We Can't Force Democracy

The whiff of incipient anarchy in Iraq in recent days has provided a prospect so terrifying as to concentrate the minds of Republicans and Democrats, Iraq's sectarian political factions, and even the media. Staring over the abyss, only the irresponsible few appear distracted by partisan advantage. In that sense alone, the bombing of the golden dome in Samarra may serve a useful purpose. For the fundamental nightmare of the new century is the breakdown of order, something that the American experience offers precious little wisdom in dealing with.

President Bush has posited that the American experience with democracy is urgently useful to the wider world. True, but there is another side of the coin: that America basically inherited its institutions from the Anglo-Saxon tradition and thus its experience over 230 years has been about limiting despotic power rather than creating power from scratch. Because order is something we've taken for granted, anarchy is not something we've feared. But in many parts of the world, the experience has been the opposite, and so is the challenge: how to create legitimate, functioning institutions in utterly barren landscapes.

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