The freedom crusade, revisited: a symposium.

The Fall 2005 issue of The National Interest included a provocative contribution from Robert W. Tucker, a founding editor of this magazine, and David C. Hendrickson. Entitled "The Freedom Crusade", this essay questioned whether making the promotion of democracy around the world a central organizing principle of U.S. foreign policy was in keeping with America's diplomatic traditions and national interests.

Readers of The National Interest are well aware that there has been a vigorous debate in these pages over the "democracy question." We invited several distinguished commentators to offer their own opinions about the points of view expressed in "The Freedom Crusade" and more generally on the relationship between democracy and U.S. interests.

Leslie H. Gelb:

PROFESSORS TUCKER and Hendrickson so devastate the Bush Doctrine of democratizing and bringing freedom to the world as to raise questions about whether the administration actually believes its own rhetoric.

First of all, the real policymakers in the administration come down to six people, and while President Bush might well believe his new doctrine, he has no track record on the subject before entering the White House. Nor did he say much on this subject broadly during his first term. Vice President Cheney, on the other hand, is a hard-headed conservative pragmatist whose history would suggest great skepticism about policies designed to transform the world. Secretary of State Rice spent most of the Clinton years calling that administration dangerously naive for fomenting notions like human rights and democracy. Defense Secretary Rumsfeld delights in debating doctrines, not advancing them. Stephen Hadley, the national security advisor and consummate policy lawyer, never met a generalization, let alone a high-falutin' idea, he liked. Karl Rove, the key White House political strategist, probably doesn't object to promoting democracy abroad as long as it helps Mr. Bush and hurts the Democrats at home. (And who could be surprised to find such noble motives in American politics?) One other, now departed, was present in the Pentagon at the creation of the democracy doctrine--Paul Wolfowitz, who almost certainly believed it then.

Before Mr. Wolfowitz and many other top officials left the administration, they wedged hordes of neoconservative acolytes into the bureaucracy. They remain true believers. As for the throngs of career underlings throughout the government, they generally convey careful reserve, bordering on insouciance, about the doctrine.

So, we can say with confidence that at least one senior member of the administration is devoted to the doctrine, namely, Mr. Bush himself. His adherence to his own doctrine is no trivial matter. It means that he will insist on repeating it and that the secretary of state will join in regularly. The doctrine will not be discarded as was the anti-nation-building doctrine.

Nor, it seems, will it be implemented. The administration did publicly twist President Mubarak's arm to hold free elections for Egypt's presidency. Much to everyone's surprise, he emerged victorious. Now Egypt is freer and more democratic, and we can turn our gaze elsewhere. But the administration doesn't appear to be cashing in its chips to democratize Saudi Arabia. Karen Hughes, the State Department's anti-anti-America chief, visited there to offer Saudi women help in being free, but those who attended the meeting said they were already free.

About the only place where the administration seems to be applying the doctrine is Iraq, and there only barely. We plow ahead, as we should, promoting the constitution and elections. But the realistic aim is now much more to avoid a civil war than to transform the country into a free-market democratic paradise.

None of this is to suggest that I would remove democracy and freedom promotion from their pride of place in U.S. foreign policy. These principles deserve that place. And here, perhaps, I part company with the authors. They come close to suggesting that the only way to promote these ideals is by example, by being a city on a hill at home. In other places, they hint at advancing democracy and freedom, but doing it without war. They don't say how.

I suspect they and I would agree on how, and I wish they had added something to their fine piece that covered the issue. The United States has in its power the skills to promote our ideals by helping other societies build the necessary institutions and attitudes. I mean the obvious things like a free press, the rule of law (first commercial, then civil), NGOs and labor unions--that is, civil society. And we should never shrink from standing up for human rights, women's rights and minority rights, sometimes publicly where it will help, always privately. We know how to do these things; we've done them successfully. And most certainly to me, the United States must use military force or provide arms and other support to prevent and stop genocide, quite apart from promoting democracy and freedom.

All of Mr. Bush's reasons for moving other nations toward democracy and freedom are the right reasons. Truly democratic societies would be generally better for their peoples and safer for the world. But wherever these good ideals have taken root, it has taken time--along with a steady and consistent effort by the United States. We cannot escape the laws of history and the patterns of economic and political development simply by rhetorical lurches or military victories. We cannot realistically say, "here, we got rid of your dictator, now make yourselves into a democracy", or "here, hold an election or have a constitution and get on with it." That is not policy, it is folly!

Messrs. Tucker and Hendrickson have stripped away the historical, ideological and political claptrap about the Bush Doctrine of democracy and freedom. Now, it seems to me, the think tank and university warriors should move on and tackle the harder job--actually helping to figure out how the United States can use its power and influence in individual countries to square our good ideals with their different ways.

Leslie H. Gelb is president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Daniel Pipes:

THE DEBATE over promoting democracy is hardly a new one for Americans; indeed, the locus classicus for the...