly effective as external agents for empowering domestic democracy advocates and stabilizing newly democratic regimes;” the European Union in particular has used conditionality requirements effectively to encourage democratization among new and potential member states, including several former Soviet Republics in Eastern Europe after the end of the Cold War.57

A relatively newer tactic to promote democracy abroad involves providing technical assistance in developing electoral processes, the rule of law, freedom of the press, anticorruption measures, and other related activities. Special USAID programs with these kinds of projects have “played a positive, though minor role in promoting democracy in eligible countries.”58 The overall effect of this type of assistance is not uniform throughout all regions and it appears to have had little discernable effect in the greater Middle East.59 It is important to note that not all scholars agree that such programs will ultimately lead to democratic change. Some have argued that token reforms actually help repressive regimes stay in power by helping “promote the growth of non-governmental or quasi-governmental organizations, because they provide many state services while the government retains ultimate control, and because they further divide the opposition.”60 The controversy surrounding these methods seem to hinge on whether or not some level of reform is better than none at all—a matter that remains an ongoing and open debate among some academics and democracy advocates.

In short, non-military methods to promote democracy may play a minor role in encouraging some types of democratic reforms, but they are generally insufficient to threaten or

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dislodge entrenched autocratic regimes from power. “Such policies will not, as a rule, create a trend for democratization where no such trend already exists; they can only reinforce a democratization process once it is already under way.”61 From a policy relevant perspective, non-military methods to promote democracy may serve as a useful catalyst at times, but they cannot spontaneously create popular democratic movements in a target country.

THE NATURE OF DEMOCRATIC TRANSITIONS

Many states have become democracies as a result of their own natural - if sometimes violent - progression, but other states will often directly or indirectly intervene in that process in an attempt to influence the outcome. It is very important to note, though, that no two states begin the process of democratization from the same starting line. According to Brownlee (2007), “Over the past century nation-building outcomes have greatly depended on prior conditions in the subject society[…]The United States has succeeded at nation-building most demonstrably (and most quickly) when its interventions have built upon local institutions and traditions.”62 After examining several correlates of democracy, Schmidt (2008) finds that in general, factors that increase the likelihood of successful democratic transitions include diversified economies with substantial middle classes and less income inequality, secular traditions, previous experience with democracy, and classical liberal political cultures. Democratic transitions tend to be more difficult in states with lower per capita income or no significant middle class, ethnic animosities, widespread corruption and little rule of law, and recent or ongoing armed conflict. Additionally, he concludes that neighbors and other outsiders can strongly affect a state’s prospects for democracy in either direction.63 Effectively, every state’s transition to democracy is

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unique, and highly dependent on any number of preexisting factors.

It is also very important to note that the ‘process of democratization’ is not a simple linear progression from one point (autocracy or authoritarianism) to another (democracy). The process is better conceived as a cyclical one that can oscillate along the regime-type continuum over time. This property holds not only for individual states themselves—as evidenced by any number of countries that have experienced repeated periods of political democratization followed by military coups—but for the world as a whole. According to Freedom House, “2008 marked the third consecutive year in which global freedom suffered a decline.”64 This is a clear indication that the long march toward democratization is a dynamic one that contains setbacks as well as steps forward. It is therefore naïve to think that once democratic governance is achieved in a formerly autocratic state, that it will remain that way in the future. Hamas’s military coup in Gaza just one year after winning a free and fair election should serve as a cautionary tale in this regard; the dangerous precedent could be replicated elsewhere in the Middle East if other radical groups find similar electoral success.

CHALLENGES TO DEMOCRATIC CHANGE IN THE MIDDLE EAST

It can be deduced from Schmidt’s correlates of democracy listed above that the Middle East poses very special challenges to democracy promotion. Some scholars have argued that Islam itself is an obstacle to democracy in the region, but this is an overly simplistic interpretation of the problem. In reality, the extraordinary resistance shown by the Middle East to the expansion of democratization seen in other regions since the end of World War II is due to the unique “political, economic and social challenges across the Arab world.”65 According to the UN, some of these strong and anti-democratic trends include: personal dictatorships, dynastic and military regimes across the

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Arab world; […]the widespread violations of human rights and individual liberties;[…] the dominance of military institutions and secret police[…]; and a widespread discriminations [sic] against disadvantaged groups, notably women and ethnic minorities.66

Another powerful structural argument that is often used to explain the persistence of authoritarianism in the Middle East is the so-called “resource curse” of rentier economies—states, such as the UAE, Qatar, Brunei and Bahrain, which are highly dependent on oil revenues and lack modern economic structures, or a middle-class.67 The rentier explanation, which draws heavily on economic theory that classifies government revenues from oil or other natural resources as an economic “rent,” argues this type of economic structure hinders the social developments that help contribute to the growth of democratic governance in modern economies.68 Rents gained from oil exports are “said to reduce or eliminate a government’s need to tax its citizens to raise revenue, and the absence of a tax burden, in turn, reduces those citizens’ interest in government accountability.”69 In other words, rentier economies can deliver economic prosperity to their citizens without building the middle-class or civil society that serves as a catalyst for democratic governance. This level of economic prosperity can be quite high. In fact, of the seven non-democratic countries that are among the top 50 economies measured in per capita GNP, six have oil-based rentier economies.70

In summary, military methods to export democracy through nation building are extremely costly and have a low rate of success. Less intrusive methods such as economic sanctions, conditionality of aid, and providing technical assistance may encourage some level of democratic reform at the margins, but they are usually insufficient to dislodge entrenched authoritarian regimes or create new democratization movements where none previously existed. In fact, partial or incomplete measures could actually delay more substantive democratic reforms and make it easier for authoritarian regimes to stay in power.71 In the rare instances where outside efforts to support democratization have

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succeeded, longevity is never guaranteed, and the possibility of regression into authoritarianism will always remain. Finally, there are systemic social, political, and economic reasons why the Middle East — the most vital region for U.S. counterterrorism efforts—has proven to be particularly resistant to democratization.

