House Panel Chair Questions Democracy Plan

Washington Post ^ | February 16, 2006 | BARRY SCHWEID

[afz400]

WASHINGTON -- A House Republican influential on foreign affairs matters questioned the wisdom and potential effectiveness Thursday of American efforts to spread democracy, a cornerstone of Bush administration policy.

With Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice poised to testify to his panel, Chairman Henry Hyde of the House International Relations Committee questioned what he called the "Golden Theory" _ that the United States can produce peace and stability around the world by financing and encouraging democracy.

"The magic formula of democracy alone" will not work, said Hyde, R-Ill. It must be paired with "unbounded power" and "an open-ended commitment of time and resources, which we cannot and will not do," he said.

[roses of sharon]

It is a good debate, I mean, what is the alternative?

You have to say to these people that you must find a way to accommodate your religion to the modern world. If we do not give them that chance then we all are condemned to a majority Muslim world, with no friends.

[CowboyJay]

You're right. It's the $64k question of foreign relations.

IMHO Democracy isn't going to stamp it out. It's just going to be institutionalized into their politics the way it is now. A democratically elected Muslim theocracy is only marginally better than a Muslim theocratic dictatorship (one-in-the-same).

Let's not forget Hitler was democratically elected. I say we treat it as radical ideology the same as we have hard-line communism. Take their oil money away, and they'll no longer have the means to export Islamicism.