A central claim of the Bush administration's foreign policy is that the spread of democracy in the Middle East is the cure for terrorism.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
The Bush administration's approach to the war on terror collided badly with another of its doctrines, spreading democracy in the Middle East as a panacea to reduce radicalism.
The rise of ISIS in Iraq is a wider threat to the stability of the Middle East and the West than many realise.
Recent action in Syria and Palestine also tell us that the awakening voices of democracy in those regions are occurring, and that those in that region are able to pursue it without being stifled by terrorists that are despotic.
I think it is absolutely correct to solve the problem of terrorism in Iraq and Syria and Libya.
Terrorism seems to be the ugly twin of democracy. We need to learn to live with it because we are vulnerable to it.
Terrorism is in good part an effective government propaganda; it serves to deflect attention from governmental abuse toward a mostly imagined, highly dangerous outside enemy.
War on terrorism defines the central preoccupation of the United States in the world today, and it does reflect in my view a rather narrow and extremist vision of foreign policy of the world's first superpower, of a great democracy, with genuinely idealistic traditions.
The liberation of Iraq is a crucial advance in the campaign against terror.
I am aware of the thesis that the United States has long since invested exclusively in stability and this has obviated democratic transformation in the Middle East.
The war against terrorism is terrorism.