ASSUMPTION #4: THE LONG-TERM BENEFITS OF STATES TRANSITIONING FROM AUTOCRACY TO DEMOCRACY WILL OFFSET THE SHORT-TERM COSTS.

In many ways, the final assumption that the long-term benefits of democratization will offset any short-term costs of transitioning from autocratic governance is the most important of all. This assumption is crucial because the perceived weaknesses of the prior assumptions could turn out to be short-term trends that will eventually be reversed in time. Admittedly, this is a best-case scenario that would probably require terrorist violence in Iraq and Afghanistan to fall below pre-war levels, and for effective, sustained democratic governance to take hold in both countries. While that outcome remains a possibility, not even the most optimistic of pundits would say that such a bright future lies over the horizon. On the other hand, developments over the last eight years clearly illustrate many of the negative short-term consequences that forceful democracy promotion has created for U.S. counterterrorism efforts.

The most noticeable short-term cost of any regime change is the destabilizing effect it can have on a country and the surrounding region. The vulnerable transition phase of “semidemocracies may be the worst of both worlds—unable either to repress violent dissent or to route it into socially productive channels.”72 Replacing an entire system of governance cannot be accomplished without creating a power vacuum and subsequent scramble among competing elites for resources and influence. Consequently, some short-term instability is inevitable; but if the security situation spirals out of

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control, this can become counterproductive and hinder the successor regime’s ability to govern effectively. If no effective government emerges after a regime change, then the overall security and stability of the state—and possibly that of its neighbors—can be made worse off than it was before the regime change; a status which can persist for many years afterwards.

This possibility should be of great concern to policymakers because, unlike the empirically dubious relationship between democracy and terrorism, the correlation between state failure and terrorism is strong and positive. Piazza’s regional study of the Middle East found that “regardless of whether or not the Middle-Eastern state in question is considered to be a target of terrorist attacks or a source of terrorist attacks, terrorists thrive in countries beset with state failures.”73 This basic finding was replicated in a larger study he conducted on state failure and terrorism that examined 197 countries from 1973 – 2003. That groundbreaking study found “countries beset by significant state failures are more likely to be the source and target of transnational terrorism regardless of their regime type, size, age, level of economic development, degree of ethno-religious diversity, and whether or not they are experiencing an international war.”74 Clearly any successful counterterrorism policy must also address the problems posed by state failure.

The Iraq and Afghanistan cases again provide useful insights on these dangers. Both countries were ranked among the seven worst in Foreign Policy Magazine’s 2009 Failed State Index, and continue to experience high levels of violence.75 This is a far cry from the resounding success stories that advocates of democracy promotion as counterterrorism policy claimed they would become in the early days of the military operations in 2001 and 2003. Additionally, the tenth ranked state on the 2009 index of failed states, Pakistan, has also seen a marked deterioration in recent years. Events such as the assassination of Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, growing power of radical Pashtun Taliban militants in the Northwest Frontier Province (NWFP), SWAT valley and Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), and Pakistan-based terrorist attacks targeting India provide clear

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evidence that the instability in Afghanistan has spilled over into its neighboring countries.76

Another negative side effect of U.S. efforts to promote democracy in the Middle East is that the presence of U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan has helped extremists recruit new cadres. Foreign occupation is the dominant frame through which U.S. involvement has been depicted to the Arab world by extremists and even some mainstream foreign media. Terrorists have skillfully exploited this perception, and continually use it as a recruiting tool in order to attract new members.77

The lofty rhetoric surrounding U.S. democracy promotion efforts has also directly contributed to the growing credibility problem the United States has in the Middle East.78 The United States often touts its efforts to bring democracy to the region, but critics claim it is simply using “democracy” as an excuse to overthrow unfriendly regimes. As one author notes, “the biggest challenges the West faces in promoting democracy in the Arab and Muslim worlds is that most people in these countries do not believe that these efforts are genuine, undertaken to benefit them rather than to serve Western or U.S. strategic interests.”79 The claim is not entirely unwarranted. In practice, the United States has pushed democratization much more forcefully against enemies like Ba’athist Iraq, Iran, and Syria while providing only moderate pressure for democratic reform in its regional allies, such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan. This double standard was made painfully apparent after Hamas won a democratic election in 2006. The election originally progressed with strong backing by the United States, but after Hamas’s victory, the Bush administration immediately threatened to suspend economic aid to the Palestinian Authority.80

Additionally, authoritarian governments have not just passively accepted the sort of “neo-divine right of democracy” advocated by the United States. The result has been a democratization backlash—particularly in the Muslim World—which has left democracy movements in some countries weaker than before. In response to forceful U.S. attempts to promote democracy, “Arab autocratic regimes have, directly or indirectly,

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portrayed Arab reformers and their supporters as traitors to their own nations and agents to outside powers.”81 Contrary to the intent of U.S. policy, “what are perceived as high-handed interventions by the United States have increased popular support for Islamists and nationalists with anti-American views.”82 This means that, at least in the short-term, U.S. policy has hurt some of the very people it was designed to support. It can also cause an unnecessary strain on relations with regional allies whose cooperation is absolutely crucial for U.S. counterterrorism efforts, particularly when it comes to sharing intelligence on known terrorist groups operating within their borders.

Even assuming no democratization backlash, and that the United States actually has the ability to export democracy, the most likely outcome of democratic transformation in the Middle East will be the creation of governments that are “more antagonistic to the West than the authoritarian regimes still in power.”83 In a worldwide public opinion survey from 2008, Gallup determined that only 17 percent of the Middle East public approved of the job performance of the leadership of the United States, the lowest of any region surveyed.84 In a separate 2008 poll conducted by World Public Opinion.org, overwhelming majorities of the Middle Eastern countries surveyed believed it was “a ‘bad idea’ for the United States to have naval forces in the Persian Gulf, including Egyptians (80 percent), Jordanians (76 percent), Palestinians (90 percent), and Turks (77 percent).”85 This raises yet another fundamental question in the debate over short-term versus long-term calculations: Will the United States ultimately be better off if bringing democracy to the Middle East simply creates more anti-American or Islamist governments?

This question is certainly debatable. The act of governing may very well have a moderating effect on successor democracies, and the reform of currently authoritarian states could conceivably redirect radical jihadist attention away from the U.S. and the West as they try to consolidate gains made closer to home. While the ultimate outcomes remains uncertain,

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one thing is clear; current public disaffection with the United States and its policies in the Middle East suggest that—whatever form they take—the resulting democratic governments would likely be “less inclined to cooperate with the United States on important U.S. policy goals, including military basing rights in the region, peace with Israel, and the war on terrorism.”86 In sum, the long-term benefit of bringing democracy to the Middle East seems to be of limited value to U.S. counterterrorism policy; particularly given the unproven relationship between terrorism and regime type, and the low probability that either military or non-military methods can succeed in establishing effective democracies in the first place. Meanwhile, the short-term costs of the policy and the threats facing the United States in the next five to ten years are very real, and very high.

CONCULSION

In evaluating the four assumptions behind the claim that democracy will provide the long-term solution to terrorism, several important conclusions follow. First, existing evidence suggests the possible benefits that vigorous democracy promotion will yield in regards to terrorism appear to be much more limited than policymakers have previously acknowledged. The empirical literature indicates the beneficial impact democracy might have on terrorism may only be limited to the small, but lethal subset of suicide terrorism. It is possible that further studies may broaden the applicability and find that authoritarian regimes generate a disproportionate number of transnational terrorists in general. The strong representation of Saudi Arabian and Egyptian nationals in the senior leadership of al-Qaeda certainly indicates that this is a likely possibility, but gathering reliable data may be problematic on a large scale.87

Regardless, democracy is unlikely to deter the purely ideologically-driven jihadists any more than autocratic regimes because both forms of governance are seen as inferior to religious rule.

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Second, rather than eliminating the risk of terrorism, the empirical evidence also suggests that spreading democracy may simply just shift part of the threat from one component of counterterrorism policy to another. Even assuming that democratization could reduce the number of suicide terrorists coming from authoritarian regimes, evidence indicates that progress in this direction will also be accompanied by a corresponding increase in the number of democratic states terrorists are more likely to use as operating bases and targets. In other words, converting authoritarian states into democracies, which are less likely to generate suicide terrorists, will simultaneously create more target states and bases for terrorist activity. Thus, the pool of potential suicide terrorists may be smaller in number, but the terrorists will probably pose a defensive challenge as they will enjoy a greater freedom of operation and a wider range of target nations from which to choose. Even without accounting for the transition costs of implementing democratic governance, the overall positive impact that democracy has on terrorism is less than previously acknowledged because it would merely convert part of the offensive threat from suicide bombers into an additional defensive challenge.

Third, the transition process from autocracy to democracy is very costly, and can actually be counterproductive. Some of the short-term costs of policies that vigorously promote democratic transitions in the Middle East include: making it easier for terrorists to recruit new members, prompting a nationalistic democratization backlash among some authoritarian governments, facilitating the rise to power of anti-American Islamist governments, undermining local democratization advocates that are perceived to be too close to the West, and exacerbating an already substantial U.S. credibility problem in the region. Furthermore, the instability resulting from a regime change can temporarily increase violence and terrorist attacks at best, and deteriorate into full-blown state failure at worst. State failure is of particular concern because it has a far stronger empirical connection to increases in all forms of terrorism than

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regime type alone.88 The great irony of this relationship is that democracy promotion—which might help combat suicide terrorism—can actually increase the risk of state failure, which has a stronger correlation to all forms of terrorism than the original authoritarian government. This means that the risks associated with the democracy promotion strategy have most likely been underestimated.

Finally, the most important conclusion that follows from the previous discussion is that no method currently available to outside powers appears to have even a moderate chance of creating successful democratic transitions. Military methods are likely the only tactic powerful enough to implement a regime change, but they fail to establish lasting democracy much more often than they succeed. Non-military methods, however beneficial they may be in promoting small-scale liberalization, are also unlikely to break the power of authoritarian regimes. Even if the United States somehow beats the odds and establishes a successful method for democratic transitions, there are no guarantees that the subsequent regime will remain a democracy. At best, it seems that outside efforts to artificially speed up the process will create only partial democracies that enjoy none of the neutralizing advantages a full democracy or strong autocracy appear to have against terrorism.89 These types of governments can sometimes be short-term transitions to full democracy, but case studies from Muslim countries since 1964, including Morocco, Tunisia, Jordan, Iran, Egypt and Pakistan show these semi-democracies can also persist for long periods.90

While previous authors have argued (with merit) that the inconclusive, or even positive, relationship linking democracy and terrorism provides sufficient reason to question the wisdom of elevating democracy promotion to a core counterterrorism policy, the limits of what U.S. power can realistically accomplish in the greater Middle East is a much stronger argument against this strategy. “As Francis Fukuyama and Michael McFaul previously explained, ‘to argue that the United States has a strategic interest and moral interest in the spread of democracy does not mean that the United States is capable of spreading

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democracy.’”91 Ultimately, the wisdom of pursuing vigorous democracy promotion comes down to a very simple question that should govern all policy decisions: Can the policy goals realistically be accomplished at an acceptable cost? This paper suggests that the answer is ‘no.’

POLICY RECOMMENDATIONS

The military intervention and messianic rhetoric that the United States previously utilized to promote democracy abroad is a risky long-term strategy. The high cost and low likelihood of ultimate success makes this approach an inefficient and possibly counterproductive use of resources. It is entirely possible that democratization of the Middle East may eventually yield positive impacts for the United States in the coming decades, and in no way does this essay support the belief that the Muslim world is incapable of democratic rule. However, this essay does suggest that forceful attempts by outsiders to speed up the process are more likely to create a backlash than to succeed, and will not significantly reduce the immediate threat of terrorism. Instead of trying to create a world of its own making, the United States should adapt to survive in the one in which it currently finds itself. The United States must use its limited resources more efficiently by focusing on what it can change rather than on what it wishes to change.

First, counterterrorism policy documents and public rhetoric must decrease the prominence of democracy promotion to its traditional, peripheral role. Second, the United States should recast its technical support and foreign aid as “good governance” programs that will encourage states to be more responsive to their populations. Third, instead of attempting to destabilize authoritarian regimes, the United States should focus on stabilizing the failed or failing states that pose an even greater risk of terrorism. Fourth, the United States needs to address its massive credibility problem in the Middle East. Fifth, the United States must pursue energy independence and other policies to

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reduce the overall strategic importance of the Middle East region.

1. REMOVE DEMOCRACY PROMOTION FROM COUNTERTERRORISM POLICY AND RHETORIC:

De-linking democracy promotion and counterterrorism policy is not an entirely new suggestion. The Washington Institute for Near East Policy’s Presidential Task Force on Confronting the Ideology of Radical Extremism included it as part of their overall strategy for counter-radicalization. The task force argues that the prominence of democracy promotion in policy and rhetoric “has the unintended implication of hurting the ability of both U.S. government and nongovernmental organizations to play an effective role on the ground in supporting democracy and reform efforts, as it raises suspicion that the real purpose of the efforts is regime change.”92 Accordingly, the National Security Strategy of the United States, the National Strategy for Combating Terrorism, and other official documents should be revised so that democracy promotion no longer forms a pillar of U.S. counterterrorism policy. The goal of spreading democracy need not be abandoned entirely—and it may still have some role in national security policy—but it needs to be treated as a completely separate matter from counterterrorism.

The accompanying public rhetoric must also be toned down substantially. As a recent report by the Center for Strategic and International Studies notes, “flourishing U.S. rhetoric such as Bush’s Second Inaugural Address might at times be inspirational, but can also provoke charges of hypocrisy and a loss of credibility if it is too lofty and concomitant actions are not easy to see.”93 Many experts interviewed for that study believe U.S. policy should be better conceived of as “democracy support” rather than “democracy promotion;” a wise distinction that is worth adopting in public diplomacy under the Obama administration.94

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2. MOVE FOCUS FROM REGIME TYPE TO “GOOD GOVERNANCE”

While it is unwise to forcefully promote democracy in the Middle East, particularly through military means, this does not mean the United States cannot encourage governments to be more responsive to the needs of their own people. The United States should continue to use already existing programs and organizations such as the Middle East Partnership Initiative, and the Broader Middle East and North Africa Partnership Initiative, USAID, and nongovernmental aid organizations, but their primary role should be recast as advocates of “good governance.”95 Such a program would shift the focus from outright democracy promotion to more practical issues such as transparency in government, anti-corruption initiatives, and continuing to support the development of civil society. By refocusing the emphasis of these programs towards “good governance,” they need not be directed solely at authoritarian governments and should actually be encouraged to operate in allied as well as unfriendly countries. This technical assistance and funding for programs to reduce corruption, establish the rule of law, and build better bureaucracies may lay the ground work for successful democratic change in the future, but that should be seen as a beneficial side-effect rather than an explicit goal. It is important to maintain realistic expectations and recognize that democratic change is not inevitable.

Social services are another key component of good governance that is relevant to counterterrorism, particularly where extremist groups are actively trying to replace the official government role in this regard. The United States should use financial and economic assistance to deliver “more robust support to nonsectarian, nongovernmental organizations that wish to compete with Hamas and Hezbollah in providing such services.”96 Many times, domestic governments do not have the resources to compete with extremist groups that receive large amounts of funding and support from outside sources such as Iran and Syria.97 In these instances, the United States should step in to provide a counterweight. Another area where this

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type of effort must be strengthened is among radical madrassas, which are religious schools largely financed with money from Saudi Arabia.98 Radical madrassas operate worldwide, but are of particular concern in Pakistan where they have been linked to Islamic militants operating there and in Afghanistan.99 By putting more resources into poverty prevention and job creation, health care, and education, the United States can aid central governments in taking back some of the ground ceded to extremists and reduce the appeal of joining terrorist organizations.

3. STABILIZATION OF FAILED AND FAILING STATES

There is no doubt that stabilizing failed and failing states will require substantial resources, particularly in the most severe cases. However, despite the strong correlation between failed states and terrorism, in 2008 only $16.2 billion, or 11.5 percent of the total budget for the Global War on Terror, “was allocated to programs that could be described as targeting failed states, addressing state failure, or promoting good governance.”100 This number should be doubled at the very least, and clear priorities must be established as to which failing, or potentially failing states are the greatest threats to U.S. national security.

Afghanistan and Pakistan are currently the most vital countries to U.S. national security--particularly their border region which is largely ungoverned by either state—but a responsible military withdrawal from Iraq is also an important policy goal. Recent turmoil in Yemen has also greatly benefitted al-Qaeda, and it is another clear problem area that must be addressed.101 Each case will be unique, and require nuanced solutions, but the United States must recognize that the goals of stabilization and democratization are not one and the same; in fact, they can often work to undermine each other. Regardless, the training and equipping of foreign militaries will continue to be integral for any stabilization program.

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4. ADDRESS THE UNITED STATES’ CREDIBILITY PROBLEM IN THE MIDDLE EAST

As was noted in the first recommendation, moderating public rhetoric and changing the official policy of democracy promotion will help repair some of the damaged U.S. credibility in the Middle East, but no fundamental improvement can occur without taking a more active role in forging a regional peace. The close relationship between the United States and Israel has long been a source of anti-American sentiment because many in the Arab world do not consider the United States to be an honest broker in its dealings with the Palestinians or other Muslim states. Until that image can be rehabilitated, it is unlikely that any U.S. efforts for political reform will gain significant traction in the region.

A comprehensive regional peace agreement will not appear overnight, and the current conditions on the ground will hinder progress on several fronts. Iran’s continuing domestic troubles and intransigence on the nuclear issue makes wider engagement by the U.S. problematic from both a human rights and security standpoint. Similarly, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s continued reluctance to limit all settlement activity and the dominance of his right-leaning Likud coalition—combined with the politically fractured and disunited Palestinian political leadership—means progress on the Israeli/Palestinian issue will also be very difficult to achieve in the near term.

On the other hand, Syria may offer a bright spot of hope for U.S. policy and credibility in the region. A targeted engagement of Syria designed to broker a lasting peace treaty with Israel, or at the very least drive a wedge between Syria and Iran, could potentially start the momentum toward the broader regional peace that appears stalled on the other fronts. To support a comprehensive peace agreement between Israel and Syria, the United States should pressure both governments to begin negotiating—either through back channels or low-level formal

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contacts—a framework that would serve as the basis for a high-level summit conference between Israel, Syria and the U.S. Such a framework would almost certainly need to include Israel returning the Golan Heights to Syria in exchange for Syria abandoning its support for Hezbollah, recognizing Israel’s right to exist, and normalizing relations with the Jewish state.

With such a tall order, though, it is important to temper expectations. A separate peace between Syria and Israel may not be possible without also determining the fate of the occupied territories, and the U.S. should not try to force a peace where one cannot be made. The summit must be contingent on the production of a mutually agreed upon framework between the two parties and if no basis for final negotiation can be reached at the lower levels, then a summit between heads of state should not even be attempted. Even if the summit does not occur, though, the U.S. will have regained some of its credibility putting real pressure on Israel in order to achieve tangible results. This will also make it more difficult for terrorists to recruit new members by using the same familiar references to a vast Crusader/Zionist conspiracy.

5. PURSUE ENERGY INDEPENDENCE AS A MORE EFFECTIVE LONG-TERM SOLUTION

It may seem counterintuitive to suggest that energy policy is related to counterterrorism, but when it comes to the Middle East region, this is certainly the case. The recommendation that energy independence can be a more effective long-term counterterrorism strategy is based on two rather straightforward conclusions. First, the United States unequivocally has the ability to direct and control its own energy policy. This high level of direct control simply does not exist for democracy promotion or many other elements of counterterrorism strategy, which are largely dependent upon actions of other states. Consequently,

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the risk of policy failure is substantially reduced because, in effect, the U.S. controls its own destiny on energy policy. Second, the real counterterrorism value of energy independence lies in its ability to reduce the overall strategic importance of the Middle East, which will allow the United States a level of policy flexibility that does not—and will not—exist in the short and intermediate term.

Absent a fundamental alteration of the strategic balance in the region, with oil being the most important element, U.S. interests are likely to remain more closely tied to the same groups and nations they have been with for decades. Radical Islamic terrorism is certainly increasing the cost of maintaining such a heavy footprint in the region; but until the United States can secure independent access to energy, the narrow range of policy options will likely remain on autopilot and innovative changes that might address the future terrorist threat in the coming decades will not be forthcoming. Energy policy is not without its political controversies and economic considerations will undoubtedly play a role in the public debate. However, if the Obama Administration frames the issue as one that includes national security and counterterrorism considerations, it can build popular support for an energy independence that will make the United States more secure over the long-term.

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1 Katerina Dalacoura, “US Democracy Promotion in the Arab Middle East since 11 September 2001: a Critique,” International Affairs 5, (2005): 963.

2 Alexander T.J. Lennon, et al. Democracy in U.S. Security Strategy: From Promotion to Support, Center for Strategic and International Studies, March 2009: 4. http://www.csis.org/media/csis/pubs/090319_lennon_democracy_web.pdf

3 James A. Piazza, “Do Democracy and Free Markets Protect Us from Terrorism?” International Politics 45, (2008): 72-73.4 United States, National Security Strategy of the United States, White House, 2006. http://georgewbush-

whitehouse.archives.gov/nsc/nss/2006/sectionII.html 5 Katerina Dalacoura, “US Democracy Promotion in the Arab Middle East Since 11 September 2001,” International Affairs

81, vol. 5, (2005): 964.6 Kennon H. Nakamura, and Susan B. Epstein, Diplomacy for the 21st Century: Transformational Diplomacy, Congressional

Research Service Report for Congress, August 23, 2007: http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/RL34141.pdf 7 CNN, “Kay: No evidence Iraq stockpiled WMDs,” CNN.com, January 26, 2004.

http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/01/25/sprj.nirq.kay/index.html.8 James A. Piazza, “Do Democracy and Free Markets Protect Us from Terrorism?” International Politics 45, (2008): 75.9 See F. Gregory Gause III, “Can Democracy Stop Terrorism?” Foreign Affairs 62, (2005): 62-76; James A. Piazza, “Do

Democracy and Free Markets Protect Us from Terrorism?” International Politics 45, (2008): 72-91; James A. Piazza, “Draining the Swamp: Democracy Promotion, State Failure, and Terrorism in 19 Middle Eastern Countries,” Studies in Conflict & Terrorism 30, (2007): 521-539.

10 United States, National Strategy for Combating Terrorism, September 2006: 9. http://hosted.ap.org/specials/interactives/wdc/documents/wh_terror060905.pdf

11 James A. Piazza, “Draining the Swamp: Democracy Promotion, State Failure, and Terrorism in 19 Middle Eastern Countries,” Studies in Conflict & Terrorism 30, (2007): 523


13


15 James A. Piazza, “Draining the Swamp: Democracy Promotion, State Failure, and Terrorism in 19 Middle Eastern Countries,” Studies in Conflict & Terrorism 30, (2007): 529, 538.

16 James A. Piazza, “Do Democracy and Free Markets Protect Us from Terrorism?” International Politics 45, (2008): 76.17 James A. Piazza, “Do Democracy and Free Markets Protect Us from Terrorism?” International Politics 45, (2008): 76.18 Piazza (2007) mentions earlier studies that found support for both the strategic and political access schools of thought;

Eyerman (1998), Abadie (2004), Zorn (2003), Gurr (2000, 1993), but he also points out those earlier efforts were “limited by several design and theoretical qualities.”

19 Marc Sageman, “The Reality of Grassroots Terrorism,” Foreign Affairs, July/August 2008: 165-166.20 William Rose, and Rysia Murphy, “Does Terrorism Ever Work? The 2004 Madrid Train Bombings,” International

Security 32, no. 1, (2007): 186.21 Audrey Kurth Cronin, “How al-Qaida Ends,” International Security 31, no. 1 (2006): 36.22 Aziz Z. Huq, “Imagining Counterterrorism’s Future,” World Policy Journal, Winter, (2008): 33.23 Gordon Lubold, “Obama’s Afghanistan Speech: Five Key Points,” Christian Science Monitor, December 2, 2009,

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Military/2009/1202/p02s01-usmi.html24 Carlotta Gall, and Jeff Zeleny, “Out of Race, Karzai Rival is Harsh Critic of Election,” New York Times, November 1,

2009, http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/02/world/asia/02afghan.html?_r=1&scp=3&sq=abdullah%20abdullah%20and%20Karzai%20and%20election&st=cse

25 Christopher Henzel, “The Origins of al Qaeda’s Ideology: Implications for US Strategy,” Parameters, Spring (2005), 69-80; Jonathan Fine, “Contrasting Secular and Religious Terrorism,” Middle East Quarterly, Winter (2008), 59-69.

26 Christopher Henzel, “The Origins of al Qaeda’s Ideology: Implications for US Strategy,” Parameters, Spring (2005), 71.27Michael Freeman, “Democracy, Al Qaeda, and the Causes of Terrorism: A Strategic Analysis of U.S. Policy,” Studies in

Conflict and Terrorism 31, (2008): 53.28 James A. Piazza, “A Supply-Side View of Suicide Terrorism: A Cross-National Study,” The Journal of Politics 71, no. 1,

(2008): 38.

http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/RL34141.pdf

http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/nsc/nss/2006/sectionII.html

http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/nsc/nss/2006/sectionII.html

http://www.csis.org/media/csis/pubs/090319_lennon_democracy_web.pdf

29 James A. Piazza, “A Supply-Side View of Suicide Terrorism: A Cross-National Study,” The Journal of Politics 71, no. 1, (2008): 38.

30 The conclusions drawn from the Iraq and Afghanistan case studies may depend largely on how “democracy” is measured. If it is measured relative to the previous forms of government, the implications may differ from a strictly objective measurement—such as the Polity IV or Freedom House classifications used in the quantitative literature—that would not consider either country to meet the conditions necessary for “democracy.” I argue that a relative comparison is germane to the analysis because it still creates greater opportunities for political participation that underlie the political access school of thought.

31 James A. Piazza, “A Supply-Side View of Suicide Terrorism: A Cross-National Study,” The Journal of Politics 71, no. 1, (2008): 38.

32 Robert A. Pape, “The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism,” American Political Science Review 97, no. 3, (2003): 344.33 Piazza’s (2008) “A Supply-Side View of Suicide Terrorism,” challenged Pape’s central claim that suicide terrorism was

targeted exclusively towards military occupying democracies and, after controlling for military occupation, found that there is no statistically significant relationship between democratic or autocratic occupiers: “Occupation is a significant predictor of suicide terrorism across the board, but it is unrelated to the regime type of the occupying power.” (35)

34 Robert A. Pape, “The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism,” American Political Science Review 97, no. 3, (2003): 346-347.35 James A. Piazza, “Do Democracy and Free Markets Protect Us from Terrorism?” International Politics 45, (2008): 83. In

the same study, Piazza also tested two different classifications of the levels of economic freedom but found neither to be a statistically significant predictor of terrorism.

36 Arthur A. Goldsmith, “Making the World Safe for Partial Democracy?” International Securirty 33, No. 2 (2008): 132.37 Eric Schmitt, and Robert F. Worth, “U.S. Widens Terror War to Yemen: a Qaeda Bastion,” New York Times, December,

27, 2009, http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/28/world/middleeast/28yemen.html 38 John R. Schmidt, “Can Outsiders Bring Democracy to Post-Conflict States?” Orbis 52, no. 1 (2008): 107.39 Jason Brownlee, “Can America Nation-Build?” World Politics 59, January (2007): 323.40 Peceny, M. Democracy at the Point of Bayonets. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1999; summarized

in Bruce Russett, “Bushwhacking the Democratic Peace,” International Studies Perspectives 6, (2005): 399. 41 Nils Gleditsch et al., “Democratic Jihad? Military Intervention and Democracy,” (Paper presented at the annual

meeting of the International Studies Association, Montreal, March 17, 2004): 29. http://www.prio.no/sptrans/-1786485762/file45232_isa_proceeding_14706.pdf

42 Jeffrey Pickering, and Mark Peceny, “Forging Democracy at Gunpoint,” International Studies Quarterly 50, (2006): 566.43 Bruce Russett, “Bushwhacking the Democratic Peace,” International Studies Perspectives 6, (2005): 400. 44 Bruce Russett, “Bushwhacking the Democratic Peace,” International Studies Perspectives 6, (2005): 400. 45 James Dobbins et al., America’s Role in Nation-Building: From Germany to Iraq (Rand Corporation, 2003).

http://www.rand.org/pubs/monograph_reports/MR1753/MR1753.pref.pdf; James Dobbins et al., The UN’s Role in Nation-Building: From the Congo to Iraq (Rand Corporation, 2005). http://www.rand.org/pubs/monographs/2005/RAND_MG304.pdf; James Dobbins et al., Europe’s Role in Nation-Building: From the Balkans to the Congo (Rand Corporation, 2008). http://www.rand.org/pubs/monographs/2008/RAND_MG722.pdf

46 Freedom House. Freedom in the World 2009. Freedomhouse.org, released January 12, 2009. http://www.freedomhouse.org/template.cfm?page=445. Free – Germany, Japan, Namibia, El Salvador, Eastern Slavonia (measured under Croatia); Partially Free – Haiti, Bosnia, Mozambique, Sierra Leone, East Timor, Albania, Macedonia, Solomon Islands; Not Free – Somalia, Kosovo, Afghanistan, Iraq, Cambodia, Congo, Democratic Republic of Congo, Cote de Ivoire (Ivory Coast).

47 It can also be argued that if the eight “partially free” cases are included, the percentage of cases exhibiting at least some degree of success jumps to about 62%. I argue that the “free” classification is the most accurate representation of the data, though, because the 2006 National Security Strategy specifically refers to “effective democracies” in advocating the strategy of democracy promotion. To my knowledge, nobody has argued that partial democracies will provide the long-term solution to terrorism.

48 Central Intelligence Agency, World Fact Book, 2009. https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook49 Central Intelligence Agency, World Fact Book, 2009. https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook.

Classified as “Not Free” by Freedom house 2009: Somalia (9.8 million), Kosovo (1.8 million), Afghanistan (28.39 million), Iraq (28.94 million), Cambodia (14.49 million), Congo (4 million), Dem. Rep Congo (68.69 million), Cote de Ivoire/Ivory Coast (20.61 million).

50 Bruce Russett, “Bushwhacking the Democratic Peace,” International Studies Perspectives 6, (2005): 405.

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook

http://www.freedomhouse.org/template.cfm?page=445

http://www.rand.org/pubs/monographs/2008/RAND_MG722.pdf

http://www.rand.org/pubs/monographs/2005/RAND_MG304.pdf

http://www.rand.org/pubs/monograph_reports/MR1753/MR1753.pref.pdf

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/28/world/middleeast/28yemen.html

51 Arthur A. Goldsmith, “Democratization in the 21st Century: What Can the United States Do?” Whitehead Journal of Diplomacy and International Relations 8, no. 2, (2007): 66.


53 David C. Hendrickson, “The Democratist Crusade: intervention, economic sanctions, and engagement,” World Policy Journal 11, no. 4 (1994): 23.

54 David Lektzian, and Mark Souva, “An Institutional Theory of Sanctions Onset and Success,” Journal of Conflict Resolution vol. 51 no. 6 (Dec. 2007): 849.

55 Stephen Knack, “Does Foreign Aid Promote Democracy?” International Studies Quarterly 48, (2004): 262.56 Arthur A. Goldsmith, “Democratization in the 21st Century: What Can the United States Do?” Whitehead Journal of

Diplomacy and International Relations 8, no. 2, (2007): 69-70.57Juhani Grossmann, “EU Membership as a Tool for Democratization,” Freedom House, September 28, 2006: 1-11.

http://www.google.fr/search?q=freedom+house+eu+membership+as+a+tool+for+democratization+2006&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a





62Jason Brownlee, “Can America Nation-Build?” World Politics 59, January (2007): 339.63 John R. Schmidt, “Can Outsiders Bring Democracy to Post-Conflict States?” Orbis 52, no. 1 (2008): 107-113.64 Freedom House, “Freedom in the World 2009 Survey Release,” January 12, 2009.

http://www.freedomhouse.org/template.cfm?page=44565 Husam A. Mohamad, “Democracy Promotion in Arab Politics,” Journal of International and Area Studies 14, No. 2,

(2007): 104.66 Husam A. Mohamad, “Democracy Promotion in Arab Politics,” Journal of International and Area Studies 14, No. 2,

(2007): 107.67 John R. Schmidt, “Can Outsiders Bring Democracy to Post-Conflict States?” Orbis 52, no. 1 (2008): 10968 Jay Ulfelder, “Natural Resource Wealth and the Survival of Autocracy,” Comparative Political Studies 40, No. 8, (2007):

997-998.69Jay Ulfelder, “Natural Resource Wealth and the Survival of Autocracy,” Comparative Political Studies 40, No. 8, (2007):

997.70 John R. Schmidt, “Can Outsiders Bring Democracy to Post-Conflict States?” Orbis 52, no. 1 (2008): 109.71 Katerina Dalacoura, “US Democracy Promotion in the Arab Middle East since 11 September 2001: a Critique,”

International Affairs 5, (2005): 976.72 Arthur A. Goldsmith, “Making the World Safe for Partial Democracy?” International Securirty 33, No. 2 (2008): 135.73James A. Piazza, “Draining the Swamp: Democracy Promotion, State Failure, and Terrorism in 19 Middle Eastern

Countries,” Studies in Conflict & Terrorism 30, (2007): 521-539.74 James A. Piazza, “Incubators of Terror: Do Failed and Failing States Promote Transnational Terrorism?” International

Studies Quarterly 52, No. 3, (2008): 483.75 Foreign Policy Magazine, “The Failed States Index 2009,” Foreign Policy Magazine, June (2009):

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2009/06/22/2009_failed_states_index_interactive_map_and_rankings76 ibid77 Even Kaplan, “Backgrounder: the Rise of al-Qaedaism,” Council on Foreign Relations, July 18, 2007.

http://www.cfr.org/publication/11033/rise_of_alqaedaism.html ; Eben Kaplan, “Analysis Brief: al-Qaeda’s Media Campaign,” Council on Foreign Relations, May 12, 2006. http://www.cfr.org/publication/10678/alqaedas_media_campaign.html

78 Husam A. Mohamad, “Democracy Promotion in Arab Politics,” Journal of International and Area Studies 14, No. 2, (2007): 105.

79 Alon Ben-Meir, “Challenges to Democracy in the Arab and Muslim World,” The Political Quarterly 77, No. 3 (2006): 333.

80 Steven R. Weisman, “U.S. Digs in on Withholding Aid to Hamas Government,” New York Times, Feb. 17, 2006. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/17/politics/17diplo.html?n=Top/Reference/Times%20Topics/Organizations/H/Hamas

81 Husam A. Mohamad, “Democracy Promotion in Arab Politics,” Journal of International and Area Studies 14, No. 2, (2007): 112.

82 Arthur A. Goldsmith, “Making the World Safe for Partial Democracy?” International Securirty 33, No. 2 (2008): 140.83 Alon Ben-Meir, “Challenges to Democracy in the Arab and Muslim World,” The Political Quarterly 77, No. 3 (2006):

328.84 Julie Ray, “U.S. Leadership Approval Lowest in Europe, Mideast,” Gallup, April 2, 2008,

http://www.gallup.com/poll/105967/US-Leadership-Approval-Lowest-Europe-Mideast.aspx#185 Steven Kull, “Can Obama Restore the U.S. Image in the Middle East,” World Public Opinion.org, December, 22, 2008.

http://www.worldpublicopinion.org/pipa/articles/home_related/581.php?lb=btvoc&pnt=581&nid=&id=86 F. Gregory Gause III, “Can Democracy Stop Terrorism?” Foreign Affairs 62, (2005): 7087 Globalsecurity.org, “Current al-Qaeda Leadership,”

http://www.globalsecurity.org/security/profiles/terrorism_leadership_home.htm88 James A. Piazza, “Draining the Swamp: Democracy Promotion, State Failure, and Terrorism in 19 Middle Eastern

Countries,” Studies in Conflict & Terrorism 30, (2007): 521-539; James A. Piazza, “Incubators of Terror: Do Failed and Failing States Promote Transnational Terrorism?” International Studies Quarterly 52, No. 3, (2008): 469-488; James A. Piazza, “A Supply-Side View of Suicide Terrorism: A Cross-National Study,” The Journal of Politics 71, no. 1, (2008).

89 Arthur A. Goldsmith, “Making the World Safe for Partial Democracy?” International Security 33, No. 2, (2008): 145.90 Arthur A. Goldsmith, “Making the World Safe for Partial Democracy?” International Security 33, No. 2, (2008): 126 –

130.91 Alexander T.J. Lennon, et al. Democracy in U.S. Security Strategy: From Promotion to Support, Center for Strategic and

International Studies, March 2009: 9. http://www.csis.org/media/csis/pubs/090319_lennon_democracy_web.pdf92 Presidential Task Force on Confronting the Ideology of Radical Extremixm, “Rewriting the Narrative: an Integrated

Strategy for Counterradicalization,” Washington Institute for Near East Policy, March, 2009: 13.93 Alexander T.J. Lennon, et al. Democracy in U.S. Security Strategy: From Promotion to Support, Center for Strategic and

International Studies, March 2009: 27.94 Alexander T.J. Lennon, et al. Democracy in U.S. Security Strategy: From Promotion to Support, Center for Strategic and

International Studies, March 2009: 27.95 Alexander T.J. Lennon, et al. Democracy in U.S. Security Strategy: From Promotion to Support, Center for Strategic and

International Studies, March 2009: 24.96 Presidential Task Force on Confronting the Ideology of Radical Extremixm, “Rewriting the Narrative: an Integrated

Strategy for Counterradicalization,” Washington Institute for Near East Policy, March, 2009: 14.97 Mohamad Bazzi, “Lebanon’s Shadow Government: How Hezbollah Wins by Losing,” Foreign Affairs, September 11,

2009. http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/65405/mohamad-bazzi/lebanon%E2%80%99s-shadow-government ; Also see Gilbert Achcar and Michel Warschawski, The 33-Day War: Israel’s War on Hezbollah in Lebanon and Its Consequences,(Boulder CO: Paradigm Publishers, 2007) ; Cathy Sultan, Tragedy in South Lebanon: the Israeli-Hezbollah War of 2006, (Minneapolis, MN: Scarletta Press, 2008)

98 Vali Nasser ,and Richard Holbrooke, “Analysis: Madrassa,” Public Broadcasting System, interview for the program Frontline. Accessed online Jan. 29, 2010. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/saudi/analyses/madrassas.html

99 Sabrina Tevernise, “Pakistan’s Islamic Schools Fill Void, but Fuel Militancy,” New York Times, May 3, 2009, http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/04/world/asia/04schools.html?_r=1&scp=8&sq=madrassa%20in%20pakistan&st=cse

100 James A. Piazza, “Incubators of Terror: Do Failed and Failing States Promote Transnational Terrorism?” International Studies Quarterly 52, No. 3, (2008): 484.

101 Steven Erlanger, “Yemen’s Chaos Aids the Evolution of a Qaeda Cell,” New York Times, January 2, 2010, http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/03/world/middleeast/03yemen.html?scp=10&sq=Yemen%20and%20al-qaeda&st=cse

http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/65405/mohamad-bazzi/lebanon%E2%80%99s-shadow-government

http://www.csis.org/media/csis/pubs/090319_lennon_democracy_web.pdf

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/17/politics/17diplo.html?n=Top/Reference/Times%20Topics/Organizations/H/Hamas

Documents

Democracy and Terrorism.pdf